Picopilot NA, Hawkeye, GPSflight

[GradGuy]

Greetings...

I'm a graduate student putting together a Paraplane project. Picopilot NA, Hawkeye and GPSflight each have some qualities that would like in my project. I was hoping somebody here could point me in the right direction.

I talked to the guys at U-NAV and GPSflight and each has its specialty I need good gps live telemetry that will work in other programs. Like ESRI projects.

The U-Nav guy said the the Picopilot NA would be able to fly a paraplane. I question how well?

If it's marginal... the a better GPS telemetry product from GPSflight becomes more appealing.

I'm not sure if the U-NAV's Picopilot NA with goundstation would give me the kind of telemetry flexibility GPS flight provides. Where as the GPSflight is designed to be flexible. Granted I'm not sure i need all the extra software GPSflight is packaging and at what cost is the software increasing the price of the hardware unit compared to U-Nav's Picopilot NA.

I understand I would need a radio modem TX and receiver to get the U-NAV Picopilot to send the ground station telemetry. What cost does this add to the $600 for the Picopilot NA. The distance i would be flying would be under 2000ft, mostly 1500 ft.

Waypoint navigation would be nice but if the only mapping software the U-NAV can be configured is Google Earth then it isn't much help. Does anybody have and experience with other software for flight planing and flight monitoring outside of google earth?

[air]

I created a script to export point and click waypoints from OziExplorer to the picopilot. I also used Ozi as a moving map with the picopilot and it worked well in this application.
Pick yourself up a packaged Maxstream Zigbee base unit and a single Zigbee with a U-FL antenna connector and a Zigbee carrier board from newmicros.com and you'll have an effective lightweight tracking system for about $200 or so.

[d_wheel]

I haven't had any trouble using Google Earth. Why do you not like it?

Later;

D.W.

[Gary Mortimer]

I use Ozi explorer for non UAV applications and love it, like Dean I was wondering what your objections were to Goog earth unless its straight into a GIS system that you want.

Good luck with your project

G

[GradGuy]

Hey Guys, thanks for the replies... I don't have an objection to Google Earth at all. Gary you are right... I finishing my masters in GIS and it would be nice to implement the data from the system into a processing application like mapinfo or arcmap for example.

I worked with a lot of applications and some are so inport / export locked down it would be near impossible to make it work outside its native file format. Now I'm not saying that the case here but it is what I'm generally concerned about when dumping nearly $1000 in to hardware and software.

Having said that I'm not a programmer so when looking at software I tend to look at it from its face value... it compatible or its not. If i have to convert data from one format using another piece of software and then back again it could work but it's not ideal.

[GradGuy]

Air, I'm interested in your suggestion... I'm going to look into for myself, however so I'm clear as to the exact equipment you are suggesting, could send me links to the individual hardware pieces necessary for the tracking? Thanks