The next frontier in RC?

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
The cutting edge of this hobby seems to be in FPV, aerial video, home made drones, telemetry, etc. So, what is the next innovation? Materials? Powerplants? "Intelligent" aircraft? What do you think? Where do we go from here?
 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
Batteries, I think they'll keep improving, getting lighter, more powerful, and longer flight times, to the point no one will even consider flying fuel anymore.
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
I hope that it doesn't go into things that fly themselves. I really enjoy the hobby because I can test my own skills and my planes and heli's are an extension of myself. If things are just out flying by themselves, it really becomes an entirely different hobby. Less of a pilots hobby and more of a programmers. Just my two cents.

I'm enjoying the direction things are going as far as making it more accessible to beginners. Things like the ultra micros and better beginner helicopters are bringing new people into the hobby. The helicopter especially were out of reach of most people due to the complexity and difficulty. Now people are starting in the hobby with helicopters as much as they are with planes.

The park flyer surge in recent years has also been great for our hobby, opening up many more areas to flying that we would have been chased out of before.

Electric, brushless, lipo have also been great for us. I never wanted to get into planes because of the mess and fuss of nitro. I finally got a plane just as lipo's were just breaking through and it hooked me. Now I've gotten into nitro planes as a result of it.

I think that user friendly planes that don't require a phd do build and fly are the way of the future.
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
Batteries, I think they'll keep improving, getting lighter, more powerful, and longer flight times, to the point no one will even consider flying fuel anymore.

I agree, but at the same time I hope that there will always be fuel models. Electrics are great but they will never replace either the glow fuel or gas models. I do see advances in gas engines possibly making glow fuel obsolete. Still, scale modelers will always want to hear the roar of the engines. I know I enjoy it.
 

UndCon

UndCon
FPV is really cool - it adds a new dimension and many times I think it is plain boring just flying "regular" RC around the field.

Autonomous flights are something different and a separate route. It has nothing to do with FPV but adds more of programming into it. A program like AeroQuad, or Multiwii is running code where you pre-program a route.

Aerial photo and video is a mixture in between.

//UndCon
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
FPV is really cool - it adds a new dimension and many times I think it is plain boring just flying "regular" RC around the field.
//UndCon

I agree, it does get boring doing laps. I often wonder why I have a sport plane, but then I start trying to do precision manuevers at speed, things I shouldn't be able to do with it lol. I really enjoy 3D flying, and I'm always challenging myself with my big cub to do things like land on a certain spot or try short field take off and landings etc. I think if you aren't challenging yourself then it gets boring quickly. That pretty much goes for anything.
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
I think flying with other people is what keeps it interesting. You're always going to get bored once something gets easy, whether that's speed, aerobatics, gas, helis, amphibious, FPV etc.
 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
I agree, but at the same time I hope that there will always be fuel models. Electrics are great but they will never replace either the glow fuel or gas models. I do see advances in gas engines possibly making glow fuel obsolete. Still, scale modelers will always want to hear the roar of the engines. I know I enjoy it.
Glow has almost already been replaced by gas...as gas engines get smaller and cheaper...bye-bye glow and your $30/gal fuel prices!

For the most part, at least at my field of which electric is the minority, gas has already replaced glow. I would guesstimate that at my club field for airplanes, 70% is gas, 20% is glow and 10% is electric.
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
I noticed that almost anything over about a .90 is a gas motor now. All the big IMAC planes are running gas. I'm looking at converting some smaller planes as well now that they are making smaller gas engines.
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
I think flying with other people is what keeps it interesting. You're always going to get bored once something gets easy, whether that's speed, aerobatics, gas, helis, amphibious, FPV etc.

Couldn't have said it better. From staging friendly competitions to having a witness to your greatest crash, it's always better with friends.
 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
I noticed that almost anything over about a .90 is a gas motor now. All the big IMAC planes are running gas. I'm looking at converting some smaller planes as well now that they are making smaller gas engines.
Yeah, most commonly a 15cc gas engine is about as small as they come so far, 15cc = .90
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
"Couldn't have said it better. From staging friendly competitions to having a witness to your greatest crash, it's always better with friends. "

Not to mention CAUSING your friend's greatest crash (under the right circumstances)!:cool:
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
I hope it will become cheaper, and I hope there will be a super-cool looking jet but easy to fly, so beginners who go for the coolest looking plane will get a decent beginner plane....but I guess that's kinda impossible...
 

Shadow74

Multi-rotor madman
Couldn't have said it better. From staging friendly competitions to having a witness to your greatest crash, it's always better with friends.

I too agree that its fun with friends, but since building a quad and a tri......I fly literally everyday in my yard by myself, and they are just so much fun to fly that I really cant imagine getting bored. I have in the neighborhood 400+ flights on my quad, and just built my tri a few weeks ago and already have over 100 flights on it.....there still is just something amazing about seeing those things fly.....dont know if I will ever get over how cool they are. in fact I havent touched my airplanes, or my 450 heli once since starting to fly the multi's.

my two cents. :)

Cheers,

Eric
 

themajik1

Monkey/Bear Poker
Mentor
I think not only will the motors and batteries become better, more powerful and smaller, but I think there will be better systems to be able to fly without the worry of losing signal. More FPV and the like as well. Seems as though the tri and quad copters are also gaining a lot of steam right now so the stabilization of our planes and helis will improve.

I do hope that the cost continues to fall for the products we use in this hobby, as I continue to spend more and more. Would like to be able to see the costs continue the downward trend to have even more people in the hobby.
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
FPV and autopilots all the way.
FPV is almost mainstream as it is now.
I think soon we will see affordable one box FPV setups.

Autopilot and OSD systems are also becoming affordable.

We see new people almost every week who want to get into FPV- most have not flown even a trainer...
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Well, my question has officially been answered by Animal Planet! Watching the show, "Finding Bigfoot." Laugh, if you must, but there is nothing else on! The team of "researchers" has hired a "drone" to survey the Florida Swamps in search of the "skunk ape." The drone is an fpv flying wing. LOL!!!

Flying Monkey-Did you have anything to do with this? Ever seen a skunk ape?