Catalina III - 3rd Time is a Charm!

[workshop]

I've been "away" from the UAV hobby while I dealt with issues at work that required my full attention. Now that things are more "normal", I can redirect some hobby time to UAVs and FPV.

I crashed Catalina II while showing off my superior flying skills :rolleyes: to Dean Geodde in Phoenix. That gave me the opportunity to start over and learn from all the miserable balance and power issues. The result is the aircraft you see below.

I moved servos and receiving antennas to the back of the plane and the cameras and transmitters to the front and middle respectively. The 72MHz RX is under the 1W VidTX by 3” or so along with other electronics. The RC system is powered by an unregulated 2 cell A123 pack and the video system (Cam, OSD, VidTX) is powered by an unregulated 3 cell Li-Poly battery. A modem allows me to use the audio channel as a GPS data downlink. When I playback missions, I have side by side video and synchronized moving map via Google Earth.

All servos except pan are digital thin wing HiTec servos programmed with direction, center and endpoints yielding a response of 1000ms, 1500ms and 2000ms (that means all the centers, end points and trims on the JR9303 TX are set to zero to yield perfect response). Mechanical advantages on all surfaces were set so that maximum servo travel equals recommended surface travel. The pan servo is a high torque type programmed for slow 180 degree rotation.

I’m not sure of the weight yet but I have flown it twice and it ROGs really well. Wind or calm it penetrates and soars so I hope to extend range without adding more flight batteries. Tests are finished and it is ready for some FPV missions. Later, I’ll add a RTL device for failsafe.

Jeff

[ios]

WoW !

Well done Jeff,

Nice layout and exceptional finish - very inspiring

Nick

[icebear]

Welcome back Jeff!

Nice to see your attention to detail, as always, and a very beautiful ship!

Looking forward to more info on the flying. The watts/oz would be very interesting to hear when you have more data... Will you put an Atto in there too?

/Bjorn

[Gary Mortimer]

Good show, now it was out to an island and back was it not??

That 2.4 antenna does not pick up any noise from the motor??

Interesting to see your still using 72Mhz, I'm still using 35 over here in europe myself to avoid all the downlink issues.

Looking forward to seeing the mission completed, I bet very soon!!

Cheers

G

[Tom Harper]

Jeff,

Beautiful work, excellent detail. Wish I had that kind of patience.

Tom

[workshop]

The hardest part was balance and component placement. I dry fitted things for two months before I started the build. That was Nikola Tesla's method: run it in your mind until perfection and THEN start cutting!

I was very concerned about motor or switching noise with the VidTX so close (it is in between the motor and esc). I am happy to announce that there is no noise on the screen when the motor is powered up (only 10-20% of the time - its a glider).

I don't want to upset Dean by putting an AttoPilot in a motor glider! :eek: I'm moving my PicoPilot-NA into Catalina III to be used as a RTL device.
My twin motor Senior Kadet Kit Bash has been one the bench longer than Catalina III and it is getting the AttoPilot. I tore this plane down after five flights to reposition equipment and rebalance. This is a full house, HD, pan and tilt video plane with a 1W VidTX and a 1W XTend 900MHz modem.

Re: 72MHz... I love it now... Everybody is off the freeway! I can fly 1.5 MILES away with full control with my standard JR9303 and farther when I use my car roof mounted tuned antenna. I'll write more on that one this summer.

Oh and Icebear... Catalina III only has a single 4 cell 2200mAh Li-Poly for the motor so I sure hope :rolleyes: I get good mileage!

[dmgoedde]

I don't want to upset Dean by putting an AttoPilot in a motor glider! :eek:Hey - it has ailerons for good closed loop control of roll, so it would work super great. Tekrunner has lots of Cularis data with an Atto.
Oh and Icebear... Catalina III only has a single 4 cell 2200mAh Li-Poly for the motor so I sure hope :rolleyes: I get good mileage!Don't hope, know! Sounds like a great opportunity for power data logging of Atto plus airspeed data and control.

[workshop]

Dean, when you see the AVO Cadet, you will understand why that is the plane for the AttoPilot. :D The Catalina III is the goal specific result of a personal challenge (you’re the kind of guy that can identify with that!) and is primarily a FPV ship. The AVO Cadet is a different kitten altogether.

[Gary Mortimer]

How do you connect that tuned antenna on the roof Jeff??

Have you flown a lead off the transmitters main board??

That was something I was thinking of doing, the antenna is beginning to get big at 35Mhz though!!

I am so happy with my JR gear I am struggling to justify upgrading it, I'm just coming up to 70 hours with it on a project and its not glitched once.

