🚀 go-pugleaf

I am also interested in building a hovering robot.  A posting over the net
a while ago discussed the First International Aerial Robotics Competition
sponsored by the Assoc. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (202) 371-1170 and held
at Georgia Inst. Tech. in Atlanta around July 26.  Contact Robert Michelson
at (404) 528-7568 for more details.  Mainly it is a competition between 10
universities across the U.S. (& U.K.) to build an autonomous flying vehicle
that can perform a repetitive, retrieval task without manual aid in a given
time period.  I expect these designs to be more expensive than you are interested in

I have been looking at electric helicopters.  They cost ~$800 ready-to-fly,
are very difficult to fly manually, brittle, and dangerous.  However, with a few
robotic servos, these problems may be overcome.  The July 1991 issue of MODEL 
BUILDER reviews the Kalt Whisper electric helicopter.  There is also a Kyosho
EP Concept  (EP stands for Electric Power).  Both helicopters are about the same
price and have about a 37 in blade.  

The Electric Power column on pp 24-26 mentions a Kyosho Hughes 300 electric
helicopter with a 23-in rotor, that can be flown inside of a garage.  This is
on p. 26 in the last section.  In the first paragraph of the article on p. 24, 
the author mentions a company that sells electric parts...I have not been able to
to reach them yet.

Finally, if you can find helicopter model, electric, small, about 23 in rotor
under $500...with a protector ring on the rotor and still able to carry about
4 - 10 oz of additional electronics, I have an interesting design for making
it autonomous for under ~$500 in components.  But I have not seen anyone do it ye
yet, so I imagine there are a lot of people out there looking for the same thing.


Oh, one other...the MIT Robotics Lab has robotics competitions and they have
flown a robotic blimp...you may want to contact them.  

Please post any more hovering info that you uncover.

Good Luck.

Hank