Ardupilot for Powered Sailplane

Hello,

I am looking into putting the ardupilot into a powered sailplane. Will this work for a powered sailplane? If so, what is
better Ardupilot or Pixhawk? What model of powered sailplane do you recomend? The powered sailplane will be released from a weather balloon just before burst altitude and set up to maintain that altitude for a period of time so I can do some aerial photograpy of the earth and clouds.

thank you,

Michael Cote’

Yes, there are many powered sailplanes using Ardupilot. Not sure what you mean by “better Ardupilot or Pixhawk”? Ardupilot runs (among other hardware) on Pixhawk, which is the name of the flight controller hardware.

As to releasing it from a weather balloon this is a great yet very ambitious project, especially with most weather balloons bursting very high and well over typical “drone” flying altitudes.’ If you do not have prior experience with Ardupilot I would suggest months of training and flying, first with rc airplanes with and without Ardupilot. This will allow you to become familiar with flight controllers, sensors, and long distance radio gear (among other components) required for such a flight. As you become familiar with those your best choices for a sailplane will become more apparent. Depending on where you live you will also probably need special permits that may be difficult to obtain.

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