One do-it-yourself enthusiast has made it his mission to build a drone-powered miniature Millennium Falcon, which is now making the rounds of the Internet and gathering oohs and aahs from the legions of Star Wars fans.
YouTube user Olivier C has posted videos of himself flying his radio-controlled custom quadcopter drone, which looks nearly identical to Han Solo's smuggler's spaceship, except for the four holes he cut into the ship's polystyrene frame to make space for the quadcopter's propellers.
Olivier even posted the full instructions on Reddit and Imgur for people who want to make their own Millennium Falcon drones.
He began with a piece of 20mm and 30mm polystyrene foam, which is heavier than the polypropylene used in most DIY projects, but also much stronger and easier to cut, he said.
Next, he laid out the pattern for the Falcon's basic shape, leaving out four big holes to make sure the host quadcopter's propellers do not hit the foam and putting the detailed pieces together using a regular hot-glue gun.
Olivier even cut the radio antenna into a square instead of the usual circular antenna dish that was part of the casualty when the Alliance assaulted the second unfinished Death Star in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The new Falcon that will appear in the upcoming movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a rectangular antenna. A rectangle makes for better aerodynamics.
To make the drone look even cooler, he fitted two 6-volt lights on the front of the Falcon and two LED strips, one in blue and one in white, attached to the Falcon's infamous curved thruster to produce a beautiful bluish-white effect. The last step was painting the drone with a light gray spray and a few brushes of weathering to add more detail.
The Falcon was then fitted into Olivier's host quadcopter, itself a custom build by Olivier. Normally, his 800-gram quadcopter carries a GoPro and is equipped with a video transmitter and GPS antenna to fly in first-person view, but Olivier had to remove all those extras to make room for the 350-gram Falcon hull.
Olivier says the drone is "slightly front-heavy" because of the addition of the lights and the shape of the frame, and it can only last five minutes airborne before needing a recharge. Still, it's one heck of a drone that will hopefully inspire other enthusiasts to build similar creations.
The next thing Olivier is planning on is a TIE Fighter, perhaps so it can go head to head with the Millennium Falcon in an epic galactic battle.
