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Octocopter - This guy will likely get killed

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http://boingboing.net/2011/09/21/china-gentleman-builds-homemade-flying-contraption-powered-by-eight-motorcycle-engines.html

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dQr_CKR7Vw&feature=player_embedded

Found through http://hackaday.com/

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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I wouldn't want to be at the same level as a wooden prop if it separated either. It seems to me like a much better balance option would be to lift the ring up and mount the control box underneath.

I also think a single powerplant (maybe a turbine) that turned all of the props either via belts or shafts would even out the power distribution, but I'm guessing a Chinese backyard experiment budget wouldn't cover one.

Kudos to him though. He has obviously amassed some technical knowledge and combined it with imagination.

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What's the point of the fabric surrounds for the cockpit and some of the engines? It's not like they're going to 'protect' anyone from anything. One of them is already burning up from the exhaust running through it.

Did anyone else notice that the 'craft' was built in an closed courtyard next to a pool table? Was he really thinking he could fly it up out of there on the first try? Most aricraft I have seen have been built and tested on an airfield, or at least in an open space.

The way that thing was pitching around when he was tyring to 'fly' it, that guy is going to get knocked out of the cockpit and, well, we all know what happens next. Can you wash blood out of the felt on a pool table?

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THAT, is the kind of thing -I- would build, although I'd have thought it through a bit more thoroughly since if I'm going to take the trouble to make a gadget I want it to actually WORK. Having spent much of my life whipping up one gadget or another I can say with authority that 3/4 of the fun is in the building of the gadget itself. Guarantee that guy is having the time of his life with that toy, and to his neighbors, he's a god. A noisy god, but a god nevertheless.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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>I also think a single powerplant (maybe a turbine) that turned all of the props either
>via belts or shafts would even out the power distribution . . .

Single point of failure. With the right control system his craft could land after losing an engine.

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What's the point of the fabric surrounds for the cockpit and some of the engines? It's not like they're going to 'protect' anyone from anything. One of them is already burning up from the exhaust running through it.

Did anyone else notice that the 'craft' was built in an closed courtyard next to a pool table? Was he really thinking he could fly it up out of there on the first try? Most aricraft I have seen have been built and tested on an airfield, or at least in an open space.

The way that thing was pitching around when he was tyring to 'fly' it, that guy is going to get knocked out of the cockpit and, well, we all know what happens next. Can you wash blood out of the felt on a pool table?


It's so easy to judge others from High on your hill, when you have the opportunities and education that a 1st world upbringing gives.

Mad props to the guy, at least he's built it, not sitting in his armchair criticizing others for trying.

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It's so easy to judge others from High on your hill, when you have the opportunities and education that a 1st world upbringing gives.



Excuse me for getting in the way of your bleeding heart. I'm sure the huddled masses of the world are thankful for people like you.

It doesn't take any education at all to realize that if you're sitting above a collection of spinning propellers, falling down would be a very bad thing. Last time I checked, even in 3rd world countries everyone falls down, not up.

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Mad props to the guy, at least he's built it, not sitting in his armchair criticizing others for trying.



Unfortunately, that's not how the real world works. We generally don't reward complete and utterly miserable failures no matter how much blood, sweat and tears goes into the effort. (Otherwise, I'd be a bazillionaire.) And we especially don't reward failures likely to kill people.

While his basic premise is sound (enough horsepower makes anything flyable), his lack of knowledge in the area of control is showing rather badly. Watching the YouTube video of him attempting to pop this thing above ground effect is simply painful to watch. With each and every successive crash to the ground I expect to see a catastrophic failure that's going to not just kill him, but all his helpers as well.

This guy needs to be mocked until he can prove to us he knows what he's doing and hopefully before he kills somebody.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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This guy needs to be mocked until he can prove to us he knows what he's doing and hopefully before he kills somebody.


Seriously,
It comments like this that simply amaze me,:S
The amount of people on web forums that can type vast quantities of text and yet display very little in the way of intellect or rational thought is staggering, this site seems to be over supplied. :S
I'll go back to lurking :| Less chance of provoking stupidity I think.

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The amount of people on web forums that can type vast quantities of text and yet display very little in the way of intellect or rational thought is staggering, this site seems to be over supplied



Really? I hate to burst your humanitarian bubble, but you realize the reason the video ever made it anywhere on the web, let alone to this site, is because it's a goof. Nobody is watching it and swelling up with pride because of the guy's triumph over adversity to build a revolutionary flying machine. Nobody.

As previously stated, the design is an enlargement of a very popular RC aircraft that's being sold by the millions all over the web. It's nothing new and he didn't think of it.

Beyond that, the underprivledged third-world builder somehwo got access to 8 motorcycle engines, 8 wooden props, 8 electronic tachs, what looks like a couple hundred feet of sqaure tube and a welder. It would be one thing if they guy built it all out of bamboo and cocconut shells like on Gilligans Island, but it's clear that while the guy is not an aeronautical genius, he's obviously got no shortage of fabrication skills or acees to raw materials.

For you to overlook that, and then comment on others lack of rational thought is, well, irrational.

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>If he manages to get that thing 10 feet off the ground, and then has an engine failure, he's mince.....

That's the advantage of 8 engines. Design it to maintain altitude with 4 and you can handle a single failure.



As long as he's got his weight and balance properly figured out, which seems part of his current problem....

As long as he is ready for it and has a contingency plan that he instantly enacts....He could easily shut down another one by mistake, if he tries to rectify the situation in a sudden panic.

If it tilts and hits the ground on any decent angle and has a prop strike on the ground, that thing is going to destroy itself pretty quickly, with multiple bits of wooden shrapnel flying everywhere.

Whatever, its not something I'd like to be anywhere near, that thing will fly to bits pretty quick.

He's definitely on hamburger road though......
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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>As long as he is ready for it and has a contingency plan that he instantly enacts....He
>could easily shut down another one by mistake, if he tries to rectify the situation in a
>sudden panic.

Even with purely mechanical controls (as long as they're integrated) he shouldn't need to do anything unusual.

The most straightforward way to implement the control system is to copy a helicopter. Forward stick increases power to the 6 o'clock engine, reduces power to the 12 o'clock engine, and increases and decreases power to the 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 and 10:30 engines proportionally. (Doesn't affect the 3 or 9 o'clock engines.) Side stick does the same thing, but rotated 90 degrees.

For yaw you control the relative thrust of the counterrotating engines. Pedal left increases power to all the clockwise engines, pedal right increases power to all the counterclockwise engines.

In a scheme like that one you do exactly what comes naturally to counter an engine failure. Nose dropping? Pull back. Left side dropping? Roll right. Sudden yaw left? Right rudder.

(Of course with computerized controls it's even easier than that.)

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