The next toy..

[typicalaimster]

Electric just wasn't cutting it anymore. My wing was loaded as ever. I didn't feel like spending another $500 in LiPo's and motors, so I went back to glow. This should be a fun video plane!

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/10263-1/Picture%20004.jpg

Don't think I have to worry about wing loading now ;)

[JettPilot]

Im with you buddy :) I will welcome the day when I can throw a huge brushless motor on my plane and never have to mess with gas engines again, electric is the future... That being said, we are just not there yet. Electric is ok for very small park flyers, but it is not practical for any kind of larger airplane yet. Sure it could be done, but its just way way to expensive at this time. To get the same power as my G-45 I would have to spend 500 bucks on a huge lipo, and then I could only fly once and wait several hours for it to charge again :( . If you even look at the lipo wrong, it will swell on you, or catch fire :eek: Not to mention that lipos dont have that many cycles and lose capacity and I would be buying new lipos every year :mad:

With my Zenoah Gas engine, I can fly almost an hour, fill it up in a couple minutes and fly again. I typically fly more than 2 hours every day I take my plane up.. Even with that much flying, I will never wear the Zenoah out and will be able to pass it on to my grandkids one day :p

When a really good battery comes out that lasts, and does not cost an arm and a leg for one that is big enough to fly a real sized plane, I will be first in line to buy it :D Neat plane you bulding there, what are you going to put in it ???

Jett

[typicalaimster]

My LiPo pack on the smaller scale version of this plane was great. I could go up for 15 minutes at a time if I wanted to. There toward the end when I wanted to carry more stuff up I started bogging the airframe down. The battery started to warm up because of the power draw I had on it.

I like LiPo and brushless. I'll end up designing a sporty plane later on this year. However I've outgrown it a bit for this application.

Just to give ideas here... Previous electric version had a wing area of ~430 sq/in. The newer version has a wing area of ~750 sq/in. Also the previous plane was about 2lbs lightly loaded. I think this one is going to come in about 5 lbs. Should be as sporty as a Ultra Stick! I'm putting a Magnum 50 in it.

[kd7ost]

Looking good as usual Scott. Whats the chance we can see a few pictures of up close on where your booms (carbon?) go through the shear webbing? And how they come over the top of your trailing edge stock. Looks slick and I'm curious how you did that. Do you sheet over where the boom exit the wing?

Thanks

Dan

[typicalaimster]

Looking good as usual Scott. Whats the chance we can see a few pictures of up close on where your booms (carbon?) go through the shear webbing? And how they come over the top of your trailing edge stock. Looks slick and I'm curious how you did that. Do you sheet over where the boom exit the wing?


It's rather simple how I do it. This is a messy boom design since I bought 1/2" carbon fiber tubes. I'm going to switch to 3/8" carbon tubes on the next go around.

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/10275-1/Picture%20005.jpg

I had a hole cut in the shear webbing for the carbon tube. This fits very flush with the tube. As you can also see the trailing edge stock stops right where the tube goes in. When I switch to the 3/8" carbon tube, it will slip right over the top of the trailing edge stock. On the other side of the tube is where my aleron starts.

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/10278-2/Picture%20006.jpg

This pic shows the carbon tube being held in place. This one gives a better idea of how this is done.

I sheet around the boom area. Once the wing is sheeted, it won't flex. However it will flex enough to absorb a direct impact to the booms on a bad landing. Also I have a piece of 1/4" ply butting up against the former. The ply is for the landing gear, and acts as a brace for the boom.

I might end up redesigning the way the booms are held. The new design would change a couple things, and offer a more unique way of holding the booms in the wing.

As long as this thing flys about 10 times I'm going to be happy. This is the first real glow twin boom that I'm rolling out. I know there's about 50 different things I want to change about the airplane already!

