Comment by Mathew krawczun on August 28, 2010 at 7:40pm

that is so cool looking! lol

I would love to have a uav to go that high.

Comment by Morli on August 28, 2010 at 8:52pm

Mathew,
Some days soon..... , a cheap UAV drone to monitor tropical depressions, storm chasing , weather tracking, live video feed back, data relaying etc , lets dream on :)

Moderator Comment by Darren on August 28, 2010 at 8:53pm

Why, I can see your backyard better at 400' than 40k :)

Comment by Mathew krawczun on August 28, 2010 at 9:19pm

@ Morli

The possibilities are endless right. lol

Have you ever seen one of the beer cooler satellites, you know where they put a camera in a foam cooler with GPS and transmitters to seen back data. The down side to this is you have to go hunt down the cooler after the balloon pops which could be 50 plus miles away in the end. well I would love to replace the cooler with a lifting body UAV (a lifting body because it would have to travel through the jet stream on the way back down and its safer to do that with smaller wings. plus I like the look of them anyway.) so you would just came back to you on its own. it would be a lot of work and money but just think of how much fun you'd have when it worked.

What’s worse is by the time I get the money helium may cost to much to really think about it anyway but it would still be fun.

@ Darren

why? because you could that's why!

it's about pushing what you think is possible and honestly the artiest in me would love to see the pictures and video a UAV that high could come back with. but mostly its because at the end of the day it would just be a fun thing to do.

Comment by Morli on August 28, 2010 at 10:03pm

Darren,
foot print at 400' is much smaller than at 40k( for data relay during disaster/emergency and there is lot more interesting things to see/capture then my back yard :). Effective coverage and access is important consideration for any of such projects/goals.

@ Mathew , I agree. I remember reading/seeing atleast two other teams/members having worked on similar high altitude projects using beer coolers. It would be achievement /mile stone to cross ( IMHO) if a DIYDrone AP does it at 60+ k ' some day soon. Apart from low temp issues and GPS signal issues @ 60k' , shear amount of coordination and team work needed in itself will be good challenge

Moderator Comment by Darren on August 28, 2010 at 11:10pm

I'd love to go to space too, but without an act of congress... i think ill have to stay below 400 :)

Comment by Ed on August 29, 2010 at 2:33am

I'm into high altitude projects too (check my profile). I wonder about the legality of 'flying' something back from balloon burst to land at some pre-defined spot. If it's an unpowered bathtub-lifting body type thing, I wonder if you coud argue that you're not flying, you're just falling with style?

Comment by Martin Seven on August 30, 2010 at 3:39am

We're using a six-pack cooler too :)

Moderator Comment by Krzysztof Bosak on August 30, 2010 at 7:43am

@Ed: ". If it's an unpowered bathtub-lifting body type thing, I wonder if you could argue that you're not flying, you're just falling with style? "
If you are using a control method for steering and using aerodynamics forces to generate lift, this is flying.
Is US space Shuttle flying? It is. Yours would be a 'flyer' as well.

Developer Comment by Mark Colwell on August 30, 2010 at 8:26am

I would think a controlled decent is in the best interest of all, but it is flying, so an airframe certification may be needed, with limited amount of weight and maximum flying distance could be specified.

Comment