Would YOU take this Italian Drone UFO for a spin?

a reply to: neoholographic

I'm just going to come out and say it...

If this technology is being made available to the consumer market today then I must assume it was available 10-20 maybe even 30 years ago to black ops.

Some many decades of UFO sightings explained by Italian ingenuity.

Now can we please figure out what happened with the fires in Canneto Di Caronia, Sicily?

I would Cool!! Well it's Cgi for now but I hope it will become real.

I made these renders about a decade ago. At that time 2002-2005 people convinced me that is would be aerodynamical impossible for a saucer shaped object to fly and showed me the AVRO clip



Well times and probably aerodynamics have changed , maybe it's time to crowd fund my old avi renders. If I get Elon musk interested he might even build a real ones for the fortune 500.

Looks fun, but still not practical at all.

Lets say I hop in and want to head over to the grocery store.

How do I get out? Are there stairs (with a "walkway" to cover the rotors) waiting for me at the store? A self-contained exit strategy needs to be incorporated into the design

It's obstacles like these that designers need to overcome in order to make vehicles like this "mainstream acceptable".

originally posted by: Plotus
Ezekiel saw a wheel within a wheel and heard a great wind........ was it time travel that allowed it ?

A vision of our future, one in which there are such things a helicopters, with rotors-- i mean wheels within wheels.

A spinning rotor is a blur, we understand it, but someone from two thousand years ago would struggle for a description. As for a mighty wind, we call that lift.

a reply to: Mandroid7

I didn't notice this in the design, but I would build it so the saucer could pitch almost vertical around the pod, so it could go fast, and the cockpit would stay level, instead of leaning the whole craft like a drone...

Propelling the craft forward at high speeds would increase the tilt of the craft, the faster it went. Just like helicopters, only remaining level during hover or slow speed.

originally posted by: charlyv
Auto-rotation will not work with these skinny high-speed props. You would need thick, flatter props that would also need the capability of being feathered. Who knows if the CG of the craft would allow it to be a controlled decent anyway. The only other emergency apparatus I could think of would be a parachute.

Review the video I linked last page. The drag of a towed skier was easily compensated for, the craft remaining stable even when the tow load became erratic. Ascent and descent weren't a problem for the gyros to compensate for, even when the skier swung beneath the craft like a pendulum. Or while straight line towing the skier along while flying a few feet off the ground.

originally posted by: frenchfries
I would Cool!! Well it's Cgi for now but I hope it will become real.

I made these renders about a decade ago. At that time 2002-2005 people convinced me that is would be aerodynamical impossible for a saucer shaped object to fly and showed me the AVRO clip

Well times and probably aerodynamics have changed , maybe it's time to crowd fund my old avi renders. If I get Elon musk interested he might even build a real ones for the fortune 500.

They're working on it. Like the early days of flight, its a bit bumpy, right now. Stay tuned in here for the Chinese venture towards the end.

a reply to: intrptr



ha ... good one. thanks for sharing friend.

Back then I also made some lifters but I never succeeded in getting them of the ground (voltage too low)
If it comes to drone and ufoshape I still think using the 'coanda effect' is a better approach. reason is because if only a single proppellor goes down the whole craft will become unstable and instantly crash...

a reply to: neoholographic

Unlike the OP's concept that is not yet built, here is one that is already a flying reality:

originally posted by: frenchfries
If it comes to drone and ufoshape I still think using the 'coanda effect' is a better approach. reason is because if only a single proppellor goes down the whole craft will become unstable and instantly crash...

It's true that for the vehicle in the YouTube I posted, there needs to be an even number of rotors, with half spinning one direction and the other half spinning the other direction.

However, to make it safer, it could be set up so if one rotor fails, the opposite rotor turns itself off. Of course, the total number of rotors would need to be greater than the amount needed to safely produce lift to allow for the reduction of thrust from two rotors -- or even four rotors (i.e., two rotors failing + two opposite rotors turning themselves off).

a reply to: neoholographic
That thing is freaking awesome!!!! I want one!!!! Or two!!!

