On October 1st, My co-pilot James and best friend decided were going to launch an Rc airplane into space.

I saw the idea on another thread and thought wouldnt it be cool to fly back down through the atmosphere instead of using a parachute..

We will begin R&D and testing out all the differnt equiptment and planing the entire operation.

We will be using dragon Link and Uthere RUBY and Ground control for the base station.

We have decided our platform will be a Crashtesthobby.com Hercules set up as a glider.

We will have several onboard cameras. Go Pro, Keychain Cam and Pan Tilt Flight cam.

Some of the challenges will be a launch Site.
FAA approval
Gps Equipment to safely retrieve the Aircraft.
Wind Conditions
Weight of the Aircraft and Size of the balloon

I plan to launch the plane with a weather balloon where it will begin its 2 hour long 18 mile Accent into the stratosphere. Then Autopilot or RTH will bring it back within range of Video and RC control to a successful landing Hopefully near the Launch Site.

I will supply pictures and updates as we go along.

Stay tuned. And please chime in with any ideas or help on this topic

Sponsors:
www.Crashtesthobby.com
www.uthere.com
www.readymaderc.com
www.videoaerialsystems.com/ iBcrazy
www.Production-Graphics.com
http://www.htinter.com/Hetai International
www.hobbypartz.com
http://www.dragonlinkstore.com/v2/


UPDATE 10/30/12

This project began as an Idea to do somthing fun, and now with the help and support of our sponsors has become a reality. We now have our team assembled and have people skilled in differnt areas of RC. The next step is construction and testing. We are hoping to have RUBY constructed and ready for testing in early December. This is project will constantly be evolving and we will be preparing for our launch and test flight scheduled for late february to achieve 40k feet.

Please follow us on our journey to reach our goal of 80k feet and successfully flying the Aircraft back to the launch site on April 1st. We will be streaming the video Live of our test flight of 40k and our mission date of 80k.

Thanks again to every one who is providing help and support for this mission.

FPV Team Legit

10/16/12
Today We Received Our two Aircrafts from our sponsor www.crashtesthobby.com We chose to build with the Deep Reaper and The Herc Pusher set up. We chose these two models becuase they can be built light and carry sufficient Payload Not to mention Extremely Durable. We have to keep the weight under 6 Lbs. Both of these Aircrafts make great FPV platforms.

Deep Reaper XL 61''
http://crashtesthobby.com/products/deep-reaper-xl
Hercules Pusher 63
http://crashtesthobby.com/products/hercules-pusher-63

Thank You again Lee over at Crashtest Hobby.

10/23/12
Today we received Sponsorship From Hetai Internation LLC. http://www.htinter.com/ These are the guys that make the tiny hd cameras. We decided to use these for weight purposes.

10/24/12
Official project name StratRC

10/29/12
Our aircraft will be called "RUBY" Named after the Ruby device. Jim the Owner and Founder of Uthere.com will be helping us Equip the Aircaft with an Autonimous Return to home function This will help "RUBY" Fly back toward our launch Site and back into control and video range, incase it drifts to far away due to the jet streams. We will also have a complete ground control system developed by uthere.com with live telemetry data, customized for this mission. It will give us a complete system to show us alltitude, distance, multiple temps. air speed and other important data, that we will be using to monitor the mission.

Thank you Jim for your help and support. Anyone interested in Auto Launch and return to home WITH auto land please look into the RUBY device by www.Uthere.com

10/30/12
Today we received the help and support of the "Antenna Wizard" Himself. Alex Greve, He is going to build a custom video transmitter and recevier combo to maintain a video downlink for at upto 40+ miles. Both without Diversity and antenna tracking With calm winds and decent jet stream our aircraft is projected to travel roughly 25-30 miles. Where we can maintain a good video link. He is also cooking somthing up to add to give us 40+ miles to our UHF control system.

Thank You Alex "iBcrazy" for your help and support with his anntenna combos you can achieve more range at lower wattage and less power consumption, if you are looking into long range FPV please consider his anntenna combos.

We also have the help and support from Tim over at www.ReadymadeRc.com You can find alot of iBcrazy antennas and everything you will need at readymaderc.com for FPV. Both Alex and Tim offer products made and Shipped from right here in USA.

Thank you Tim for your help and support.

