What do you do when you have enough time and a hobby which involves engineering? Well obviously, you experiment and create new stuff. So what to do if you are a model rockets fan and also a user of quadcopters?
We all know how the human nature works. We get bored soon enough from even the most intriguing gadgets. The solution is to put your imagination to work and come up with new uses for the gadget.
A user from ‘Flite Test’ forum by the name of ‘ukarmy04’ decided to do something about this boredom and came up with an innovative idea which involved fixing a platform on the quad-copter which is used for launching rockets. The system also allows for the launching of rockets while the copter airborne.
He didn’t use any off-the-market quad-copter for this purpose, rather he designed a quad-copter by himself and then built it from scratch. In order to achieve the required features, he made quite a few adjustments which included slinging the battery packs and controllers beneath the wooden body of the quad-copter. This allowed the user to keep the centre of gravity low while allowing for a flat surface where the rocket launch platform could be mounted. A metal plate has been added to protect the wooden body from catching fire during launch of rocket.
The video covers the two test flights from 3 different angles. One camera was installed on the ground, second camera was fixed on to the quadcopter and the final camera was mounted on the rocket. The video shows that the launch does push the quad-copter downwards. However, the project is still a success since it remains quite stable and continues hovering.
According to ukarmy04, the whole endeavor was carried out just as a ‘proof of concept’ and has no practical uses. The tests employed a rocket which is quite lightweight and in order to use a heavier rocket, the requirement of a bigger quad-copter is a must. While ukarmy04 says that it has no practical uses, we are sure that soon enough, people will find some use to it as well.
Check out the video of this amazing DIY project below:
