RC across the Atlantic
 

Congrats to Maynard Hill, 70, and not seeing too well, on his successful crossing of the Atlantic by a model airplane.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/National/

:ok:

Brilliant!
 

As a "retired" modeller - I am seriously impressed!
See http://tam.plannet21.com/tam5.htm for further info.

Anyone tell me why they flew it at 300m? Why wouldn't it have benefited from a bit of height?

No aircraft that low, no ships that high.;)

This is not a "First", it was done a year or two back.

After a couple of failures an r/c model, similar to the one described in the article, was launched from Newfoundland and landed in the Hebrides.

R/C model?. Not really.

Wasn't the earlier transatlantic flight "model" actually a military recon drone, or at least a drone prototype?

Certainly government-contract supported, not a small hobby plane.

Techman
I suspect that it was indeed R/C....... for the take-off and up to cruise. I've just realised why Maynard Hill's name rang a bell. One of my old R/C Annuals carried an article on a previous record of his - the R/C altitude record.... something around 29,000 ft.
I wonder if he was using the same sort of auto-pilot which he had then - an extraordinary device using sensors on the extremities which measured the static electricity voltage. It appears that there is a very marked ramp of S.E voltage relative to the surface directly below and that voltage difference was used to drive the pitch and roll servos. The sensitivity of the device was such as to allow full control with the C.G. at some ridiculously aft position (quite impossible for manual control). Because the inputs are relative to the surface, mountain flying or similarly uneven references are a no-no.:eek:
Anyone have anything further,please?

Is this what you are referring to Cornish Jack ?

http://www.futaba-rc.com/radioaccys/futm0999.html

Still available and quite cheap at about $50

Sure CJ, for terminal control at both ends of the routing it was R/C. But for the record breaking bit it was not.

Henry C
Thanks for that. I've been away from R/C for some time and hadn't seen that little gizmo.
The Maynard Hill device goes back to the very early days of model R/C - at, or about, the introduction of proportional instead of bang-bang. That's what made it so remarkable .... most of the radio control at that time was done with valve Tx/Rxs!!!:ooh:
Techman - yes, thanks......... could be that that sort of pedantry would invalidate quite a few records.
Anyway, having been there, done that (not very well) and got an aged, tattered t-shirt I reckon that Mr Hill's efforts deserve a very large round of applause as much for the vision as for the accomplishment.:ok: