While we’ve all been offering our opinions on drones over the past couple of years, admiring their ability to be used as aerial photographers whilst also being concerned that they are now being equipped with police tasers, YouTuber gasturbine101 set about answering a question none of us were asking: could enough drones be attached together that they could successfully create a makeshift helicopter capable of carrying a human?
The answer is “yes,” though with the caveat that it didn’t actually carry him very far. The YouTuber combined 54 counter-rotation propellers with six grouped control channels with KK2.15 stabilization, which carried a take off weight of approximately 148kg. The drone copter is able to fly for up to 10 minutes at a time, though a video of it taking off shows it falling to the floor a number of times and never really gaining a great deal of height.
The YouTuber admitted that a big flaw with the drone copter is that the “large number of props running at high speed means the net torque reactions are relatively low, so the craft has little yaw authority,” with him adding: “It probably needs a tail rotor for spot turns.”
Regardless of this not exactly being a a highly effective method of transport, it’s undoubtedly impressive that this guy even managed to get himself off the ground using his DIY helicopter. However, there was a safety risk that presented itself, namely gasturbine101 being in such close proximity to multiple spinning blades. To prevent a nasty accident, he attached a polycarbonate dome above his head, commenting that this also meant that it “doubles as a rain shelter.”
Watch the video below:
