I used to be into R/C everything. Nitro cars, planes, helicopters. I can't imagine what would happen to my expensive toy if the app crashed while I was flying something and it took me a few seconds to get it back up... I would definitely use the buddy-box input.

Flying manually is probably more fun and challenging but this opens the door to another world. Consider if the RC device was better controlled by the software with auto correction like many commercial and military jets. This could allow for a much broader range of RC devices to be created that are much more difficult, if not impossible, to control.

It's still kind of sad all of these homebrew projects need to use the serial-port-from-headphoneJack hack to make it work.

Is there anyone out there that actually got a license from Apple to use the dock API that can talk about it? There are development boards you can get from companies like Cypress, but only if you're already in the program.

Considering how short the battery lifespan (or gas tank) of these RC devices are when in use, I don't think the battery consumption of the iPhone is going to cause any problems. The only issue I'm seeing is control. I'm pretty sure it's harder to be accurate with an iPhone than with a radio control, especially for such things as helicopters.

Using the tilt sensor for flight control? One sneeze and an expensive model is destroyed. If I have experience with traditional RC flight transmitters, I have muscle memory in my thumbs for flying, and I can't use that here. No snark intended, best of luck to the OP.

What happens if you receive a call mid flight? That seems like asking for trouble. Looks like an awesome device otherwise though!

This is what "airplane mode" is for.

Obvious in retrospect. Thanks!