[Myron]

Jett,

I would have to respectfully disagree on the e-flight not being there yet.. Yes, you do have to spend a little more chingy to get it done, but now I only fly my glow stuff for fun!.. I have a 6.6 oz AXI motor that has flown a 12 lb airplane.. the battery is a big one.. 11oz and 6.6oz motor.. 17.6oz total power package flying 12 lbs for 20 minutes.. Silent and with no vibration... this one was a floater..
My current "biggie" electric has a 4130-16 on 22 volts total power package is 36oz. this one is over 13 lbs and flies for 20 minutes and it has enough power to rotate of ST. Augustine grass and power its way through loops and rolls.. It has flown as heavy as 15.5 LBS... There is an article in the recent RC Flyer where they tested an Eindecker with a G-26 and an AXI 4130-18.. flight results were basically the same... I do agree that a gasser is going to be the least expensive way to fly, but they are more of a hassle at the field..

Scott,

What is your AUW on your electric bird that didnt seem to have enough power? What glow motor is that on your newest toy?

Myron

[typicalaimster]

What is your AUW on your electric bird that didnt seem to have enough power? What glow motor is that on your newest toy?


The last plane started out 2lbs before I started putting even more equipment on it. It was getting up near the 2.5-3lbs mark toward the end. I was also drawing alot of power from the 2100 pack I was running. In an attempt to recover a few ounces, I moved everything off of a seperate 1300 pack to my main 2100 pack. That added at least another amp or two of drain on that pack.

I was also running out of room to put equipment. When you have OSD boards, ESC's, GPS's, Camera's and regulators, things get tight. Some of that weight was also coming from wires, yes wires!. When I took everything out of the last plane and weighed it, the equipment was 1-1/2 of weight by itself!! To make a long story short, my wing loading was starting to get up into the high 20's.

I'm putting a Magnum 50 in this new plane. So far the airframe by itself is very light and looks like it's going to come in at about 3lbs. After I put the Magnum and electronics on there it'll be up in the 5-6lb range. The 4 stroke weighs a pound by itself. With this airframe I'll have more room. I've been waiting to order the Pico Pilot. I've also wanted to check out the Genesys, and use these Maxstream cards I've had laying around.

I know RCGroups' followers are geared more toward electric. This really isn't an argument of Glow vs Electric. This is more personal preferece. Yes it would be nice to go electric with this so I can fly it at my local park. The Magnum has been laying around the house and has only had one tank of fuel ran through it. If I want to do an electric conversion of this plane it's very simple. I just have to change a few things to allow a bigger battery, and change the motor mount.

[JettPilot]

Jett,

Yes, you do have to spend a little more chingy to get it done, but now I only fly my glow stuff for fun!..

Myron

If I had all those lithium laptop batteries that you do, I would never buy gas again :p

[Myron]

Hey Scott,
I hear you! You gotta go with what works for you.. I had a 5.5 Lb wing with all the "stuff" in it that we did the 8+ mile flight with.. It had a Jeti 30-3 and a 4400 battery and about 12-14 oz of video gear.. It does take alot of trial and error to get the "perfect" E-power system working... Lately we have been using the AXI 2814-12 and 2100-3000 mah packs.. This system seems perfect for the 3.5-4.5lb models...

Jett, I gave up on using those packs a while ago!.. Too much trouble soldering and removing the protection circuits... About the only thing we do with that stuff now is bust open the small cell phone packs and make 3 cell camera packs...

Myron

[typicalaimster]

Hey Scott,
Lately we have been using the AXI 2814-12 and 2100-3000 mah packs.. This system seems perfect for the 3.5-4.5lb models...


That's cool, I have the same motor laying around. I was trying to use my 2100 pack with the motor. I couldnt find a good prop/motor/battery combo so my speed control kept shutting it down. After gas prices go down a bit, I may look at picking up a larger pack and see what I can do with the 2814.

[Myron]

Hey Scott,

We run ours with a 9x4.5 APCE prop and on Castle CC35 or Jeti 40 Opto+.. that motor will pull over 30 amps if you want it to... with the 2000Mah packs it pulls right at 26 AMPS at WOT but as soon as you come a few clicks off max it drops to 18AMPS.. On my little 36 oz wing it is a real rocket and will climb steady at 75-80 degrees.. The larger 4 lb wing it will still climb at 750FPM.... 20 minute flights are not a problem with decent throttle management..

