UAV Design Challenge - A suggested read

[albatross_ds]

I set up a thread located at the address address that may be of interested to a number of you.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285447

It is fairly technical in nature and any feedback on the project would be great.

Here is a brief introduction:

I am currently in the second week of a ten week (fast paced) UAV class that represents an interesting design challenge. For the class we have to design, build, and fly an autonomous glider that will be dropped from a balloon at 60,000ft. The glider then has to perform a pull out and successfully land within 328ft (100m) of the point that it was launched from. One of the issues is that the balloon will drift down range tens of miles during its accent to 60K and the glider will have to pierce thought rather significant head winds to land on the bull's-eye...

Thanks,
James

[orglider]

I am starting a similar balloon launch glider project. I plane on releasing the glider around 50,000 to 60,000 ft. I want the glider to be able to hover a bit so the payload can make some measurements, i.e., temperature, collect air samples, before returning to the lauch site. The glider with all its electronics and payloads should be no more than 10 lbs. The physical size is not very important.

I am planning to build the plane in three parts: the wing, fuselage, and tail. Since your project from 2004 is similar. Can you share some of your findings?

Anyone with any info are welcome. :)

[macboffin]

Safety aspects covered? IE Notams, strobes on glider, vid cam transmitting to ground as pilot aid and possibly forlorn hope of traffic avoidance as well as IDing landing point.(Which identified via smoke flare etc?) Presumably desert area with few landmarks. Very short time frame for such an exercise.
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