Lands End to John O'Groats

[jimbojetset]

I was asked today how far can my heli can fly.... and as usual I gave the stock answer of "as long as I can see it I can fly it.".... but the guy asking wanted to know how far would my 600n heli fly on a single tank of fuel (assuming I could follow it)? Dunno I said... then I thought about it...

If I could maintain an average forward airspeed of 45mph for approx 10 minutes I could get approx 7.5 miles (which seems a lot!!)... then I got to thinking that Lands End to John O'Groats is about 900 miles (by road).... so it might take a 600n approx 120 'hops' to cover the distance...hmmmmm.... just need a couple of pilots, a bit of sponsorship and a support crew.... hmmmm.....

Edit: Or maybe a club to club relay....hmmmmm....

[KevDavies]

electric heli on an umbilical to a slow moving aircraft. with an un-interuptible power supply to the heli. Do it in one sitting

[jimbojetset]

electric heli on an umbilical to a slow moving aircraft. with an un-interuptible power supply to the heli. Do it in one sitting

Trust you to come up with that... lol

[pgkevet]

electric heli on an umbilical to a slow moving aircraft. with an un-interuptible power supply to the heli. Do it in one sitting

..in the same vein a truck-full of nitro and a pressure pump and fly the 600N above the truck with a long tube.. a comfy flat-bed with BBQ, campbeds, team of pilots...

[Si Goodchild]

Sounds like a job for a 90-size gasser to me. I'm not an expert but would guess 30 mins plus endurance with some additional tanks strapped on the side. Would suggest the use of some kind of flybarless GPS auto pilot system to keep the heli flying efficiently between waypoints. Would also be beneficial to make aerodynamic mods to the canopy etc to improve efficiency. Should be able to go 30+ miles between refills and at a much lower cost.

[pgkevet]

I had a predator gasser with a puh231 that could fly 45 mins on it's standard tank and could easily have carried another compared to the hanson modded 26 in my spectra that goes 15 mins. Probably the Gt15 with extended tanks could do a decent 2hrs if run a sane headspeeds and semisymmerical blades for an easy 60 mile range?
vetequk on here once told me he lost radio with a concept 30 that made it from croydon airfiled to thornton heath and landed itself undamaged..probably some 7 miles? When you see how long a rappy30 takes to go through a tank that might be another candidate with extended range mods.
Stick a jewel generator on-board for the flight pack to deal with that issue too.

And for the sake of stirring: If on spectrum you have to land every 15mins to rebind and every hour to recalibrate the tx..and avoid flying near any other model clubs in case they happened to be on your channel /stir off lol.

[KevDavies]

Fasst it is then. The helis will fly faster than 30mph im sure of it, especially a 90 or bigger. Massive saddle tanks on a gasser has some ground Peter, and with a DJI Naza gps system just let the heli fly itself.

[pgkevet]

Fasst it is then. The helis will fly faster than 30mph im sure of it, especially a 90 or bigger. Massive saddle tanks on a gasser has some ground Peter, and with a DJI Naza gps system just let the heli fly itself.

Could be some issues with self-fly: powerlines, airfield height limits, low bridges or tunnels, hills etc. Mind you if you ignore all that and just go for 5000 feet you do get to lean out and save fuel!!!

[JoeBailey]

Lands End to John O'Groats

A gasser could lift 30-40 oz of fuel easily. Keeping the head reasonable you could stretch to 2 hours easily.

[KevDavies]

we need a donor gasser! Trillian??

[Varelco]

You don't need much energy to fly forwards, if you designed the heli purely for this role you could get some serious distance out of it. A lightweight frame with a gasser, swinging big blades and small tails could definitely go some. I think the standing world record was done with a JR Vigor .60 Nitro Swinging 700s. It flew 294km with three stops I think, the longest leg was 100km with an average speed of 42 knots which isn't bad!

[pgkevet]

Sheryl has a predator..not sure which engine although I have a 231 that had a coil die but would be fuel economic. Predator easily stretches to 800 blades so it'd be a good choice... Not sure an rjx head could take 800 blades for fbl..perhaps stick with 720 semis...stick some bigger spacers between frame and skids and sling tanks under the CoG... could work well..

One of my many claims to stupidity was firing up my predator (when i had it) before switching on the flight pack.... it idled away with the blades spinning too fast to approach for 90mins before running dry...

[JoeBailey]

One of my many claims to stupidity was firing up my predator (when i had it) before switching on the flight pack.... it idled away with the blades spinning too fast to approach for 90mins before running dry...

I've just snorted beer down my nose