Quad Copter

Airplanes and helicopters have always interested me. At many times, I have had more pressing or fascinating interests, but currently one of my passions is radio control helicopters. While RC airplanes have long held a special place in the lives of retired airline pilots, the field of RC airplanes and helicopters has recently garnered much attention from a younger, livelier crowd. RC helicopters can be flown much like in a video game, adding to the appeal for younger men and women. Also, a great deal of time and skill must be put into flying a helicopter, especially in learning to perform various acrobatics and stunts. Along the same lines, I have recently been researching various new designs for a helicopter and have come up with an excellent new design which I hope to sell. This design has a number of key features such as rotatable thrust vectoring, electric duct fans, vertical take-off and landing, and computer control.

One of the key words in modern airplane design is thrust vectoring. While this may sound high tech and expensive, the basics are straightforward. Thrust vectoring means that an engine produces thrust, or power, in a certain direction, and that this thrust can be to a different direction. An ordinary plane has engines that are fixed on the wing, and blow air in only one direction. However, the design that I will make has movable engines. This means that the thrust can be moved from a vertical to a horizontal direction, and any desired direction in between. This allows the aircraft to take off vertically and move through the air quickly. This design could potentially revolutionize the world of RC helicopters and airplanes, not to mention military unmanned aerial vehicles.

There are numerous ways to achieve thrust vectoring, such as using vanes, or flat pieces of material, that change the direction that air flows out of the engine, and by moving the engine itself to point in a different direction. My design will use a combination of both moving the engines and changing the fan speed of the different engines, thus changing their respective thrusts. The engines will move between horizontal and vertical, allowing smooth transitions between vertical takeoff and conventional forward flight. There will be four fans, one at each corner of the aircraft, and the fans speeds of each one will be manipulated to keep the aircraft level when taking off vertically. This is another form of thrust vectoring, though not quite in the true sense of the term.

While most helicopters use a main rotor with blades to create lift, my design will use electric duct fans. Duct fans use a more efficient fan blade and a duct around that blade in order to create a large amount of thrust while only using a small amount of power. This makes them more efficient than traditional helicopter blades. The design that I intend to build utilizes four of these duct fans arranged in a rectangular or trapezoidal fashion. This will give the aerial vehicle the ability to take off vertically from the ground, much like a conventional helicopter. However, unlike traditional helicopters, this design will also have the ability to point the duct fans forward so that all of their thrust moves the plane forwards instead of upwards. This essentially makes them like conventional jet engines in this configuration, and in this direction the duct fans could easily travel much faster than a helicopter ever could in forward flight. In addition, since the engines must generate more thrust in vertical takeoff than in conventional flight, the engines will have plenty of extra power to propel the plane forward at very high speeds. To make this device feasible, an automatic system will take the vehicle off of the ground for the user, and then allow the user to fly it like a regular airplane. The advantage of this system is that the user could take virtually any size of aerial vehicle of this kind off from nearly any place (including backyards, small parks, and living rooms), and then fly it around like a regular RC airplane.

Much like a regular helicopter, my aircraft will take off vertically from the ground. This is accomplished by the duct fans that can point down. These duct fans will need to exert more force than the weight of the aircraft (including engines) during take-off, which is fairly easy with duct fans. Electric duct fans are also very compact when compared to helicopter rotors, which rotate slowly but cover a wide surface area. In contrast, electric duct fans rotate the fan blades, or impeller, many more times in a minute, but the impeller has less surface area than helicopter blades. Although both are about the same efficiency, the duct fans are easier to accelerate and much more compact, which makes them the better option for my aircraft.

The last major component of the aircraft design is the computer-controlled vertical takeoff and landing. In order to protect the equipment and aircraft, the aircraft will feature a micro-controller and sensors to autonomously take it off of the ground. In this state, the user will only have control over the total thrust of the aircraft. Otherwise, the computer will keep the aircraft level and pointing in the right direction. An advantage of this is minimized human error, especially since the aircraft will be flown by remote control pilots who have minimal experience with this specific type of aircraft. Vertical takeoff would be somewhat similar to taking a RC helicopter off of the ground, but with its own quirks and tricks, thus, a computer-controlled system is more advantageous to a human-controlled takeoff. One disadvantage of using a computer controlled takeoff is that the micro-controller, sensors, and other electronics will add weight to the plane, decreasing the time it can stay in the air.

There are, of course, many advantages to an aerial vehicle that can take off vertically and then fly as efficiently as a conventional airplane. This design has great appeal from a military perspective, as the design could hover anywhere for extended time periods, and then fly efficiently to a new location, unlike either an airplane or helicopter can do. Regardless of its possible military applications, this design would certainly be a welcome addition to the family of remote controlled airplanes and helicopters.

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