Myron

[ElectroLawndart]

Aimster,

Who cut your ribs for you? Are you planning to kit this thing? What is the posiblity of purchasing a short kit or two? Who the heck is Carmen SanDiego and where the heck is she?

Dart "I a bag full of question marks and I ain't afraid to use 'em!"

[typicalaimster]

Who cut your ribs for you? Are you planning to kit this thing? What is the posiblity of purchasing a short kit or two?


For laser cutting I go through Alex with www.ak-models.com.

There is alot of work on the bigger model that has to be done. This is the first prototype. After I get the kinks worked out I may sell kits.

There is a smaller electro version I made. That version is pretty much finished. When I had two kits made I messed up the wood sizes. Long story short I was out about $50 and decided to take a break and work on something else. After I finish the big one, I could have a few electro kits cut.

[typicalaimster]

Repost this here too...

Well here are the results thus far...

First thing started out with a 12-6 prop. It wouldn't even push it, and made a bunch of noise. Changed to an 11-7 and we were in business!

Probably not the BEST day to test fly on, but I missed the two previous days. Winds were 10-15 gusting up to 30. The previous electric could handle a 15-20 mph gust, so I wasn't TOO worried.

Started take off roll and the engine wasn't leaning out. Although the plane was bubbly and wanting to fly. Shutdown and adjusted, restarted...

Second take off.. Started my roll, everything looked good. started to pull the nose off a bit, and it started out. Good climb out aside from the wind blowing me all over the place. Also I didn't have the plane in trim, so that was also a battle!

Started my downwind and throttle back run. This is where things started to be fun. I turned into a down wind run and started backing off the throttle to set for cruise. I brought it back to 3/4 and there was no response. I thought, ok slack in the cable. Brought it back to 1/2 throttle and no response. Cut the throttle and hit the kill idle switch, no response.

Now then a bit of history. The very first design I did had a serious flaw in the tail that caused it to flutter at high speed. During that test flight, the tail destroyed itself and the only thing holding it together was monokote. As my speed increased on the down wind run I was hoping that the flaw didn't re-surface with this design. From what I could tell the tail held on like a champ and took alot of the abuse.

Assuming the worse, I quickly assessed as many high speed ditch points near the field, plus the damage of what it would do to the aircraft. The best option was to do a high speed landing in the tall grass running on the edge of the runway. This would cause a great deal of impact damage to the wing, and quite possible destroy the tail. With that in mind, I figured I'd just fly the tank dry. I took the plane up and started trimming it out. The plane was not showing any other problems other than a stuck throttle.

Trimming required quite a bit of up elevator and some right aileron. I believe on of my ailerons is dragging a bit. I'll end up retrimming alot of this stuff on the ground. The up elevator was the same as the electric version.

I'm going to increase some of the throw I currently have going on all surfaces. I can use the dual rates to restrict this throw later on. I want the plane to be as maneuverable as possible.

I set my CG for 30% and came in just about right. I could probably bring it back to about 33% if I really wanted to. This was tested by flipping the plane inverted to see how much down input I needed.

My vertical on this plane is rather impressive. I can't climb straight up for very long, but it will climb at a slightly less angle forever. The roll rate is rather slow. With the amount of wind I was up against I switched to high rate. Low rate will offer a very slow, very slow turning rate.

The plane will also cut through the wind if you want it to. Since I was waiting for the fuel to run out I was doing several low speed passes across the deck of the runway. The plane was solid on its heading and kept its track as I cut across. There was really only one time when a very large gust of wind hit the plane and threw it off course. Then again if that gust hit most anyone they'd probably squeal! One of those wow I'm now at a 45 degree angle both on my X and Y!

