FT What Did You Do RC Today : Caution Offtopic At All Times

[mrjdstewart]

I'm super excited about what we did today. Successful maiden flight of a U of MN project that has been in the works for more than 2 years. This is officially (by far) the biggest and heaviest aircraft I've piloted. It is a 1/2 scale X-56 with precisely scale external lines. It has a 14' wing span, all composite construction, twin EDF's for power, just shy of 40 lbs. We have a brand new winch launch system that we were also maidening today. I made a video that shows more of the airplane, the winch, the launch, and the flight. For anyone curious, the purpose of this project is to collect real world data on flexible wings and develop anti-flutter control strategies. Each wing has 6 control surfaces (plus two motors and retractable landing gear) so that's what 15 channels? Because of the amount of sensors all through the airframe, this system is way beyond the capability of a pixhawk so we developed our own modular/expandable flight control (and data collection) system based on the teensy boards and a beaglebone as the main flight computer. I could talk for paragraphs here, but instead let me just show the video:

The landing smacked in a little hard! I was full up elevator and had plenty of airspeed, but not much happened. We touched down at about 7 mps (15-16 mph) above our predicted stall speed and were flying slower than our touchdown speed at times during the flight. I think for the next flight we need to boost the up elevator throws a bit. The flight consisted of some basic checkouts, dialing in full flaps slowly and then dialing them back out, dialing in full wing shaping inputs and then back out, and then we did one run where we wiggle the control surfaces in a specific way and measure the response of the aircraft. If you hear "joker" in the video, that's our flight test code for hitting low battery. We set the mark very conservatively so we could do a couple go arounds if needed, but I got her in on the first try. Anyway, did I mention I was super excited. These are the moments!

very cool.

i gotta ask, what kind of setup are you using?

what EDF's, ESC, Battery voltage?

great job,

me

 

[mrjdstewart]

I did this for most of the afternoon with no crashes at all today........STILL cant land properly with 55+ Degree camera tilt

that was cool flying. i'm just dipping feet in to the quads and the landing is what kills me. i can't seem to find the right angle on the FPV cam that will allow me to fly, and still be able to see the ground when landing.

what do you do?

i'm almost to the point that i'm going to start approach in FPV, then go into a stable hover, remove my goggles, and fly in LOS to landing.

thoughts?

me

 

[IcedStorm777]

I have some RC parts for sale for really cheap prices or for trade for pretty much anything RC. Please take a look and don't hesitate to offer a trade or a cash deal as i am not looking for a ton for these. I would LOVE to trade for any electronics or anything that i could use to build the stock FT dart.

https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...-motors-props-servos-gimmicks-and-more.58559/

 

[clolsonus]

very cool.

i gotta ask, what kind of setup are you using?

what EDF's, ESC, Battery voltage?

great job,

me

I didn't setup the system or spec our the electronics myself, my coworker did all that. It is a 12S system, supposedly way over kill on the ESC's. I'm not in the lab tomorrow, but if I remember on Friday I can take a look and report back. According to the math it's enough power to cliimb at 1500 fpm (all up weight is about 40 lbs.) We fired up one motor in the lab and it screamed ... and we had papers flying all over the place, shelves crashing down, drywall delaminating (I might be exaggerating slightly.) The EDF's look small, but the push out a lot of air.

 

[PsyBorg]

that was cool flying. i'm just dipping feet in to the quads and the landing is what kills me. i can't seem to find the right angle on the FPV cam that will allow me to fly, and still be able to see the ground when landing.

what do you do?

i'm almost to the point that i'm going to start approach in FPV, then go into a stable hover, remove my goggles, and fly in LOS to landing.

thoughts?

me

Im pushing 60 degree camera tilt. There is no seeing the ground unless you are moving and over 50% throttle hehe.

If you watch when I land I come back and do circles letting off the throttle until I am close enough to the ground to dis arm with out damage.

As for starting out 25 degree camera tilt is a happy spot. Thats the range most freestyle pilots do.

The more you fly fpv the better spacial awareness gets. Landing is not so hard in short time.

Just slow the quad best you can and be as low as you can and disarm. Usually a drop from 12 or so inches isnt going to do any damage. Just remember to switch air mode off or disarm before you touch down or the quad gets all hoppy and bounce a bit.

 

[Vimana89]

Mild to moderate breeze with intermittent small gusts here. Not ideal, but not the blustering Santa Anna wind I tried to fly in yesterday. I think maybe now would be a good time to learn to fly with a bit of wind resistance. Also, my poll for next project closed. Dash 8 twin engine airliner won! That's going to be some work and learning. I will render it as simple in FB as possible while still having a faithful profile and dimensions.

 

[Vimana89]

Back from first flights in mild wind and it's going a lot better. I worked a good bit of high alpha in, and hovered against the wind a bit.I did some short launch and landing circuits(which were all a bit off because of the wind and my lack of skill). Overall, went well.

