I love DIY RC Flyers, great article, I will definitely keep reading.

This is the kind of stuff I was hoping I'd be reading in LJ.

Load Simple Message System in your Arduino and control it via linux (GUI via xmessage, or cmdline, or scripts, etc.) with the shellscript package SMS1.tgz from my website. 6chan 10bit AD is scaled to mV and formatted for import to OpenOffice or other spreadsheets. I am currently using reed relays connected directly to the 12 IO pins (elexp.com #22RD5, 5v/500ohm coil, 10+@ US$1.10 ea). Modular/expandable if you need more pins. Limit: length of USB cable.

http://hackaday.com/2008/10/05/ardupilot-pro-autopilot-drone/

Absolutely you should pursue this! I've been an aviation buff for as long as I can remember. In the 80s I started flying RC, and like you, I also have quite a collection of broken airplanes to prove it. In the 90s I earned my pilots license (fortunately, no broken airplanes here, knock on wood). I now have a day job as a linux network admin and a night job as a flight instructor.

Therefore, it's a given that the overlap between RC aviation and linux would be fascinating for me. An article (or better yet, a series of articles) on merging these two interests just might be enough to get me to break down my own LJ subscription instead of mooching off my coworkers :)

I'd like to see an article or series on RC and Linux. My father-in-law used to make beautiful RC planes, the larger scale ones with wingspans in the 6' range. He also has a large G-Scale Garden Railroad in his backyard. Connecting my Linux, hardware, software and programming interests with his model transportation interests would be fun.

Now if a auto-pilot program that includes take-off and landing could just make flying his planes foolproof, maybe we could dust some off and dare fly them with less fear of wrecking these museum quality planes he's built.