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Comment by ambicapter | Hacker News Reader

I wonder at what point you put in a flight control computer. I could imagine with a plane that size it's easy to put some big forces on it with heavy inputs.

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It essentially already has one. Probably only self-levelling, but has some extra programming like delayed flaps, wheel-up sequence (first up the wheels, then close the doors), blackbox feature, etc. Likely using a version of Ardupilot [1] that's already in use by everyone. Maybe INav [2], but I'd wager on the former. There's more than one computer in there, too. The receiver is likely double-redundant (2 receivers, each with 2 separate receiver circuits, one 900MHz, the other 2.4GHz). I have planes costing 400 EUR that have dual-bandwidth redundant receivers (costs 40 EUR, a joke).

ELRS (radio), Ardupilot (Flight Controller), EdgeTX (Radio OS), and Mission Control (Ground Station SW) are serious tools used by many in the hobby. Them being open means there's a lot of competition and a lot of features. But also not amazing UX :)

[1] https://ardupilot.org/ [2] https://inavflight.github.io/

INAV is a hot mess, I would recommend against it unless you like beta testing stuff in flight. They don't really have a good SW development process, which kind of surprised me. Betaflight is good for Quads (it nominally also supports some other vehicle types but it is pretty clear where the focus is) and for fixed wing or more complex or strange vehicles I'd use Arducopter or dRehmFlight.

> But also not amazing UX :)

This sounds exactly like the sort of business I would want to build :D

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