 

[Vimana89]

Experimenting with an 850 next. I hope it doesn't mess my wing loading up and adds wind resistance. Skinny Minnie and the RETjet have been using these cheapo 550s that weigh 2.5 oz and run out really fast. I weighed my dead over discharged tattu 650 also 75c and it weighed 2oz and was slimmer. I think I need to buy more of those. My tattu 850 weighs in at just under 3 oz so if it works should give me much more run time than my current setup. I will also experiment with on board video soon! My mini cam is small and light and one little patch of Velcro will do it.

 

[Vimana89]

850 works fine. A tiny bit more sluggish on pitch, but not much difference, other than it clocks in at about 7 minutes flight time. I don't think I even get more than four if that from these 550s that only weigh like half an ounce less. Breeze is less but still here and there, so I'm going to fly as much as I can. I'll be switching from Minnie to the RETjet on the next round of battery charges. I think I'm going to get some footage of my drocon blue bugs three quad and little micro 2ch plane.

 

[mrjdstewart]

biggest complaint i have read about this plane is the gear don't come down. pages of woe about maiden flights that were perfect until prep for landing. then the inevitable story of damage from belly landing, or even worse, attempting to land with 1 gear down.

i had assumed this to probably be a combo of poor setup and cheap HK parts. turns out i was right. i did my programing first, then started to tune the gear. they initially were working perfect and i was just slowly adjusting the servo distance. then, of course, one stopped working.

by this time of the build i had a pretty good idea of where to start. in their infinite wisdom HK decided to use a junction box for the servo leads instead of using y-plugs. i just knew that something had to be wrong there. regrettably i was fresh out of y-plugs so i had to amazon some and wait.

got to actually work on the plane today and replaced all of the box with 4 y-plugs. amazingly, now everything works all of the time.

cant wait to fly it. looks like my 3 maiden saturday is looking pretty solid. cross fingers....

laters,

me

 

[Vimana89]

Had quite a few decent hours of mild to still breeze today and did a ton of flying. Here's the best of the best of my footage from today. Three planes and a quad, hope you enjoy!

This here is the absolute best landing I've ever done at the end of this flight. I don't mean to...ah what the heck*toot toot toot!!* this is the sickest landing ever! check it out!

Here's some loopy shenannigans with the RETjet!

Drocon Blue Bugs 3 quad(no cam, no altuitude hold, headless, GPS, etc.) Bit rusty from flying so much fixed wing.

Fly Bear 805 ultra micro twin engine 2ch, $27 well spent.

 

[PsyBorg]

Got up to a beautiful sunny near zero wind day. Packed up gear walked out back and set up a track.

Instantly the winds came up making the flag across the street stand straight out. Bills Law was just warming up!

Flew some packs anyways and by the third pack the winds tossed my flags around so much it wore a hole in the top so the flag slid down the poke into a pile at the base. Quick fix with a few zip ties and on to the next pack.

Winds changed direction and kept pushing me into the gates ended up killing a few props.

Gave up on gates decided to work on figure 8s around my two big flags as fast and low as possible until the fpv view started gettin fuzzy really fast. I knew the lens worked loise and would soon fall out so put it down as fast n gentle as possible under total blind conditions. Lucked out lens was still on the camera but the lock ring was split. Probably from the last gate crash. Dont carry spares so that was that.

Packed up everything big. Grabbed my goggles, unpluged power, unpluged video to dvr wire and promptly heard the connector in the goggles fall loose and roll around inside the goggles.

So needless to say will be doing fixes tonight so hopefully all will be back to normal tomorrow.

REALLY REALLY REALLY have to stop waking up happy. It all goes down hill from there. 😂

 

[Vimana89]

Got up to a beautiful sunny near zero wind day. Packed up gear walked out back and set up a track.

Instantly the winds came up making the flag across the street stand straight out. Bills Law was just warming up!

Flew some packs anyways and by the third pack the winds tossed my flags around so much it wore a hole in the top so the flag slid down the poke into a pile at the base. Quick fix with a few zip ties and on to the next pack.

Winds changed direction and kept pushing me into the gates ended up killing a few props.

Gave up on gates decided to work on figure 8s around my two big flags as fast and low as possible until the fpv view started gettin fuzzy really fast. I knew the lens worked loise and would soon fall out so put it down as fast n gentle as possible under total blind conditions. Lucked out lens was still on the camera but the lock ring was split. Probably from the last gate crash. Dont carry spares so that was that.

Packed up everything big. Grabbed my goggles, unpluged power, unpluged video to dvr wire and promptly heard the connector in the goggles fall loose and roll around inside the goggles.

So needless to say will be doing fixes tonight so hopefully all will be back to normal tomorrow.

REALLY REALLY REALLY have to stop waking up happy. It all goes down hill from there. 😂

Spontaneous heavy winds are extremely annoying.I used to just completely dread any wind and now I'm better at recognizing how much wind I can work with before control is just impossible and how to work with the wind to enhance my flight rather than be an obstacle. Just yesterday I finally got the courage to fly in some wind and get a feel for it(first time since I lost a whole plane to some nasty Santa Anna winds). Today I tried it again with a modest wind, and really had a blast. No cam, no pressure to get good footage, just me and my little slender delta learning to operate in the wind. My favorite thing was hovering on high alpha, keeping my roll axis steady and just hanging there like a kite on high AOA into the wind, then breaking out with a little throttle and nose-down, turning to ride the tail wind in a quick circuit, and swinging around into the wind to hover again. I'll do a vid of this some time when I get really good at it.