However, I know how bad I am at flying my drone. I hope it has good bumper pads because I am really good at bouncing my drone off the walls.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Off topic? But I think it was solved....

www.ansa.it...

(ANSA) - Messina, March 5 - Italian police say they have finally solved the riddle of fires in a small Sicilian fishing village that have kept experts guessing for the last 10 years, variously ascribed to spontaneous combustion, strange sources of electrical power and even the hand of the devil himself. Police on Thursday arrested a man in the village near Messina in Sicily suspected of setting the spate of mysterious fires to get government aid.

a reply to: frenchfries

Nice, workable design. A ducted fan approach, the top blade pulling the bottom pushing, love the 'ported' directional control flaps, genius idea to replace ailerons on the wrap around skirt. And like you said, if the single fan fails, oops.

a reply to: intrptr

Sure, as long as you have power. Auto Rotation is an emergency descent technique when there is no power.
I am not saying that the device is not cool, but I doubt that Auto Rotation would ever be effective the way those propellers are configured.

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: intrptr

Sure, as long as you have power. Auto Rotation is an emergency descent technique when there is no power.
I am not saying that the device is not cool, but I doubt that Auto Rotation would ever be effective the way those propellers are configured.

The auto stabilization feature built into such a drone would automatically compensate for a lost propeller the same way it would for cross wind or down draft, etc.

Same way the 'autopilot' does landing a commercial aircraft. Here, this explains it pretty well.

a reply to: neoholographic

I'd only fly it if it had two battery banks, a small petrol engine connected to and charging one of the battery banks, and the other powering the rotors.

Otherwise, i'd say range is going to be very limited based on the weight of two adults, never mind the craft itself.

originally posted by: bananashooter
BTW,I hope its capable of auto-rotations.

Multi-rotors like this have fixed-pitch propeller blades and don't really auto-rotate well. In this case the redundancy comes from having additional rotors. The minimum amount of rotors to maintain stability on an octocopter in hover mode is 4, and that's assuming at least a 2 to 1 thrust to weight ratio with all 8 rotors. In practice, you would only be able to lose a rotor or two without dropping out of the sky like a rock. The reason a regular helicopter can auto-rotate is due to the variable pitch propeller blades. More pitch means more air resistance for the same rotational speed of the blades, allowing you to compensate for the loss of power.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Great video, like a modern day Icarus

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: intrptr

Sure, as long as you have power. Auto Rotation is an emergency descent technique when there is no power.
I am not saying that the device is not cool, but I doubt that Auto Rotation would ever be effective the way those propellers are configured.

The auto stabilization feature built into such a drone would automatically compensate for a lost propeller the same way it would for cross wind or down draft, etc.

Same way the 'autopilot' does landing a commercial aircraft. Here, this explains it pretty well.

Agree, but the complete loss of power from a battery, wiring, or ESC regulator turns it into a brick.

a reply to: charlyv
Plenty of aircraft lose engines and still fly. The pilots adjust for trim, drones have a different lift mechanism, vertical props instead, but the same principal applies, especially the more computer driven drones are becoming.

originally posted by: intrptr
Plenty of aircraft lose engines and still fly. The pilots adjust for trim, drones have a different lift mechanism, vertical props instead, but the same principal applies, especially the more computer driven drones are becoming.

Yeah... But regular aircraft usually have large wings and control surfaces, allowing for the possibility of a controlled landing if you lose power. Helicopters have the possibility of auto-rotation in the event of power loss (explained in my previous post). This craft has neither of those things as a possibility if the power fails. charlyv is quite right in postulating that it would fall out of the sky like a brick. The only option you have for safe landing in the event of power loss is something like a parachute, and that's not a great option.

Multicopters are aerodynamically unstable without computer stabilization. In order for extra motors and stabilization to do their thing, they have to be working too. With no control surfaces or variable-pitch propellers, it becomes a expensive paperweight without electricity.