Flight time at full throttle was about 15 minutes. Let me say that it was the LONGEST 15 minutes I think I've had with a model before! Currently I'm running a 6oz tank with no reserve. I designed the system for 12oz of fuel with a 1oz reserve. That should bring the flight time up to 30 minutes at full throttle, or well over that with throttle management.

After I ran out of fuel the glide was perfect. I was up at about 200-300 feet and started my downwind run. I set up for a very fast decent to build up as much speed for the landing. There was a cross wind, so this involved flying out away from me, then a high bank 180 degree turn back, and another 90 degree turn at the last minute to crab in. Landing was perfect and I really couldn't ask for anything more.

Once the plane was stopped, I walked over to see what was going on. It appears that a nut that was holding a linkage came off right after takeoff. The rest of the nuts and bolts on the plane were still tight, and secure. The tail booms and holders were still strong, and did not did not show any signs of stress. The main tail didn't show any signs of stress.

To sum things up... Considering what could go wrong, did go wrong during this whole test flight... As this plane evolves it's going to rock. I really can't wait to test some of its low speed gliding aspects. I'm going to put some equipment on the bird and relay some telemetry back down to the ground. I'm very interested in my top end speed, and also some of my glide rates. I'm thinking I can get about 20-30 minutes out of the bird on 6oz of fuel once I throttle back to cruise. I also noticed that it has the same quirks and characteristics of the smaller electric bird, which is good!

Hopefully after this rain clears out I can get some more complete tests in!

[kd7ost]

Very Nice Scott. Good work. It's nice to get those very first test flights on your new design under your belt. Way to work through it.

Dan

[Myron]

Sweet Bro!

What did her AUW come out to?... What do you figure will be max payload weight? Got any pics of the finished bird?

Myron

[typicalaimster]

What did her AUW come out to?... What do you figure will be max payload weight? Got any pics of the finished bird?


Here's a final picture of the bird.

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/10317-2/Picture%20002_004.jpg

Weight is in at about 6-7lbs. I'll check it again later on today. That would put my wing loading up in the 18-25 oz/ft2 range. I designed it to hold a pound of weight in front. Right now there is a pound of lead in the nose!

If I went to an electric conversion, believe it or not I'd lose some of weight. This is because the Magnum weighs in at 1lb 2oz and alot that weight has to be counteracted in the nose. An AXI 2826 series outrunner only weighs about 6.3 oz. This would be less weight in the back. I figured that would probably take a 3 cell 4000mah pack. That would come in at 9oz. There is some good side of actually converting to electric. Right now I have glow powered equipment on hand! I'll make the $300 electric investment when the time comes!

I had two REALLY good test flights today. I was hoping for 4, but didn't get it. With throttle management I could press the 20 minute mark. Normal cruise is set for a slight big past full throttle. The wild winds went away and we had steady 10 mph ones out today. The takeoff roll is shorter than I imagined, now that the plane is trimmed out.

The first flight today I went up and did a few aerobatics! The plane is very stable. I can fly hands off from one turn around point to the other. I flew the first 8 minutes and my timer went off. I came in for a landing and had more than half a tank left. I went back up for another 5 minutes.

Second flight was more or less like the first flight. I reset the timer for 15 minutes of flight time. The wind pushed me and I landed a bit hard. The gear decided to come off.. I had a little less than a 1/4 tank of fuel left. I'm pretty sure that I can run up to the 20 minute mark!

The only problem today was the last landing when a quick gust slammed me on the ground. We also fly off grass, so it's known to remove landing gears! It's a very quick fix and as soon as the 15 minute epoxy dries fully, I'll be back in the air.

I'm going to place some of the video equipment on the plane now that it's stable. I should have some videos hopefully by weeks end!

