Hexacopter

Initially I though that the following really cool link forwarded to me by Adrian G3VJM had nothing to do with amateur radio

http://www.flixxy.com/hexacopter-rc-helicopter.htm

which is an absolute "MUST WATCH".

However a write up in IEEE spectrum http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/quadcopter-hexacopter-octocopter-uavs suggests that it does have significant electronics interest.

"Five years ago few people had even heard of Quadcopters (also called Quadricopters or Quadrotors). Now they seem to be everywhere, from university labs and hobbyists to UAV competitions and commercial platforms. What happened?

"According to a recent Robots Podcast interview with Joshua Portlock, manager of the CyberQuad project at Australia's Cyber Technology, what happened is a classical case of an enabling technology being driven by the consumer market. Fast, precise and affordable accelerometers are a key technology for Quadcopters. Their development was initially driven by their use for airbags in cars, and now increasingly by their use in consumer devices such as mobile phones."

There is some more information here http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/HexaKopter.

Cost works out between €700 and €1200.

Stewart/G3YSX