Aerospace Garage

Upskill / Avionics and Flight Deck Systems / Drones in depth 2: how drones fly and what they are made of

Drones in depth 2: how drones fly and what they are made of

Thrust and control, the flight controller and its sensors, motors, propellers and batteries, airframes and materials, radio links, and what automation and fail-safes can and cannot do. Part 2 of the Drones in depth series.

By Aerospace Garage Desk · In practice · 45 minutes · 24 narrated pages

What you will be able to do

  • ✓ Explain how multirotors, fixed-wing drones and VTOL hybrids make thrust and are controlled, and why control margin matters.
  • ✓ Describe what the inertial unit, GNSS and RTK, barometer, magnetometer and vision sensors contribute, and isolate common sensor faults on site.
  • ✓ Build a hover-power, flight-time and battery budget that allows for altitude, mass, reserve, temperature and ageing.
  • ✓ Read a drone specification sheet critically: motors, propellers, batteries, airframe materials, protection ratings and link range.
  • ✓ Plan link and lost-link settings, and state what return-to-home, geofencing, flight termination and redundancy can and cannot do.
  • ✓ Run a pre-flight technical check and apply the battery transport limits before a trip.

Course content

Session 1 · Lift, thrust and control

1.1

  1. Thrust from moving air · free preview
  2. How a multirotor steers
  3. Fixed-wing control surfaces, and hybrids that use both
  4. Worked example: a hover-power budget at two thousand eight hundred metres
Session 2 · The flight controller and its sensors

1.2

  1. The inertial unit and the control loop
  2. Satellite navigation and RTK
  3. Barometer, magnetometer, vision and sensor fusion
  4. Worked example: a drifting hover beside the hangar
Session 3 · Propulsion and power: motors, propellers and batteries

1.3

  1. Brushless motors and speed controllers
  2. Propellers: size, pitch and damage
  3. Lithium batteries: capacity, discharge, temperature and ageing
  4. Worked example: sizing the battery for a twenty-five-minute job
Session 4 · Airframes and materials

1.4

  1. Composites and the drone airframe
  2. Vibration, fasteners and folding joints
  3. Weather, water and protection ratings
  4. Worked example: transport and the pre-flight technical check
Session 5 · Command-and-control and video links

1.5

  1. Radio links: frequencies and what they carry
  2. Range, latency and what the spec sheet means
  3. Interference, link loss and what the aircraft does next
  4. Worked example: planning the link and lost-link settings for the new hangar
Session 6 · Autonomy levels and fail-safes

1.6

  1. Levels of automation, from stick to mission
  2. Return-to-home, geofencing and their limits
  3. Flight termination and redundancy
  4. From the investigation file: the fly-away over Poole

Who this course is for

  • Technicians and engineers who will look after a drone fleet and need to know what is inside it
  • Drone pilots moving into job planning who must budget power, batteries and radio links themselves
  • Managers commissioning drone work who want to read a specification sheet critically

You need: Drones in depth 1: types, classes and choosing the right drone, or working drone experience.

Upskill courses are for professional development and are not approved by any aviation authority. Learner Terms

Course content © Aerospace Garage Limited. All rights reserved.