AHHA !!!! moments--AW Crap(@&#$%&) Share yours with the group

[L Edge]

3 EVENTS:

1) Looking for things non-existing, came up trying to design a plane that had no surface controls that were actually cut and taped for aileron, elevator and rudder. Enter the thrust vectoring nozzle, now add two 70 mmEDF's and you can roll your plane, do elevator with both up or down and differential thrust gives you yaw.

Designed a China J-20 and took a flight without any cut control surfaces. AHHA, wow, am I happy!!!
Took another flight and Crap - AW CRAP blew the blades out of the fan- okay shut, down and glide Duh--no controls at all

2) Thought about another approach for a plane, what about putting servos in the leading edge and then mounting motor/prop so the servo arm becomes elevons and differential thrust becomes yaw. So I made an airfoil wing, put a set of vertical fins on it (to get CG right) so it can take off vertical, fly around and land. AHHA!!! sounds good. First flight perfect, Second not so good. Props struck ground, tore the heck out of servo. I'll fix that, when landing, use switch that flips servo upwards so prop doesn't touch. Tried 3 more landings, broken props, sheared gears in $60 servos, AW CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why this video was so long is when you design something new, explore the flight envelope when you can.

3) Came up for a 2 FER 1. Now into bicopter VTOL. Use the framework(from problem 2) and do your take off and landing vertical. Enter learning about Flight Controllers. Programmed it, so got it too takeoff, hover and land in cellar. AHHA----wait a minute, FC gyro drifts and it gets worse as it stays in air. AW CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you evaluate 3, what other makes it go AH CRAP?


Your turn is next. Give your story(ies)

 

[PsyBorg]

This is a cool idea for a thread. Surprised no one else has posted. I don't have video of it the exact moment it happened but the first time I flew one of my quads I was tuning and I "felt" what "Locked in" was truly like. That epiphany of fully understanding why these need to be tuned and set up as individuals and not copy paste someone elses settings or that whole new trend of "stock settings are fine" really hit home how much safer flying had just become.

Its like remembering riding your friends home made go cart as a kid and how wobbly and lose it was compared to the first time you drove a performance car that felt like riding on a cloud at crazy high speeds.


The next was flying around wild life (without the intention of harassing it) and seeing how they interact with your aircraft. I have experienced the Blue Jay with babies in the nest coming after my FT Gremlin because I was zooming around under the tree line where they had nested. I have also had the McDonald land happy pigeons (AKA seagulls) think they owned the park persistently and aggressively stalking my quad.

I have also had the experience of people telling me the smaller birds residing at the park were following and mimicking my flights including doing the big power loops and snappy rolls while I was out trying to learn "flowing freestyle" flight.

Then finally the rare occasion that a young hawk thought my quad would make a good lunch and tried desperately to catch it as I was running low on battery trying to avoid it and get back to my take off area. I made light of this in the commentary but I was seriously trying to get away from it not harass it.