Cheers

G

[Airboatflyingshp]

Hi Geoff good to see your still kicking, next time you take some pic.s give us a side on to the fuse, it looks a lot cleaner but Im looking at the poss. ideas 4 clearing off some drag and increasing your stability and glide at the same time.

You'll have to let us know how long you can wring out of those packs.
Its a very compact and slic platformnow but I bet it would make life easier if the airframe was available in a bigger brother size? Especially when you think of the trip out to the Island.

Add in a backlink to Catalina 2?

[workshop]

First, I purchased a rubber duck conversion kit from Smiley Antenna Company. That kit has the connector, cable and BNC connector to replace the antenna on the RCTX. Then, I used an antenna tuner that injects a signal and reads SWR (and other things). I took a stainless steel whip HAM antenna and reduced its length until I had the best SWR which for 72MHz on my channel turned out to be just less than 40”.

I used a common magnetic base mount with a BNC connector on a 6’ cable. I usually sit in the passenger side of my car with the RCTX in my lap and a black t-shirt over my head. I can get rock solid control up to 2 miles (depending on altitude and other RF factors) but usually mission plan in one mile radius patches.

Clive... I'll take a side view soon and add thoses links as you suggested.

Jeff

http://smileyantenna.com/

[Airboatflyingshp]

Hi Geoff good to see your still kicking, next time you take some pic.s give us a side on to the fuse, it looks a lot cleaner but Im looking at the poss. ideas 4 clearing off some drag and increasing your stability and glide at the same time.

You'll have to let us know how long you can wring out of those packs.
Its a very compact and slic platformnow but I bet it would make life easier if the airframe was available in a bigger brother size? Especially when you think of the trip out to the Island.

Add in a backlink to Catalina 2?

Geoff Ive been out and about in sailplanes -I may have found a solution to your and a few others dreams take a look :D :D :cool: :cool: . http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=844614 3.5M of fun and games.. and it needs a lot of nose wt..he,he,he. ;)

[Airboatflyingshp]

And this thread for reference http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=736589 ..geoff see the servo linkage shields...yours just need 2 be narrower.

[tekrunner]

Hey Jeff,
Great looking airplane! Maybe I missed it but could you elaborate on what you used for the "GPS Radome"?

Thanks,
tekrunner

[workshop]

It is the nose come and body tube from an Estes rocket kit trimmed to shape.

I finished the PicoPilot install this week and hope to get in a few final flight tests soon.

Jeff

[workshop]

The final NAV test this morning worked out great!

Setting:
Digital Servos programmed so that 1000us - 2000us = full travel according to aircraft plans and 1500us = center.
PicoPilot Gains set at 50 (both)

Tracked beautifully and made tight figure eights over HOME. There was a tiny bit of pitch oscillation and the roll rate was "crisp" enough to warrant adjusting it down too. So, I'm going with 40/40 NAV and ALT gains.

Jeff

[zlite]

Jeff,

Out of curiosity, why did you decided to go with PicoPilot rather than AttoPilot?

Chris

[dmgoedde]

Jeff,

Out of curiosity, why did you decided to go with PicoPilot rather than AttoPilot?

ChrisJeff does own an AttoPilot. I think he has it in some other plane. I also think that Jeff's point is to fly to Catalina island and there might be fog... not proper flight conditions for a thermopile autopilot.

[JustinONE]

tell me more about your roof mount antenna for 72mhz? I wanted to build one for my 14foot cross country plane, but haven't had the time to design and acquire the parts. Anychance I can buy one from you? or maybe trade a big cross country fuse for a tuned roof mount antenna system. PM me.


The hardest part was balance and component placement. I dry fitted things for two months before I started the build. That was Nikola Tesla's method: run it in your mind until perfection and THEN start cutting!

I was very concerned about motor or switching noise with the VidTX so close (it is in between the motor and esc). I am happy to announce that there is no noise on the screen when the motor is powered up (only 10-20% of the time - its a glider).

I don't want to upset Dean by putting an AttoPilot in a motor glider! :eek: I'm moving my PicoPilot-NA into Catalina III to be used as a RTL device.
My twin motor Senior Kadet Kit Bash has been one the bench longer than Catalina III and it is getting the AttoPilot. I tore this plane down after five flights to reposition equipment and rebalance. This is a full house, HD, pan and tilt video plane with a 1W VidTX and a 1W XTend 900MHz modem.

Re: 72MHz... I love it now... Everybody is off the freeway! I can fly 1.5 MILES away with full control with my standard JR9303 and farther when I use my car roof mounted tuned antenna. I'll write more on that one this summer.

