The airplane is still in it's beginning stages, pictured below is the airplane I intend to use for the project. It is a Senior TeleMaster distributed by Hobby-Lobby ( www.hobby-lobby.com ), the airplane has a wingspan of 96" and can be powered by an engine as small as .46 cubic inches. Currently mounted to the plane is a Saito 1.20 cu. inch four-stroke engine which will be removed shortly. This engine was used for the airplanes previous life of glider towing and launching. 

I had previously fixed up an older version of Citabria airplane, this plane was quite similar to the Tele-master but was a much larger, lazier, and also quite unstable flying airplane. The Citabria is powered with a Zenoah G38 which is a 38 cubic centimeter gasoline powered engine. This engine and the mounting hardware alone weighed over 3.5 pounds, while the Citabria had a wider wing at 112" inches the wing had no dihedral angle. The dihedral angle is very important for self-righting characteristics and also flight stability. In the picture above of the telemaster it is quite easy to see the dihedral angle. Pictured below is the fuselage of the Citabria in it's rack above the telemaster, the telemaster is not all that smaller of a package and yet weighs only a third of the weight which will be reduced furthermore when the large engine is removed. The flat-bottomed wing of the Citabria is directly above it with the yellow and black paint. 

Many people when I tell them that I am developing this GPS guidance project say well you can go in the back of Model Aviation and buy a unit that will do the very same thing I am trying to accomplish. True, but many of these units use Gyros for stability. Gyro = $$$$  That is about as plain as it can be put. The average gyro costs anywhere from $80-200, those units being sold commercially cost for a basic package $1000 currently. What I am trying to develop is a simple and cheap solution to GPS guidance. Seeing as the Gyro is where the money goes for the guidance system then why not just eliminate the gyro? I currently intended to use a self-leveling unit developed and marketed by FMA Direct ( www.fmadirect.com ) , the unit is called the co-pilot. It is a simple idea packaged into a small unit that mounts to the underside or top of your airplane. It is a small cube that contains four sensors, these sensors measure the difference between the temperature of the atmosphere and the earth. It comes with a small control unit that goes between the receiver in the airplane and the servos for the ailerons and the elevator. The co-pilot senses the difference in the temperature and makes small corrections to the attitude of the airplane many times a second providing level flight. Below is a picture of the co-pilot on top of its manual, as pictured the unit is only 1-3/8" inches square and weighs nearly nothing at all. 

I originally intended to use the Pilot Assist Link made by Futaba, their unit works on the difference in light. Their unit is subject to less then desired operation when over water or when the sun is low on the horizon. The Charleston Stoneflyers are located next to Lake Charleston and we are directly on the Charleston Side Channel (Embarrass River). I felt it a bad idea to use their unit for this reason. 

Currently I intended to mount a small board camera in the airplane itself looking forward and down, using an amateur television transmitter I will be able to see where the airplane is flying for approximately 4-5 miles. To power the extra accessories I am installing an on-board generator made by Genesys and distributed by Towerhobbies ( www.towerhobbies.com ) . Also planned is a packet radio that will send location information back to a laptop computer running mapping software. The computer to run all of this will be a PicStic4 distributed by Micromint (www.micromint.com ). If you have any further questions please email at mklarich@stoneflyers.com .  I will be making constant updates to this page as I am just starting work on this project.