We have not been tracking the scary yet cool manned multicopter flight for a while. A year on, it has transitioned from an intimidating flying contraption into something a lot less scarier. However, it does not mean it is any less dangerous; it still is and so, unless you know what you are doing, do not attempt to do the same at home. Also, it has became a lot bigger. Instead of eight exposed rotors setup in a longish setup, it now takes on a quadcopter layout but instead of four motors, each quadrant has a whopping 19 Turnigy Multistar Elite 5010-274Kv outrunner motors.
All told, 76 motors were employed to provide the lifts it required to lift itself, the pilot seat with the pilot strapped on it. And it totally works, as proven by the embedded video which you can find after the post. At the heart of the system is a multirotor control board running on stock firmware and the aforementioned motors that provide the lift are paired to an equal number of Afro 20A HV ESC with 63V 330uF low ESR capacitor to deal with long current path from the battery to the ESC.
The battery system, in this setup, consists of no less than 80 Multistar 4S 5.2 Ah battery packs which weighs in at a hefty 77 lbs and it is only good for 8 minutes of flight time. Ok, maybe 10 minutes top. Anything more, it will probably fall out of the sky. Not exactly the freedom of flight as its creator has envisioned, but it’s a start nonetheless. Finally, an RC 5x Turnigy TGY-i6S Digital Proportional Radio Control System enables control over this homemade monstrosity.
Yes. This thing is essentially a huge-ass radio control multirotor drone, but in a scale that’s capable of ferrying a person. According to its creator, whom we never knew his name, it has some ‘known issues’ which include more vibration than expected and also “inadequate” yaw directional stability when executing forward flight. But all’s good and obviously, work-in-progress.
Image: screengrab from YouTube video.