Oh and Icebear... Catalina III only has a single 4 cell 2200mAh Li-Poly for the motor so I sure hope :rolleyes: I get good mileage!

[workshop]

The goal for the Catalina III is to fly 20 miles over sea from Catalina Island to Cabrillo Beach on the mainland of Southern California.

Because of the probability of a marine layer (fog), need for low drag and lack of interior physical space, I chose the PicoPilot for this plane. The long range, high endurance considerations for this airframe means that it will be flying long legs with relatively few way points (the Catalina trip may have as many as three or four) and a selecting a more robust autopilot such as the AttoPilot would be overkill for this project.

As Dean mentioned above, I do have an AttoPilot and it is flying in the original Catalina airframe (6’ Telemaster with pylon mounted motor). Soon, I will reveal my AVO Kadet build project which is my flagship UAV and will carry Dean’s master work. I have been working on the AVO Kadet for more than a year and have seven test flights on it so far.

JustinONE.. we live in the same town... I'll PM my cell phone to ya...

Jeff

[icebear]

Jeff,

Nice to see the progress - I have been waiting for this... Glad everything seems to be working out nicely. I can recommend EVO Lite packs for good "milage" :)
I am working on a long range over water mission too, but weather hasn't been cooperating this summer...

/Bjorn

[tekrunner]

Jeff,
Have you put any thought into mounting batteries under the wings? I'd like to have a place for my pentax camera or maybe even a homebrew retractable pan&tilt and that'd clear up the needed space.

[workshop]

I wanted to clean up the airframe and the wings especially because the AeroMaster is a ROG sailplane and I didn’t want things to “catch” on takeoff and landing. The wings are so thin that “thin wing” servos barely fit.

Hey Bjorn!

Cold or warm, we face the same obstacle; the water is wet!
Nice to hear from you Icebear!

[Airboatflyingshp]

Good to see your progect is active again friend................... wing fences and Kuchemann Carrots http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/aerodynamics/q0240.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-shock_body

Gary sorry I didnt make the Leamington meet, Ive been dealing with a few problems - like backed up drains...... ughhh! Cold or warm ..........water is wet yep but its not supposed to be brown and smelly forming a lake outside your back door!

[cmoulder]

Jeff, how are you managing the throttle when PP is active? You mentioned a few posts above that it's a glider and the motor is not on all the time, so I am wondering how intermittent throttle will be activated when fully autonomous.

Great to see the progress you have made. Just when I think you have reached the pinnacle, you do it even better!!

-- Bob

[workshop]

The PicoThrottle and the Alt module were fighting each other on other airframes so I left the Pico Throttle out. I am going to set a throttle level on failsafe.

Here is a video of the coast near where I will land. One can see Catalina Island off in the distance.

http://vimeo.com/6003540

[workshop]

http://www.vimeo.com/6038758

All tests complete including rcTX off and return to home failsafe.

One may notice the horizontal banding corresponding to high throttle settings. I figured that this may be a problem with the motor and ESC so close to the VidTX and so it is. I have an open audio line and gnd waiting for a GPS modem from ElectronicaRC so I think these unused lines may be picking up noise. I might see if shielding the lines from the VidTX helps.

[cmoulder]

Excellent preparation. A lot of us are waiting for the big day!

What kind of mileage are you getting with the 2200-mah 4s?

-- Bob

[icebear]

Very nice indeed Jeff!
I second Bob's comment - many of us are awating reports from your mission :D!
/Bjorn

[workshop]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the support. You make a difficult hobby even more worthwhile. :)

I am waiting for ElectronicaRC to make more audio modems so I can add real-time mapping to the Catalina III; I don’t want to do distance testing without telemetry. I just checked their website and the backorder seems to be resolved so I should be ready for 10 mile desert tests soon. :D

The plane needs two skid plates and perhaps even a dolly for asphalt. The dry lake bed surface really sanded down the belly of the plane and some 3M self adhesive non-slip material (like they use on industrial outdoor stair steps) should make for a nice high friction landing patch.

The ground station has been simplified. I’m using an 8dbi dipole and a 14dbi patch on a diversity receiver and I seem to be getting better results than two 14dbi patches (one polarized horizontally and one polarized vertically). I’ll add a photo soon.

Jeff

p.s. I really love this plane. It is physically and technically beautiful in a svelte 5.5 pound frame. It took two airframes and more than a year of planning and execution to get to this point. I’m really looking forward to see if she can fly as far as anticipated.

[biloxthecat]

Hey Jeff,

How's the project coming along?
I'd love to know how it's all going.

Cheers,

Scott