11/30/12
Today we received sponsorship from Hobbypartz.com Bobby will be supplying us with GensAce Lipos for our testing. We also received some really high powered Becs and nice aluminum control horns.

Thank you Bobby and Hobbypartz.com

12/4/12
Our Website is now Up and we will be adding more info and videos there, please check it out
Team Website www.Team-Legit.com
Mission Website http://tinyurl.com/bc5vag8

1/12/13
We received Sponsor ship from Dragon Link LRS. Thank you for your contributions and support. IMO DL is one of the best and easiest to use of all the LRS systems.

Ok So heres the build section of our Aircraft.

2/11/13
Our aircraft shell is complete and we will now begin wireing all the components together and put the key equiptment on board placing them in the proper CG and testing in a Freezer for 3 hours to make sure all componets handle the low temps.

2/18/13
We have mounted the MKS Titanuim Servos and the elevons with 5 hinges on each elevon and laminated them to plane. Now we just need to get the CG and placement of all the electronics

2/25/13
Camera switch is installed and tested on the RMRC 600tvl camera and 2 gopros.

3/20/13
Aircraft construction is complete Including the drop system and the Camera Pods. All wireing is being installed and cleaned up to reduce weight and clutter. All the hatches have been cut out and bay doors. We will now begin testing the electronics for longivity and endurance of minimum of 3 hours. once this is complete the Aircraft will be laminiated and sealed up for ground testing and glide testing.\

4/5/13
Aircraft and wiring is completed and we will power up and test the components for appropriate run times.
The launch day has been postponed and Rescheduled.

4/14/13
Today we took the aircraft out to little mountain to test the glide characteristics and the floating ability of the airfoil. The plane flew well but lacked the Elevon authority it needed to carry the 6lbs weight. This week well change out the elevons to wider 3 inch elevons. I am now confident that this is the right choice in aircraft for this mission. I will put up another video this week demonstrating all the components and their functions.

Team Legit Fpv Space glider maiden test flight (3 min 55 sec)

Reserved 2

Have you contacted the FAA yet? Those balloon flights with the lego man or whatever, popular in commercials and news, are perfectly legal without any FAA authorization so long as they do not exceed a specific weight. UAV operation is going to take some convincing I think.

Greg

Yes we have read all the rules and regulations of the FAA rule 101.33 wich covers unmanned high altitude balloons.

We currently have requests in with the FAA and ATC. our weight limmit is 6 LBS so long as we keep the aircraft under this limit and have the required equipment for other aircraft identification we will be legal.

We also plan to launch in unrestricted airspace.

Being able to control it in three axis makes it a UA and that's where you might come unstuck with the FAA. A box under a parachute is not a UA but lets hope they don't check! Is all airspace above 18500' in the USA not CAS?? I'm not from there so am pulling that number out of the air (no pun intended)

If it's good enough for a guy to jump out of a capsule at 24 miles up......

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/...195457715.html

why not an RC model ....

Going for the first RC plane to break the sound barrier ?, (Baumgartner reach Mach 1.24 on the way down).

we are waiting to see the pics from space

Originally Posted by Johnnymeg

and have the required equipment for other aircraft identification we will be legal.

Who is supplying the sense and avoid equipment for the project?

Greg

These guys can help you jump some hurdles. Good luck : http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread....sphere-Project

Originally Posted by gkamysz

Who is supplying the sense and avoid equipment for the project?

Greg

Well the Faa requires radar reflective device, some people use those emegency blankets and cut out a 10x10 or 14x14 inch square and place it on their capsule or ice chest filled with equipment. Another requirement is colorful streamers on the tether device if its longer than 10ft long and the third is flashing stobe style or beacon navigation lights.

If I go with the dragon osd this device also puts out a callsign that other aircrafts can see on radar.

As far as breaking the sound barrier I don't think the aircraft will survive that kind of speed, most items reach terminal velocity at or around 120-150mph, baumgartner did it because the air preasure where he dropped has less resistance if you watch the video,he was at those speeds breifly as he came through the stratosphere, once hitting the troposphere things will slow down dramatcally. We only intend to be in the early part of the strato.

Oh the Dragon osd has ADSB I did'nt know that.

What sort of transmitter is required to broadcast the ADS-B? Dragon Labs doesn't seem to say anything about it?

Greg

Im not sure how it works, Im still researching it, Maybe it goes through the Video Transmitter ?

Sorry Im not much help on that.