The Extreme Flyers X350 RC helicopter is a small coaxial rc helicopter that has 5 channel control. The extra channel is used to control a horizontally mounted tail rotor, and the whole thing is gyro stabilized so it can fly in the wind!
This rc helicopter is generating quite a buzz online in places like RCGroups.com and RCuniverse. It’s gotten rave reviews almost everywhere, and looking at these videos, it’s easy to see why!
Draganfly Innovations Inc. has released the Draganflyer X4-P, the newest model in their line of amazing, flying UAVs. The notion of safe, stable, and affordable aerial video and photography platforms has been this company’s niche. Featuring phenomenal stability, a patented portable folding airframe design, a stabilized camera mount with vibration isolation, and a boost in flight time, this new Draganflyer is no exception.
The Draganflyer X4-P is exceptionally light weight and portable. The exclusive patented folding airframe fits inside a suitcase-sized military case that is water and crush proof. This combination makes the X4-P “all-in-one-box” system small enough to be transported anywhere at any time.
The design of the Draganflyer X4-P integrates safety and durability into one package. The use of high quality, lightweight carbon fiber parts in the advanced airframe design and the cutting-edge electronic flight stabilization system gives the user the security and piece of mind when operating the X4-P. Other notable features included with the system are two flight batteries (with state-of-the-art integrated protection circuits that provide battery status along with an easy to use battery life gauge), high intensity LED navigation lights for long distance and low-light flying, an onboard flight data recorder which captures all flight data on a removable memory card, and an “auto-landing” feature if the radio link to the helicopter is lost.
Draganflyer X4-P
The Draganflyer X4-P camera mounting system has enhanced vibration protection, which confines the camera from the helicopter, and features an active tilt function to keep the camera level while in flight This combination provides silky smooth and stable video and photos.
Draganfly Innovations has incorporated all the standard features of previous Draganflyer UAV systems. The advanced onboard flight computer system with the SteadyFlight software is the helicopter’s driving force in attaining information from the eleven on-board sensors, making hundreds of calculations per second to produce exceptional flight-handling while delivering an easy-to-control experience for the user.
The custom designed handheld controller offers the user a 2.8” touch screen OLED graphical display for telemetry and flight data (such as GPS position, altitude, heading, bearing, helicopter battery voltage, and more). The controller also features a built-in dual diversity video receiver that takes the streaming, real-time video transmitted from the helicopter and displays it on a pair of video glasses or the wireless video base station.
Draganfly Innovations Inc. designs, develops, and builds these State-of-the-Art systems from the ground up. The development of all hardware and software systems takes place in the company’s development/manufacturing facility. The Draganflyer UAV helicopters are unmatched in performance and simply put, each is a work of art.
Additional information, pictures, and videos are available from the Draganfly Innovations web site: www.draganfly.com
There’s been a huge increase in the number of RC helicopters controlled by cell phones and tablets. Since almost everyone has a smartphone of some kind, it makes sense that these gadgets would show up and increase in popularity.
Parrot AR Drone
This is one of the higher end cell phone controlled RC helicopters. It works by generating it’s own wifi network that you can connect to with your Android or Apple phone. After you’re connected, you can fly the rc helicopter around and look at a live video feed. The Parrot even has an ultrasound altimeter that tells you how high you’re flying above the ground. The Parrot AR is gyro stabilized, so you can get the hang of flying it in only a few tries.
It has a foam structure around all the rotor blades, so collisions with walls and furniture really aren’t a big deal. The Parrot AR works outside as well – it’s big enough to not get bounced around by light wind too much.
Cheap RC Helicopters without Cameras
If you walk in to Best Buy or Target you’re likely to see boxes of smaller RC helicopters that work with iphones. These are usually fairly simple, only two or three channel RC helicopters. They are sold with a simple interface to your iphone, usually one that plugs in to the headphone jack on the bottom. These ones are usually in the $50 dollar price range.
Building your Own
Building an RC helicopter that you can control by a cellphone or over a network isn’t as hard as it once was. Small computers like the Arduino can control brushless motors and servos, and they also have modules that enable wireless communication. If you build a quad copter airframe and control it over a cell network, you can make a helicopter that works almost anywhere.
There is a spreadsheet available with test data from over 251 unique propellers frequently used on RC helicopters and RC quad copters. Dr Phil Millener, Chattanooga, Tennessee (RCGroups.com user “Dr Kiwi”) made a spreadsheet of test data from lots of commonly used RC airplane and quad copter propellers, and gave us permission to make the file available to you for download. For your convenience, there is also a reformatted version which only contains the results without any macros (available in .xls format and .csv format.)
This spreadsheet has over 13000 data points for different propellers. Each row contains the following information:
Propeller Name
Motor Used
Gear
Propeller Diameter
Propeller Pitch
Amps, Volts and Watts drawn
RPM
RPM as % of Kv * V
Motor Weight
Motor and Gearbox weight
Thrust (in g and oz)
Grams per Watt
Pitch Speed
From this data, you can make a more educated choice on which propeller is best for your application. Looking at figures such as the number of grams per watt obtained can help you choose between similar propellers by giving you an estimate of which ones are more efficient in different situations. Depending on if you’re building a quad copter for hovering and aerial photography, or a high performance RC airplane, you can now get an objective picture of the differences between the propellers.
