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| Introduction | |
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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Get Your Stuff | |
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| Introducing the Flack | |
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| Parts and Materials | |
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| Flight Simulator Controller | |
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| Radios | |
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| Motors | |
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| Batteries | |
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| Battery Connectors | |
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| Chargers and Power Supplies | |
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| Power Supplies | |
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| Servos | |
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| Airframe Materials | |
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| Tape | |
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| Cable Ties/Zip Ties | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| What Do All the Parts Do? | |
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| The Flight Cycle of a Flack | |
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| The Pilot | |
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| The Builder | |
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| The Airframe | |
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| The Wing | |
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| The Elevons | |
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| The Stabilizers | |
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| The Deck | |
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| The Transmitter | |
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| How the Transmitter Works | |
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| How to Control the Sticks | |
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| Mixing | |
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| Throttle | |
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| Rudder or Yaw Control | |
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| Trim Tabs | |
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| Rechargeable Batteries | |
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| The Receiver | |
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| How Servos Get Information | |
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| What the Radio Channels Do | |
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| Electronic Speed Control and the Battery Eliminator Circuit | |
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| Power Limitations of ESC and BEC | |
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| The Flight Battery | |
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| The Motor | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Building the Deck | |
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| Tools and Supplies | |
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| Charge Your Battery | |
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| The Deck | |
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| Fabricate the Deck | |
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| Attach Servos | |
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| Create the Motor Mount | |
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| Mount Propeller | |
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| Attach the Motor Mount to the Deck | |
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| Solder the Speed Control | |
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| Power Up the Airplane | |
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| Powering Down the Airplane | |
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| Securing Parts to the Deck | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| The Airframe of the Flack | |
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| The Airframe | |
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| Attaching the Control Rods to the Elevons | |
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| Attaching the Deck | |
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| Centering Controls | |
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| Establish Elevon Trim | |
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| Final Cleanup | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Learning to Fly One Crash at a Time: The Splinter Method | |
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| Safety | |
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| The Cone of Crashing Potential | |
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| Trim | |
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| Adjusting Trim | |
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| Flight Simulator Setup and Training | |
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| Incrementally Learning to Fly | |
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| Get a Helper/Partner/Friend to Help Out | |
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| Control Sensitivity | |
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| Crashes | |
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| Approach the Field Ready to Fly | |
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| Launching without Power | |
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| RC on Launch to Landing, No Power | |
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| RC on Launch and Landing, Low Power, Cut Throttle | |
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| RC on Launch and Landing, Increasing Power | |
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| Turning | |
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| The Wind | |
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| Overall Good Strategies for Learning to Fly | |
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| Skill Building | |
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| Precision Landing | |
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| Hit the Balloon | |
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| Fly in Stressful Situations | |
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| Aerobatics | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Keeping You and Your Airplane Alive: Diagnostics and Repair | |
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| Preflight Checklists of Use | |
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| The Brief Preflight in 3 Seconds: Servos, Up, Down, Left, Right, Power, Launch | |
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| More Complete Checklist for Aircraft of Questionable Integrity | |
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| Crash Kit | |
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| Basic Crash Kit | |
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| More Complete Crash Kit | |
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| Kinds of Repairs | |
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| The Big-Crash Postflight Inspection | |
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| More Specific Fixes | |
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| Completely Dead Airplane | |
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| Completely Dead Airplane: Rebind the Receiver | |
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| Completely Dead Airplane: ESC Not Sending Power to the Receiver | |
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| Completely Dead Airplane: Receiver/Servo | |
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| Completely Dead Airplane: Transmitter | |
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| Water Immersion | |
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| Servos Operate But Motor Does Not | |
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| Evaluating Motor Damage | |
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| Symptom: Motor Has Weak Thrust | |
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| Motor Vibrates | |
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| Motor Gets Very Hot | |
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| Motor Doesn't Work at All | |
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| Battery Damage | |
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| Highly Suspect Battery | |
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| Check Battery Pack | |
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| Battery Disposal | |
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| Servo Damage | |
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| Servo Not Moving | |
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| Servo Arms Are No Longer Vertical When Trim Tabs Are Centered | |
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| Busted Servo Arm | |
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| Broken Propeller | |
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| Kinds of Prop Damage | |
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| Flutter | |
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| Poor Radio Connection | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Make Your Plane Look Good for Day Flying | |
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| General Considerations to Keep in Mind | |
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| Examples | |
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| Mouse: Avery Stick-on Labels and Sharpies | |
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| Purple Monster: Wrapping Paper | |
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| Big Pink Angst: Fresnel-Lens Plastic | |
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| Silver Shark: Plastic Film 2 | |
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| Brooklyn Aerodrome Orange Plane (BAOP) Paint on Foam | |
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| Blue Angel and Others in Printed Tyvek | |
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| Flying Heart: Sign Vinyl | |
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| Firefly: Balloon Film | |
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| Decorating with Tape | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Make Your Plane Look Good at Night | |
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| Overall Considerations | |
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| Major Ways to Illuminate Aircraft | |
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| Color at Night | |
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| Electroluminescent Wire | |
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| How El-Wire Works | |
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| Powering El-Wire | |
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| Soldering an Inverter for BEC Power | |
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| Soldering El-Wire | |
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| Stripping the El-Wire | |
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| Soldering the El-Wire to Male Header Pins | |
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| Simple Decoration | |
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| LED-Based Approaches | |
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| Single-Point LEDs | |
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| Strip LEDs | |
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| High-Power LEDs and Fiberoptics | |
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| Other Illumination Options | |
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| Weight Considerations | |
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| BEC-Powered Lighting | |
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| Robustness | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Other Shapes | |
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| Inorganic Produce | |
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| Banana | |
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| Carrot | |
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| Strawberry | |
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| Flying Heart | |
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| SketchUp Is Your Friend | |
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| Travel Flack | |
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| Bat | |
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| Crystal Towel | |
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| Semi-Circle | |
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| Manta Ray | |
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| Design | |
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| Evolving the Moving Fins | |
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| The Radio | |
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| The Build | |
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| Flying | |
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| 3D Banana | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Aerodynamics for the Hacker | |
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| Lift | |
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| Conditions for Lift: Positive Aerodynamic Angle of Attack and Airflow | |
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| Lift, Part 1 | |
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| Lift, Part 2 | |
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| Pitch, Roll, and Yaw | |
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| Center of Gravity (CG) | |
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| Reflex and Flying Wings | |
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| Reasoning about Lift | |
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| Drag | |
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| Glide Ratio | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Hack the Flack: Make and Fly Your Own Design | |
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| Getting the Idea | |
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| Prototyping | |
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| A Plank | |
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| Designing and Building a Novel Design | |
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| Blinding the Powered Version | |
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| Scaling Up from the Glider Proof of Concept | |
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| Structural Considerations | |
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| Placing Equipment | |
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| Flight Testing | |
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| New Shapes by Morphing Old Ones | |
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| Incremental Refinement | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Simulators, Autopilots, Video, and Buddy Boxing | |
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| Flight Simulators | |
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| Flying Model Simulator (EMS) | |
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| CRRCsim | |
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| Autopilots | |
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| Copilot CPD4 | |
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| Full Autopilot | |
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| Video from the Air | |
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| Passive Video | |
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| First-Person Video (FPV) | |
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| Buddy Boxing a.k.a. Student Driving for Pilots | |
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| Hacking the Transmitters for Buddy Boxing | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Index | |