--Scott

[Myron]

Hey Scott,

Looking good man... I have a 2826-12 and I flew a 13LB bird with it!.. It will swing a 14x10 APCE prop.. I flew with a 5000 Mah pack and I think it flew for about 16 minutes. That 13 LBS is really taxing the limits of a 11.1 volt system.. I was also pulling like 38 AMPS most of the time just because I had to fly it with alot of power..
It actually landed at 11MPH acording to my Seagull telemetry system....
I hope to see you get back into the electrics on this bird!.. If your gonna carry a camera your gonna have to do some work to get the vibration down....

Myron

[kd7ost]

You were just going to run a video link though right? No still camera? With POV and a 30fps rate and you won't see any vibration in the downlink of an ICE plane.

Dan

[typicalaimster]

You were just going to run a video link though right?

This one is video only. Just a simple RPV is all. I have the video glasses ready to go and everything. Just have to mount the the camera on on really quickly and run a couple test runs.

[LukeZ]

Is that a bed I see in your work area?! You're really getting dedicated Aimster! :D

[Myron]

Hey Dan,

I wasnt aware that it was a video only bird!.. When I fly for stills I use the Sony 5.1 digital camera and the video out into the BWAV system so I have live framing and the best possible CCD feeding the video.. If you take your best board CCD and your digital camera and compare them side by side.. There is no comparison!...

Myron

[CAFplanekid]

Myron: Are you saying that the Sony's video out feed is better than the small video cameras BW sells? That is pretty interesting, for some reason I had not thought of recording the video while flying and taking pictures, I guess that would work just fine unless the camera blacks out for a bit after each picture. This weekend I need to get all my video stuff put back together and check it out.

Jonathan

[kd7ost]

Hey Dan,

I wasnt aware that it was a video only bird!.. When I fly for stills I use the Sony 5.1 digital camera and the video out into the BWAV system so I have live framing and the best possible CCD feeding the video.. If you take your best board CCD and your digital camera and compare them side by side.. There is no comparison!...

Myron

I'm not sure what you're saying Myron. I'm just telling him that if it's a video only gas plane and he's using that to fly with, he won't see vibration on the monitor. It will look smooth.

Dan

[typicalaimster]

Is that a bed I see in your work area?! You're really getting dedicated Aimster! :D

HAHA no it's a Futon in the basement! I try to keep work seperated from sleep as much as possible!

[typicalaimster]

I'm not sure what you're saying Myron. I'm just telling him that if it's a video only gas plane and he's using that to fly with, he won't see vibration on the monitor. It will look smooth.


I've also put some foam and some rubber gromets (sp!!) on the camera's servo mount. Hopefully that will not amplify the vibration, but help damper it if any. I've see a couple guys just velcro the video rig to the plane. Those came down without any vibration issues.. I'm still going to balance my prop one last time, then give it a roll tomorrow!

[ALtitudeap]

(grommets) :)

[typicalaimster]

Video test is done! Woot!

http://www.myuav.com/video/Aerosade/Aerosade_Video_Test-092805.zip

I have the camera facing backwards right now, and tail isn't on the plane.

[JettPilot]

What GPS overlay board are you running Scott ? The text is in different places than on mine...

[typicalaimster]

Intuitive circuits OSD

[ManTin361]

That video is cool! What are you using for a Camera system?

Matt

[typicalaimster]

Black Widow 600mw system. Using the 131 cased cam.

[Myron]

Dan,

I was just saying that if you run a digital camera as your live video feed for framing your stills, your better off going electric to keep vibration down.. I know you had a tough battle with the Pegasus and vibration in relations to getting good stills.

CAF,
Yes, there is no comparison to a Carl Zeiss CCD on a sony to a small board cam CCD... Everone that we have tested (and there have been a bunch) have a much slower response time to white balance and other lighting conditions than a good digital camera... the only down side is the short "blanking" of the screen after you snap a shot and the actual weight of carrying a 4-6 oz camera if your only going to use it for video.

Myron

[kd7ost]

Dan,

I was just saying that if you run a digital camera as your live video feed for framing your stills, your better off going electric to keep vibration down.. I know you had a tough battle with the Pegasus and vibration in relations to getting good stills.


Ah, understood now.

