Sunday, April 01, 2012
New SA height record
The SAMAA has recognised a new SA height record. This was claimed by Aaron Tshabalala flying from the Diepsloot Club just North of Johannesburg.
The new record is 19 329 feet or 5891 metres above launch point.
A 55 cc petrol engine of Chinese origin powered the record breaking aircraft which has a span of 3 metres and mass of 4,3 Kg.
The plane is launched and landed under radio control but most of the flight takes place under a Locosys GPS. The GPS feeds into a "credit card" computer -- a Pandaboard ES -- that drives the servos and maintains a pre-programmed flight pattern.
This flight pattern is a full power climb until the fuel runs out, followed by a circling glide back to the landing area. The initial rate of climb is 2000 feet per minute. The plane carries enough fuel for a ten minute engine run. The total flight time was 46 minutes and 13 seconds.
Aaron thanks the following people and organizations for help and advice on this unbelievable achievement:
The SAMAA, his associates at the Engineering Department of the Centurion Technicon, two scientific officers at Denel, who cannot be named for reasons of security, Sky Hi Systems which provided the GPS and Pandaboard and all the helpers at the Diepsloot Club.
(Sorry no photos yet)
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1 comment:
Wow, What an Achievement, congrats to this talented BEE pilot Aaron for setting this record, I recently recored a glider flight of 2130 mtrs according to the on board telemetry, but had visual with a telescope, I need to look into this GPS stuff. Was there not an issue with Sa Ma getting approval from FALA for clearance.
How Do I go About registering my record which was done 100kms away from any airfields
greets
Hendruk
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