 

[LitterBug]

Fortunately for me, I have a the Nation museum of the U.S. Air force < 1hr away on days like that..... https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

I did manage to autotune one of my baby tris in the back yard the other day with 30kt gusts.
https://dronin-autotown.appspot.com...hdXRvdG93bnIYCxILVHVuZVJlc3VsdHMYgICAuqiEjwoM

 

[Vimana89]

Fortunately for me, I have a the Nation museum of the U.S. Air force < 1hr away on days like that..... https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

I did manage to autotune one of my baby tris in the back yard the other day with 30kt gusts.
https://dronin-autotown.appspot.com...hdXRvdG93bnIYCxILVHVuZVJlc3VsdHMYgICAuqiEjwoM

View attachment 130973

Really nice. 15 minutes from me downtown, I learned there is a place(distinctly remember passing by as a kid), near plant 42 where they have on display an SR-71, a D-21, a U-2, and an A-12. I'll have to go check it out some time! http://www.afftcmuseum.org/blackbird-airpark

 

[LitterBug]

Really nice. 15 minutes from me downtown, I learned there is a place(distinctly remember passing by as a kid), near plant 42 where they have on display an SR-71, a D-21, a U-2, and an A-12. I'll have to go check it out some time! http://www.afftcmuseum.org/blackbird-airpark

Yeah, all that plus more at this place. Looks like they are very similar museums.

There is a YF-12 on display with a D-21 in the "x" plane section, but their A-12 is not currently out. SR-71 and U2 are in a different hanger since they were "active". "X" planes all grouped together at one end of a hanger.

YF-12

D-21

SR-71

B-2

U-2 above Hustler

Easy to kill a whole day in this place...

 

[JTarmstr]

Yeah, all that plus more at this place. Looks like they are very similar museums.

There is a YF-12 on display with a D-21 in the "x" plane section, but their A-12 is not currently out. SR-71 and U2 are in a different hanger since they were "active". "X" planes all grouped together at one end of a hanger.
View attachment 130986

YF-12
View attachment 130987

D-21 View attachment 130988

SR-71
View attachment 130989
B-2

U-2 above Hustler
View attachment 130991

Easy to kill a whole day in this place...

I want to visit the museum at Wright Patterson at some time. Never had a chance to make it to that part of the country yet.

 

[Vimana89]

I've been flying my slender delta super slow and doing a lot of high alpha, it looks almost impossible a plane that skinny can fly so slow and steady, like its defying gravity, and fly at extreme angles of attack, but its not magic, its just science! The extreme sweep creates a massive amount of vortex lift, the effect of which is amplified at high AOA. I've also been messing around with learning more precise throttle management, and pulled off a "hammerhead" stall-turn a couple times. Even with a single engine and RET setup which negates the ability to do a proper barrel roll, this plane is very nimble and aerobatic. At this point I could fly it in a high school gym sized indoor setting no prob. If somebody were to build an advanced, clean version with elevons, rudder, some type of thrust vectoring, perhaps a gyro stabilizer, there would hardly be anything that plane couldn't do.

 

[Vimana89]

Yeah, all that plus more at this place. Looks like they are very similar museums.

There is a YF-12 on display with a D-21 in the "x" plane section, but their A-12 is not currently out. SR-71 and U2 are in a different hanger since they were "active". "X" planes all grouped together at one end of a hanger.
View attachment 130986

YF-12
View attachment 130987

D-21 View attachment 130988

SR-71
View attachment 130989
B-2

U-2 above Hustler
View attachment 130991

Easy to kill a whole day in this place...

Loving it. They have a really huge variety! That Hustler up close, what a rare bird with the four engine delta design. Love those cold war era classics.

 

[mrjdstewart]

all 3 maidens went off without a hitch.

bf-109 is a wonderful flyer but a beast to land, the goblin is just stupid fast as always, and the super-b flew right out of my hand.

on the first flight with the 109 i did all my usual trimming, did a quick bomb drop, then started to line up for landing. i typically don't use any flaps on the first flight and was trying to bring it down clean. it did not like being that slow and came down rather quick. i was able to handle it but from here on out, i will be using flaps. on the second flight i checked both take off and landing flaps and found i had mixed in too much down elevator. i was able to compensate with the sticks and brought it in for a much smoother landing this time. a little programming and all will be good.

the goblin only flew 1 time but flew well. on the launch i tried a diff technique and it made it sooooooo much easier. i had typically always wing launched it, discus style. today i did and under hand toss and it was so much better. had always worried about chopping my fingers off but wasn't a problem at all.

the super-b like i said flew right out of my hands and required only 2 clicks of trim. i was flying it on a 3S-1300 and feel i need to try and go to 4S. the thrust diff was nice, but not the crazy flat spins i was expecting. i think i will change the props to 2 blades instead of 3 and see if i can get a little more umph out of it.

all in all not a bad morning flying.

laters,

me