It is easier to keep the vibration down in the stills with electric. But, vibration from an internal combustion engine is easy enough to resolve once you learn a couple of things. Big gas planes have some drawbacks thats true. But your big electric twin tail boom slipstream for example gets what, 12 minutes or so of flight with good throttle management? Ouch. Thats a lot of high cost stuff for such a small return in such a big plane. When you balance the pro's and cons it's hard for me to compare the two systems. I see a very important roll in employing both types of power plants when faced with different scenarios. I'm not going to say one is better than the other. I see using both gas and electric.

If you're just flying a small camera and taking digital pix I think Ivspark has an example of an ideal setup. You don't even need a place to take off or land. Thats cool stuff. I'm going to get a setup like his. Small electric and you hand launch and hand catch. Sweet. He was just out here early in the week and took some pictures of my plane flying from his plane flying. I put one of his pix on my desktop at work. He didn't need to isolate his camera thats for sure. I do have to isolate mine. But we both get pretty much 100 percent non blurred pix. ;)

Dan

[kd7ost]

Oops'

Sorry Scott,

Looks like we're hijacking your thread. How's your plane coming? You should be on your third weekend of dialing in a sweet new design huh?

Dan

[LukeZ]

I don't want to hijack this thread any further myself, but say Dan, you or lvspark don't want to post any of these great pictures somewhere, do ya? ;)

[kd7ost]

That would be up to Ivspark. He emailed me 4 of them but since he took them they are his property. I have no trouble with it.

I think we should start a new thread that lets guys who think electric is the only way to go post why they think so, guys who think wet fuel is the ticket say why, and those of us who use both systems get right in the middle. ;)
I'll start a new thread now. That'll clear this off this thread.

Dan

[typicalaimster]

Well here is this first video! Sorry its about 100 megs! I didn't edit it quite yet. Just me flying around today at NVRC..

http://www.myuav.com/video/Aerosade/Aerosade_NVRC_093005.wmv.zip

[typicalaimster]

Here a link to the second flight video..

http://www.myuav.com/video/Aerosade/Aerosade_NVRC-2150_093005.zip

From what I can tell from the video...

Normal Cruise: 45knots
Flight time: 20 minutes
Altitude so far: 1100 ft
Normal Climb Rate: 5m/sec

Tomorrow is a 2 day glider contest out at our field. I may be able to squeeze some flights in after the contest. Hopefully they'll finish up after 4pm! Monday I'm hoping to get in as many flights as possible before 3:30pm.

I'm going to install my Maxstreams next. They worked pretty good in my R/C Car when I was testing them out. I'm also ordering in the FMA CoPilot to help stabilize. I flew my little one under the hood w/o one. That plane flew at 25 knots. Since I've doubled my speed, I want a little peice of mind when I fly this bird.

The rocket tubes and nose cone were ordered today. I need to finish up the drawings for the modified airframe. The last fuse used a 2" rocket tube for a body. This one is going to use a 3.90" tube. The wing is also going to slide back about 2 more inches to help with some of that weight up front.

[typicalaimster]

And on the 6th day... We had live GPS Downlink!

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/8652-1/Flight1.jpg

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/8655-1/Flight2.jpg

[typicalaimster]

GPS track can be downloaded here.. It's in GPX format

GPX File (http://www.zwei.net/downloads/Misc/Flight.gpx.zip)

I know some programs will allow you to playback gpx files. The first minute is no movement while I started the plane and set everything up.

[JettPilot]

That is awesome Scott !!! What equipment did you use to do that ?? I always seem to miss you when you have your setup at the field. I saw you guys down there as I flew directly over the field at 2200 feet today :p Wish I could have seen you do the flights though ;)

JettPilot

[typicalaimster]

Pico-SS-GPS -> Maxstream 100mw radio modem -> Laptop running Expert GPS to record the track. Then I'm using Topofusion to do the pretty tracks and 3d renderings.

