91–100 of 206 posts
Daniel, from RCTESTFLIGHT on YouTube, has a series of videos where he experiments with solar airplanes, which wad really interesting to watch from the standpoint of a RC and electronics hobbyist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXvxJNOIXBsM83XxVG7tDUmql...
Didn’t Facebook pursue this idea also? Do you know the details and why they didn’t end up succeeding? https://www.theverge.com/a/mark-zuckerberg-future-of-faceboo...
I worked on this at Facebook very briefly. I believe the project was called Aquila internally. I worked with a famous engineer who joined Facebook from a well known british aircraft manufacturer. He was an aerodynamics expert and was trying to solve the problems of flutter and other dynamic instability in the extremely large, high aspect ratio, lightweight composite wing. I wasn't officially told this, but I believe…
I am! Please do share!
I say this with a heavy heart as I know you're passionate, but numerous failed startups of my own tought me to be critical in thinking.
What is you're "secret sauce"? How hard is it to replicate/exceed your efforts? I'm afraid the answers are "we put a lot of engineering work into it" and "not much, as we're just two guys and the army/google/fb have hundreds of engineers", and you're limited by physics. It's not like you invented new super-light batteries, did you?
I'm afraid this will likely be a waste of your time. You'll have fun, learn a lot, and that can be a goal on its own, But don't take a mortage....
sorry..
Didn’t Facebook pursue this idea also? Do you know the details and why they didn’t end up succeeding? https://www.theverge.com/a/mark-zuckerberg-future-of-faceboo...
I worked on this at Facebook very briefly. I believe the project was called Aquila internally. I worked with a famous engineer who joined Facebook from a well known british aircraft manufacturer. He was an aerodynamics expert and was trying to solve the problems of flutter and other dynamic instability in the extremely large, high aspect ratio, lightweight composite wing. I wasn't officially told this, but I believe…
How does the aircraft get to 70k feet? Is it launched from a separate vehicle?
The aircraft is able to climb under its own power. We have a diurnal energy cycle - charging the battery up through the day and deploying battery energy in the night. If we launch in the morning with a full battery, we have a whole day's worth of extra solar power to use to climb up to altitude. Winds will be a bigger issue than energy when climbing. Up at 20 km (70k ft.) winds are quite calm, but we need to ascend t…
Wow, 10cm live view for complete situational awareness of forest fires feels like it should be a game changer. Can we make sure someone (if not you guys) fully builds this service on your flights for the fire service?
Wildland forest fires were actually the inspiration for this technology! A year ago Seattle had the worst air quality in the world for a few days, which piqued my interest in the area. Speaking to people in the USFS we learned about the challenges of getting real-time high-resolution data, and realized that an ultra long endurance drone would be a great way to get this.
Stop. This is not a valid startup and a waste of your time. I say this with a heavy heart as I know you're passionate, but numerous failed startups of my own tought me to be critical in thinking. What is you're "secret sauce"? How hard is it to replicate/exceed your efforts? I'm afraid the answers are "we put a lot of engineering work into it" and "not much, as we're just two guys and the army/google/fb have hundreds…
Didn’t Facebook pursue this idea also? Do you know the details and why they didn’t end up succeeding? https://www.theverge.com/a/mark-zuckerberg-future-of-faceboo...
I worked on this at Facebook very briefly. I believe the project was called Aquila internally. I worked with a famous engineer who joined Facebook from a well known british aircraft manufacturer. He was an aerodynamics expert and was trying to solve the problems of flutter and other dynamic instability in the extremely large, high aspect ratio, lightweight composite wing. I wasn't officially told this, but I believe…