UAVs, The Inflat-A-Planes™
We started developing radio controlled airplanes or RPV’s (Remotely Piloted Vehicles) or Unmanned Aircraft (UMA) in the 1980’s more by accident than design, because of our success with tethered Remote Control Blimps or Aerodynamic balloons. We required a platform under which we could sling cameras to take aerial photos, but at the same time carry video cameras capable of following a target, rather than waiting for a target to appear and then losing sight of it, just as things started to get interesting, or because our cameras/video cameras didn’t have the capability to track for some distance!
Two of the Inflat-A-Planes™ are shown above. On the right a 30ft wingspan radio control airplane version is being loaded with a conventional unmanned drone which weighed over 100lbs. The purpose of the excercise was to take the aircraft surveillance drone to 3000ft and drop it to monitor the latter’s glide angle, but its maiden flight proved unsuccessful. The RPV wasn’t slung in the correct position and proved to be weighted too much to the rear which caused a certain amount of consternation amongst the onlookers! We subsequently had the Inflat-A-Plane™ fly successfully, just like all the preceding remote control planes, but we had to make modifications to its wheels, as they were slanted at an angle and reduced take-off speed.
We had started off with very small radio controlled airplanes with a wingspan of less than 3ft (less than 1m) with a single hull design and had then progressed to 6ft wingspans and eventually a 3m (10ft) remote control Inflat-A-Plane™, before we were satisfied with that shape. At this wingspan the excercise became interesting because we were able to carry cameras and video cameras for taking aerial photos whilst video film was shot of the excercise with success.
At these sizes we were able to loft and catch them by hand, because, as they increased wingspan, the volume and lift from helium increased, so that even the 3m version was no trouble to launch or capture. All controls for direction, as well as height were obtained by remote control by warping the wings and this proved, at the slower speeds, to be efficient.
At 3.0m we redesigned the shape of the remote control planes to incorporate a double hull and we also added wheels, giving a very short take-off and landing capability which was very efficient and exact in operation, despite using very rough fields.
From the 3m versions we designed, built and flew radio controlled airplanes up to the 30ft (9m) wingspan shown above, which used two 10HP engines.
We then designed semi-high-pressure RC Airplanes with a 2.0m wingspan, using a push and a pull-prop power unit (20HP). At the same time we converted from conventional rear mounted elevators and rudder to a canard system, which we had tried on one of the larger double hulled ultra-lightweight radio controlled planes. Photos of this Inflat-A-Plane™ version are shown above and in the images below. It was extremely difficult to manufacture and much more difficult to fly, but also much faster. We estimated its take-off speed at about 90mph, but did not have the equipment to measure it, nor were we able to film it in flight as we were too busy flying it! This was the first version we manufactured that did not use helium to get extra lift, as the size didn’t give sufficient internal volume.
|
