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Is it a bird? Is it a Plane? Is it a Helicopter? Nope - I'm building one of those new drone thingy's!

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SpamIsHam

Active Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2022
Messages
36
Location
Sydney
Hi All!

I am taking on a somewhat controversial project and whist I intended to keep it under wraps for the most part to “fly below the radar” so to speak, I figure I am going to need some advice and assistance along the way that can only be found at a place like this, where everyone else is just as crazy as me ;)

Fair warning, I enjoy writing and my posts will usually be fairly long – so if you’re not a big reader or short of time, you might want to check out my YouTube project channel (which I will create as soon as I have enough content and forward momentum to feed it weekly updates), where I will do my best to try and document the process along the way on video.

THE PROJECT

So a few months ago I came across the promo videos that have been drip fed to us of the “Jetson One” personal drone.



Looks like a hell of a cool toy, basically a jet ski for the sky – which concerns me because if any of you have ever seen an inexperienced person with the keys to a jet ski, you will know how dangerous they can be due to pure ignorance. In the right hands though, a lot of fun!

So the price tag for one of these Jetson One machines is USD$95,000 – which is about USD$94,000 more than I have any chance of talking my missus into parting with.

In any case, there is a 2-3 year waiting list on delivery as of now, they are apparently completely sold out with pre-orders for the next 24months..

Problem with that is, I want one much sooner than that and I also don’t have USD$95,000 burning a hole in my pocket.

So having nearly 10 years of experience flying and building quad drones, a PPL with an aerobatics endorsement and a tendancy to jump into crazy ideas that most people think are just that, crazy ideas, I started doing some real homework on what’s involved here… and it turns out, not all that much.

Whilst Jetson seem to be reluctant to provide detailed technical specs, or too much detail in general about things like propeller specs etc on theonline Jetson One, if you dig through enough content it is possible to gather it all together and come up with a bit of a “parts list” which will get you 90% of the way to completing the physical build to the same specs. I suspect that a big part of the reason why they are reluctant to answer questions about these details is for exactly this reason – there really isn’t a lot too these and it’s probably only a matter of time before their business model falls victim to the fact that anyone could make one of these with the same off the shelf components they are using and a bit of motivation. That said, don't get me wrong - hats off to them for what they have done. They have really led the way for so much of these early stages in manned drones. I acknowledge the fact that Second mover advantage is a whole lot easier a path to take.

Anyway, here is the basic details and the plan forward:

THE AIRCRAFT:

Construction of the main chassis/frame is from Aluminium 7020 tube, 50mm and 25mm that is CNC rolled into shape and then specially welded and heat treated for strength and the rest is Carbon Fiber/Carbon Kevlar panels and seat pod.

Because of the way the 50mm outter sections of the frame bend, they need to be CNC rolled and that means it needs to be done by a fairly specialist shop from what I can gather.

I’ve found a local place here in Sydney that can do this, so basically hand them the CAD files and the lengths of 50mm 7020 tube and they will hand it back ready for the welding process which is again, a fairly specialist process due to the properties of 7020 aluminium.

Long story short, the main chassis/frame will be essentially built for me due to the required machinery and welding and metalergy knowledge/experience.

Once completed, it will be powder coated black and the build will really start taking shape!

I spent the last 6 months playing around down in my garage teaching myself how to make things in carbon fiber/composite materials… I barely saw my wife in that time due to the addictive nature of carbon fiber…. Once you start making stuff from carbon fiber you suddenly want to make everything in carbon fiber lol

Now my car has a carbon fiber dash, carbon fiber mirrors, a carbon fiber bonnet and my daughter has a carbon fiber name tag on her school bag, I have a carbon fiber office chair and if it wasn’t secured in place before, my reluctance to let expensive leftover resin go to waste has seen everything and anything around the house reinforced with leftover resin.

So I am creating the “Tub” seat and outer panels myself from composites and these have been drawn out as templates with CAD and Fusion 360 to be cut to size.

THE MOTORS

The motor arms are reinforced Carbon Fiber tube

The Motors are T-Motor units either U15XXLKV29, or U15KV80 which are off the shelf availability for about $900 each from T-MOTOR Store-Official Store for T-motor drone motor,ESC,Propeller and have a maximum thrust of 102KG and 150KG respectively.

They are also fully water resistant and can operate in heavy rain.

The ESC for these motors come from T-Motor

Propellers are also supplied by T-Motor to match the application with the motors 64*24” carbon fiber blades.

The Ballistic Recovery Chute is available from a couple of manufacturers, but BRS seems to be the best option

LED Lighting (Nav lights, cockpit lighting, underside landing lights) available pretty much anywhere.

Harness is Sparco

Aside from the minor things such as rear view mirrors, LED lights, the wiring, the flight control computer and control inputs such as a collective/stick setup.

Once I’m at this stage, I’ll start programming the flight controller unit with the details to make this thing fly.

First few flights will be with a 90kg ballast in the seat, me on a remote controller safely on the ground some distance away.

Then I will progress to a couple of manned test flights using the remote control and then the onboard control inputs – all conducted at no more than a meter or two off the ground for safety until I work out reliable redundancy solutions.

I’m hoping that by the time I get to this point, there will be another step up in motor technology and battery technology – solid state batteries with double the flying time for no extra weight penalty and more powerful motors would be excellent modifications.

The other additional aids that I may look at adding as things progress will be LIDAR for collision avoidance and ground mapping and maybe even a transponder and radio setup if it ever got to a point where I was comfortable flying this over a few meters in height...

Australia is contemplating the possible change of rules whereby ultralights may be able to operate in Class C and D controlled airspace and if this can qualify as an ultralight, then its going to be awesome to do a harbour scenic in a drone ahaha!

The total empty weight of the aircraft is 190lb btw... anyway enough typing, will pick this up again later!
 

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