I'm envisioning that we get quite a few questions regarding remote controlled aircraft - how should we respond to these questions? Are the on topic? Or do we want to keep the site to only life-sized aircraft?
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$\begingroup$ Aircraft can be life-size and remote controlled, e.g. non- or semi-autonomous remote operated combat and surveillance vehicles (UAV or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), did you mean remote controlled scale-size / miniature model aircraft and other model aeronautics? $\endgroup$– TildalWaveDec 18, 2013 at 0:46
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$\begingroup$ I'm thinking hobbiest type stuff. $\endgroup$– UndoDec 18, 2013 at 0:57
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$\begingroup$ Thanks for clarification and I believe we have one agreeable answer. There used to be a proposal for RC Modeling that was closed in definition phase, similar happened once to Mechanical Engineering but is now proposed again, but some such questions could be catered over at Robotics too. ;) $\endgroup$– TildalWaveDec 18, 2013 at 1:10
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2 Answers
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I think they would be on-topic if the question is regulatory in nature, such as "can I fly this here?"
Questions about UAV's would almost certainly be on-topic since they are an important concern for pilots.
Questions about construction or operation of small RC airplanes/helicopters/quadcopters are probably outside the scope of this site since it's unlikely we'll maintain a solid base of experts in that area to answer those questions.
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5$\begingroup$ I would add that aerodynamic questions about UAV's would be almost identical to actual aircraft so should be encouraged as well. $\endgroup$ Dec 18, 2013 at 19:29
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2$\begingroup$ Agreed - if it's about aerodynamics, airfoils, control surfaces, regulation etc, it's all good. If it's about transmitters and servo's, perhaps not. A remotely controlled aircraft is still an aircraft and still involves aviation. $\endgroup$ Nov 24, 2014 at 11:55
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1$\begingroup$ A little late to the party, but I feel this is now more relevant than ever - drone development in the last couple of years has come on leaps and bounds, and they are now, moreso than 2-3 years ago, bound by FAA/CAA etc regulations. I'm of the opinion that we should just consider UAV/Drone/Model Aircraft to be under the remit of the sub now, to the same extent as we do any other aircraft (ie we probably don't deal with specifics of "how do I replace the battery") $\endgroup$ Sep 5, 2016 at 9:04
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I hope that Lnafziger doesn't mind if I quote their answer to "Are model airplanes on topic here?" (with a score of 9 as of this writing):
The site is about Aviation, and I think that model airplanes fit quite nicely here.
Questions about aerodynamics are virtually identical to larger scale aircraft, as well as regulatory type questions about where they can be flown.
I know a lot of pilots (as well as non-pilots) that fly model airplanes, and it would be great if the model aircraft community joined us here since there is a fair amount of overlap. The portion that is more specific can easily be handled with our tag system (in a way similar to Stack Overflow keeping different languages separate via tags).
I would suggest asking and seeing how it goes.