To the Flite Test Community,
We finally got the okay to share this project with you all to a certain extent based on contractual obligations. It is such a great achievement we wanted to share and we are glad that you now get to see it. The team was contracted out to build a large 6.5' DIA X8 drone, the biggest we have ever done, over 15,000 dollars in parts and labor. The best part, a high school team was able to assemble, tune, test, and collect the needed data for the client, coming a long way from building and designing foam board airplanes. On top of that incorporate a ton of sensors on both the X8 and the fixed wing, pushing the limits to AUW. The X8 can carry over 50 lbs and has a flight duration of around 20 minutes. The fixed wing could stay in the air for a little over an hour. Both aircraft are autopilot equipped with Pixhawks and can be controlled through Qgroundcontrol. Without going into too much detail, the main goal is to chase each other and capture that data, from there we cannot state the intentions of the project.
The biggest takeaway was that these students, now graduating and moving on to general aviation careers, started with just the foam board aircraft. They built, they designed, and now applied these skills into a real job application. Going from a hundred dollars of foam flying in the air to flying aircraft that totaled over 20,000 dollars in the air.
We hope you guys enjoy and please consider subscribing and following these students as they go from foam board aircraft to crazy real world application projects!
For more information about the SVVSD Innovation Center: http://innovation.svvsd.org/
Thanks,
The IC Aeronautics Team
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