buglerbilly
18-02-10, 11:04 AM
Just in Time for Heli-Expo - The Hexacopter
Posted by George Larson at 2/17/2010 6:19 PM CST
I'm sticking this one here cos it screams small unit, tactical use to me............
Circling the world on the Internet right now is a captivating video that opens with a German dude standing in his backyard holding a contraption with six propellers. Hanging around his neck by a strap is some kind of RC control board. When he places the propeller thingamajig on the ground, you can see that it's arranged as a hexagon with the six little props surrounding a central pod. The whole thing is about 18 inches in diameter, and the props are each attached to a tiny electric motor.
In the video, German dude places the machine on the ground and steps back a bit, then fiddles with the controls. The machine comes alive with a buzz that sounds like a swarm of hornets, then leaps up and takes off so fast into the distance that it almost vanishes from view. The thing moves like the Golden Snitch in a Harry Potter Quidditch match, and as it comes zooming back toward the camera, power nearly off, the prop tips shriek as the power comes on, it brakes and hovers dead still...only to zoom off again.
German dude puts this machine through its paces for the entire time span of the video, which can be viewed here. You get to see what its onboard video camera sees, and to demonstrate its payload-carrying capacity, it flies off with no apparent effort carrying a one-liter bottle of cola.
Heli-Expo opens this coming Monday in Houston. I hope somebody brings one of these Hexacopters to the convention. Apparently they've been the rage in Europe for a couple of years, and the idea of flying a tiny videocam around may seem a little creepy, but it's sure cool.
Video here........
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa5_1266096209
Posted by George Larson at 2/17/2010 6:19 PM CST
I'm sticking this one here cos it screams small unit, tactical use to me............
Circling the world on the Internet right now is a captivating video that opens with a German dude standing in his backyard holding a contraption with six propellers. Hanging around his neck by a strap is some kind of RC control board. When he places the propeller thingamajig on the ground, you can see that it's arranged as a hexagon with the six little props surrounding a central pod. The whole thing is about 18 inches in diameter, and the props are each attached to a tiny electric motor.
In the video, German dude places the machine on the ground and steps back a bit, then fiddles with the controls. The machine comes alive with a buzz that sounds like a swarm of hornets, then leaps up and takes off so fast into the distance that it almost vanishes from view. The thing moves like the Golden Snitch in a Harry Potter Quidditch match, and as it comes zooming back toward the camera, power nearly off, the prop tips shriek as the power comes on, it brakes and hovers dead still...only to zoom off again.
German dude puts this machine through its paces for the entire time span of the video, which can be viewed here. You get to see what its onboard video camera sees, and to demonstrate its payload-carrying capacity, it flies off with no apparent effort carrying a one-liter bottle of cola.
Heli-Expo opens this coming Monday in Houston. I hope somebody brings one of these Hexacopters to the convention. Apparently they've been the rage in Europe for a couple of years, and the idea of flying a tiny videocam around may seem a little creepy, but it's sure cool.
Video here........
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa5_1266096209