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FIrst Time Flying Virtual Aircraft

The ERAU ARVL experience was a first for me.  I was excited to fly the different UAVs in a virtual world but disappointed because it felt cheap.  The camera become choppy and unusable during the hiker search and the aircraft would randomly explode in air shortly after takeoff.  At first this was funny but once it kept happening it became silly.

Each of the aircraft I had flown handled just as I had imagined!  The fixed wing aircraft had great range and could not take take tight turns or obviously hover like a rotary wing.  The Octorotor was fast as I had imagined and a little touchy on the controls.  This the fun to fly the aircraft and move the camera at the crash site simultaneously.

Some features I wish this ARVL had was better autonomy and realism.  In many UAS missions for gathering data, routes are predetermined and data is gathered autonomously to create an orthgram for analysis.  I think adding this feature to the ARVL, simulating the aircraft we designed to gather data at various angles, and displaying our information in viewing software for analysis would have been a good experience.

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