MISSION TO MARS
The success of Ingenuity, otherwise known as the “Mars helicopter,” has united the world in celebration of a unique event in the history of aviation: the first powered flight by an aircraft on another world. Even the staid International Civil Aeronautics Organization got in on the act, designating the bare patch of Martian soil where the historic series of flights took place with its own three-letter airport code: IGY. Elon Musk has yet to announce when regular passenger service might begin, but at least now you will know what code to look for on the departure board.
It’s a heady moment in the history of flight, but for readers of RotorDrone Pro, there was something distinctly familiar about the entire episode. Strip away the exotic location and adaptations to fly in the rarefied and frigid atmosphere of Mars, and you are a left with a perfectly familiar small uncrewed aircraft system (sUAS)—and not an especially sophisticated one, at that.
TAKE IT FOR A SPIN
To begin with, Ingenuity’s coaxial propeller configuration is well known to remote pilots from lowcost helicopter models widely sold on Amazon for less than $50 by brands like Syma and Cheerwing. These are great aircraft for beginning pilots because they are inherently stable. Also, they can carry a greater payload than other types of rotorcraft with a comparable power source. Both traits are also much in demand on the red planet.
In addition, because the blades rotate in opposite directions, they cancel out the torque effects of one another on