[JettPilot]

I have been wanting to have live GPS information downlinked to my laptop, that is a really neat feature. I have read about some guys doing that over the audio channel if thier Video transmission and I will go that route to avoid having to buy more equipment.. Seeing your tracks is really neat, I will get started on that project soon :)

You will love having the copilot on the plane, it really works well and being able to turn it on and off is great. One of the things I did not like about it were the very thin cheap servo wires that came with it. Took them out and soldered in JR heavy duty pigtails on mine, it was pretty easy to do, and I dont have to worry about one of those thin wires breaking :eek:

Did you activate your pico pilot yet ? How do you like that ? It would be neat to see pictures of your ground setup, plane, etc. if you can post them.

JettPilot

[typicalaimster]

Well some good news and some bad news here... Good news is I had a good flight in yesterday and was able to test more of the equipment. I have both video and a GPS track coming down to the ground. It's nice that I can playback both the video and the GPS track at the same time and watch.

I took the bird up pretty high yesterday, which started another discussion on our clubs mailing list of how high up, and how far out do we fly. So far that discussion is very positive. I haven't had a moment to pull the video, but here is the 3d flight path up to 1000 feet yesterday...

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/8673-2/8%20Minute%20Flight%203d.jpg
http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/8669-1/8%20Minute%20Flight.jpg

Now the bad news was the landing yesterday. Last week I had a hard landing that caused the gear to come off. That same problem appeared again yesterday when I was coming down for a landing. I was hoping that it was the other gear this time, but it was the same side. The wing is built up pretty strong. However, this time around the gear block took out a spar at the 66% line. The break also cracked R-2 which also holds a wing joint.

Since I'm the engineer of this thing, and also the flight team... I'm stopping all flights on this plane. There is close to $800 going up at one time when this thing flies. That's a mighty big cash register hitting the ground!

I almost have Revision 1 drawings complete and I'll be sending those off for laser cutting probably next week... I also had a few other things come in the mail, and about 3-4 more other things on their way.

In closing of this little test I leave you with an idea of what the next monster is going to look like...

http://www.zwei.net/gallery/main.php/d/8664-1/Picture.jpg

--Scott

[typicalaimster]

I have read about some guys doing that over the audio channel if thier Video transmission and I will go that route to avoid having to buy more equipment..


I've looked at the Audio over the AV downlink a few times. That would be great for one way downlinking. I didn't get into the specs of how it works or the redundency of the system. While testing the maxstreams out, if I had bad packet the card would just drop the packet of the floor. I rather have the packet dropped and wait for the next good packet. I don't know if the data over audio application does this or not.

The cards I'm using are two way. I'm only talking on the downlink pipe once every second. I have the whole uplink channel laying idle. I'm sending some equipment out to my friend who's a programmer. Hopefully with some of his skill on hand I'll be seeing a bit of two way communication going.

[JettPilot]

Hi Scott,

The altitude thing wont be a big an issue for us for long, as we are losing the filed due to development :mad: Good news is that the field we are supposedly getting is further out in the sticks and further away from traffic :D

On climbout flying full scale, I have passed directly over our field at 1500 feet above ground.. Sometimes its higher, sometimes a bit lower, depending on the temperature and weight etc. etc. So 1000 feet in that area is a bit high just because of our location, especially when departures are flying over :eek: I have to constantly watch myself when flying my plane there :( ... as much as I would like to get it really insanely high, its just not an option at that location :( Im not a big fan of the 400 foot rule, but I keep it pretty close to that when flying there. My plane is pretty large and I dont want to be the one to cause an incident :cool:

As far as your landing gear, from the looks of your picture, it looks like there is no give in it at all. There must be something to absorb the shock of touchdown, bumps on the runway etc. Either a slanted peice of wire, aluminum to give the tire some vertical travel... I would consider a carbon fiber main gear on the wing if I were you. It wont look as pretty but it will flex all day long, and will never break or bend out of shape :p

Im headed out to the field to do some flying, its to nice a day to pass up. Hope to see you back in the air soon :D