User:RandyRostie/Unmanned aerial vehicle

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, can also be referred to as remotely piloted aircraft, or Drones, especially in the case of military UAVs. The FAA has classified them as unmanned aircraft (UA) More common names include UAV, drone, remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and remotely operated aircraft (ROA).

Remotely piloted aircraft are one of two types:


 * Fixed Wing (IE. military drones)
 * Rotarcraft

The most commonly seen amateur UAVs are rotarcraft, usually quadcopters which have 4 rotors, but can also be hexacopter and octocopter with 6 or 8 rotors, when the UAV has a heavier load, like an SLR camera.

Advanced remote controlled aircraft
An additional class of r/c airplanes is referred to as toy-class.

More advanced r/c aircraft are controlled via microcontrollers, like first-person view airplanes (FPV,) that are controlled similar to military drones, with a remote viewer that shows the forward video output from the aircraft.

They come with various advanced features, like auto-pilot, GPS, barometer altimeter, air speed sensors, lock to altitude, lock to heading, direct to (programmed,) waypoints.

See Toy-class RC aircraft