Because simulating how propellers perform in the real world is difficult, testing is necessary to measure their true performance. Before now, finding a unified source of data for many different propellers was difficult.
Here’s some example data, taken for an APC 8×6 E Thin Electric Propeller with a Hacker A20-22L brushless motor:
Volts
Amps
Watts
RPM
Thrust (g)
g/W
10.9
13.55
148
8650
567
3.83
9.9
11.7
116
8100
484
4.17
8.9
9.85
88
7440
406
4.61
7.9
8.2
65
6780
333
5.12
6.9
6.65
46
6120
267
5.80
If you wanted to know how this propeller performs with this motor as RPM is increased, you could make a plot like this in any spreadsheet program.
Adding a trendline to the data allows you to make a prediction about the thrust this propeller and motor would provide at other RPM values. A simple polynomial fits the measured data well.
Another quantity you might be interested in is the efficiency of the propeller and motor in grams of thrust produced per watt of power used. Here is one such plot.
This one’s really cool - a new coaxial RC helicopter that can fly outdoors, even in the wind! Something about the vertically mounted tail rotor allows it to rapidly compensate for wind gusts and stay stable. Coaxial RC helicopters are usually really stable, but this causes them to do badly in the wind. Somehow, this one manages to overcome that.
Flying in the Wind – Extreme Conditions
Coaxial helicopters are great for learning how to fly, but their inherent stability usually causes them to be very sensitive to the wind. Using the vertically mounted tail rotor and patented technology, the Extreme Flyers X350 overcomes this problem. Not only can it be flown in extremely windy conditions, it’s actually easy to do! Here’s a video to prove it – watch how the wind affects the trees and the flags near the flying helicopter.
There’s even mode to turn off the tail rotor if you’re flying the X350 indoors, which reduces the sensitivity of the controls. Since coaxial RC helicopters don’t have a particular need for a tail rotor, the vertically mounted tail rotor can be used to help stability in high winds.
Great for beginners and Intermediate Pilots
The Extreme Flyers X350 helicopter is great for both beginning and intermediate pilots. The helicopter has enough control to satisfy those wanting to improve their skills and those who are just learning how to fly. Even though the Extreme Flyers X350 RC helicopter has the stability which comes with a coaxial design, the helicopter has enough speed to cover a park in a few seconds flat.
Reviews
This helicopter has attracted a lot of attention on forums – here are a few of the reviews:
Predicting which propellers are best to use for your rc quad copter project can be difficult. Computer programs such as MotoCalc can work, but in many cases efficiency predictions can be off by a large amount. Propeller design is an extremely complicated problem, and the best approach is often to test a large set of propellers on a static thrust stand and measure their performance experimentally.
Finding a unified source for this data is also difficult. A group from the University of Illinois have done static testing on small propellers (less than 5 inches), suitable for building micro quad copters with. The paper is available for download, and the important results are on page 5. The have obtained what is called a “Figure of Merit” (FOM) for each propeller, which is the ratio of the ideal power required to hover to the experimental result. The better the propeller is, the closer this ratio is to one. Working from this, you can do some simple algebra to get the coefficients of thrust and power from their results. This data should help you make a good propeller choice for your RC quad copter project.
February 25, 2012 – CSIRO (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) in Australia are using the Draganflyer X6 UAV VTOL helicopter, dubbed the “Scientific Predator”, to document the growing problem of debris washing up on to Australia’s beaches and how it affects marine life. Worldwide, more than 270 species of marine animals are affected by debris from the predators at the top of the food chain down to the smallest plankton. The Teachwild National Marine Debris Project is funded by Shell, Earthwatch, and the CSIRO, is expected to take one year, will be officially launched in Perth on March 8, 2012.
We just reduced our price on our most popular product! The Mini Stinger RTF (Ready To Fly) helicopter is perfect for the beginner RC pilot who wants to enter the RC helicopter world. Now with the lower price, this fun coaxial chopper is affordable to everyone and makes an awesome gift, too! The Mini Stinger is one of the easiest-to-fly helicopters around with unsurpassed stability. From the beginner to the advanced pilot, this little helicopter will bring a smile to everyone’s face.
The original Multiplex FunCopter just got a whole lot better! The new FunCopter V2 boasts a quiet, more powerful, brushless motor along with revanped flybar paddles for smoother, neutral handling and a redesigned tail rotor hub and shaft for added durability. This improved heli makes your flying experience better than ever! The overall low number of parts of the FunCopter makes repairs relatively straight-forward and simple. Based upon the popular design of the Lite Machines™ Corona, the FunCopter V2 maintains the unique features of the original with a special direct drive train system providing higher efficiency for longer flight times and extremely flexible rotor blades for durability and more crash-resistance.
Fliers going from fixed wing flight or stepping up from coaxial helis will enjoy the flexibility and reliability that the FunCopter V2 provides. This is the perfect heli for the beginner pilot.
Multiplex FunCopter RR features at a glance: -
Fully assembled, fixed-pitch, 4-channel model helicopter with yaw, pitch, roll, and throttle control
Superb repairability with low number of parts
Unique quiet direct-drive power system
Removable elapor® body
Highly-flexible main rotor blades for maximum durability
There’s been a huge increase in the number of RC helicopters controlled by cell phones and tablets. Since almost everyone has a smartphone of some kind, it makes sense that these gadgets would show up and increase in popularity.
