are quadcopters better than helicopters

micky wrote on 10/18/2024 11:06 AM:

I have bought expensive model helicopters before; very hard to control. I crashed a few in the first minute of flight. Quadcopters are naturally stable; as stable as a four-legged table.

I suspect helicopters are significantly more efficient than quadcopters because helicopters blades would benefit from the airfoil lift generated by the lesser air pressure above the slender airfoil blades, rather than just throwing a lot of air down fast to get lift.

Do some research. Model helicopters are very difficult to fly. It is an expensive hobby.

Why wouldn't the quadcopter benefit from the same airfoil lift?

Not that some quadcopters have airfoils similar in size to general aviation propellers - quadcopter isn't quite the correct term, as many of the flying prototypes have 8 or more motors, and either tilt-rotor or fixed rotors in both vertical and horizontal axis.

See aforementioned links to Joby and Archer.

Possibly because they have significant computer power to "emulate" stability.

Why can't a quadcopter do a autorotation landing?

Might be for the same reason.

Long narrow thin wings are more efficient than than fat stubby ones. And the loading is much higher on quads. +, quads operate at much higher speeds with resulting inefficiencies.

Lift and downward thrust are two different things. List is caused more by the lesser air pressure over the top of the wing than by moving air downward at high speeds.

Seen any quadcopter gliders recently?

The model helicopters I bought had all the control rods at the rotor to change the pitch, yaw, and roll of the main blades. Newtonian physics dictates that the main engine is always trying to spin the body of the helicopter so you have to  SKILLFULLY  adjust the tail rotor speed to counter the spinning force (which is extremely difficult to do). I bought a computer helicopter flight-simulator which came with the joystick. I practised hundreds of hours with the simulator but I still crashed my expensive model helicopters in the first minute of flight. The model helicopters were about $2000 each.

Quadcopters are inherently stable. It will stay in place if all four rotors have the same power. If you increase power to one of the four rotors, the quadcopter will roll and turn. If you increase power to two adjacent rotors, the quadcopter will tilt and move forward. If you put blade-guards in all the rotors, the quadcopter can bump into walls without damaging the blades. That's why people have abandoned helicopters and opted for quadcopters.

FWIW this is sort of different. It's VTOL, Vertical Take Off and Landing, and it points the propellers upward for take-off or landing and forward for flight. To nitpick, I don't think they call these helicopters. The airforce or army has them too, I think some are called Ospreys.

The first line is similar, I think, but for some reason the 6 up-facing propellers seem to be spinning even when 6 forward-facing ones are propelling the plane forward. maybe the wing is so small it doesn't have enough lift, and it might not be good for air-flow and lift to have the propellers behind the wing spinning and blowing the air up. So complicated I could only guess.

If everyone in this group, got together, we could buy one of these and have a lot of fun.

The rear props are clearly freewheeling, and creating a lot of drag in the process. Notice that they are going different speeds.

I have flown many RC planes, some easy, some more difficult, none impossible.

Never tried a helicopter for the reasons you describe. Was not willing to make the investment after watching some of the better RC pilots having problems and crashes.

I was able to get good discounts as I worked for one of the manufacturers of model plane accessories and we sold to all the distributors.

I did think about that a little. If you think that, you've convinced me.

Wow. But I can believe it.

I'm known for my "thrift" so I bougbt a used quadcopter at a hamfest for $20 or 25, a lot for me. I didn't want to lose it so I had to drive miles to find a place without people or vegetation hazards. it kept crashing and I had to keep walking over to get it, with the breathing problem I had then. Distance and Ground hazard. A real pain. So it does fly but later I found an SD card for the camera and checked it while sitting at my desk and it appears not to work. Lo barato saca caro. The new plan is to buy a new one that knows how to return to where I am. The newer fancier ones are easier to fly too. Then I can check my gutters to see if they have leaves. See? Home Repair.

I do have a simulator, more than one, for a battery operated airplane someone gave me, but I haven't put the time in and haven't even tried to fly the plane. The plane would definitely be seriously broken if it crashed from any height. I did go out one time to where a club meets and saw others flying their planes. One guy let me fly his while it was already up, but not to land it. I put an outlet in my car so I could recharge a plane battery even when the engine wasn't running.

But that's all I've done. Time is running out. I've wasted 5+ years. If I don't get this done in the next 30 years, my dying thoughts will be, Why didn't I devote more time to toy planes? The free simulators are probably on another PC or a bare harddrive. Have to find them. Have to find the PC joystick I bought. Have to charge the battery and hope it takes a charge. Life is so hard.

Maybe they are talking about toys.

Maybe they mean mid-size, like for delivering pizza or Amazon.

No one with a toy cares abou this.

Huh?

I wonder why.

That's for sure. I used to wonder how helicopters moved forward. For a quad copter, just speed up the rear propellers, I presume.

Even toy helicopters have very light blades. OTOH full size, either can kill youl

Really? I agreed with Wannabe when he said otherwise.

I don't know. I would think the helicopter tail rotor is necasary but a waste of energy. It doesn't propel it forward.

Because of battery, this sounds like toys.

Rescue missions with toys? This has to refer to full-size copters

I give up on the list. I suspect so-called AI has looked at many articles, some about toys, some about full-size, and some about mid-size and merged the wholle thing together in a stew.

That would lead me to believe they are talking about drones. afaik battery powered full-sized aircraft are still science fiction.

I was taught to fly (full-sized) by an ag pilot with a few thousand hours in the air. At the same time he was trying to learn to fly a helicopter since precision helicopter spraying paid better than dumping insecticide from a Thrush.

I still have a gas powered R/C plane I built in college, probably 1970 or so. Balsa wood glued together with iron on heatshrink plastic sheet protecting the wood from the oily fuel. Maybe a 36" wingspan with a supertiger .23 engine. That thing flew FAST, and had to be landed fast. I never flew it after I left Boston. Sold the R/C equipment because they changed the frequencies you could use for planes, but could not bear to throw the plane away.

The hard part is landing because everything is reversed when flying towards yourself - pushing the stick right makes it go left. The trick for learning is to turn around and look over your shoulder as you land it as it approaches. Then, right is right.

The plane is a "Flea Fly", a 2/3 scale version of a .60 powered Kwik Fly III which was a award winning competition plane back in the day.

I've been checking some videos about DJI drones and they have a RTH (return to home) function that apparently brings the drone back to land where it initially took off. On a full charge, some can go 20 miles, so I could send it out on a mission and when it gets about 10 miles out it would ask me to allow it to RTH. That's cool, but I especially like the videos where they blindly send the drone into dense woods and it figures out, on its own, how to navigate through the trees. I like that feature because I have dense woods directly behind my house and it would be cool to send a drone in there.