I have a question to all scientific/aircraft oriented members. All my collegues just started to build those quad- or octocopters. As this trend is all about creating a very stable aircraft that can hoover like a helicopter I thought about some other methods to stabilize an airborne platform. To be specific I think about CMGs.
If the ISS and Hubble can manouver with CMGs shouldn't it be possible to use this in an aircraft too? A platform with a single engine providing upwards lift would be very unstable and useless. But shouldn't it be possible to stabilize such a platform using gyros? And even more control the movement of this platform if it's not just a gyro but a control movement gyro?

I searched the net for some private experiments with CMGs in a model or something similar but I can't find anything. Only hundreds of pages with CMGs used in space (like ISS, Hubble..).

Is it just a totaly stupid idea? Anyone with some knowledge about CMGs who can tell me if this would be possible?

i dont know much about this kind of thing, but i thought i read somewhere they were used in some typeof submarine....

Originally posted by alfa1

Its probably "possible" in a technical sense, but like reaction wheels they do spin up and become "saturated" I believe... and require a rocket thruster every once in a while to let them unwind.

I read about this too in an article about the CMGs in the ISS but they wrote that this is just neccessary after a period of operation. As a model would just fly for a few minutes (<1hour) I thought that this point wouldn't be reached. I thought about spinning up the wheel to some speed using a external motor on the ground to have the platform stabilized. Than just a single prop engine for up/down movement and 3 stepping motors to rotate the CMG in order to fly around.

Edit: The MultiWiiCopter is one of my favorites (planned to build) at the moment. I'm just thinking about all the options: Buy a ready to fly / Build a kit / Buzild something from ground up / Create something new (that's why I came up with the CMGs).

I don't know much about this topic but I remember my teacher for physics told us that gyroscopes were "forbidden" for the public to use (it's one main part of rockets if I remember right)... just my 2 cents