Im going to need a lot of help!!

[captainkarl]

Hello All! I have just joined here and I am looking very forward to joining your community; a little background information! My name is Karl, I am 17 years old and I live in England. I have real aviation experience; I am nearly at the end of my PPL course! I also have been teaching myself to fly R/C. I have an electric 3CH glider with a 2M wingspan, it has spent more time being repaired than flown…BUT I managed to fly it for 3 hours yesterday without crashing! I am a 6th Form college student and I am studying AS and A2 Level electronics. For my project next year I am planning to build a simple UAV. I will have to produce the electronics side of the project, the plane will be purchased from a local model shop.

I could really do with the experience of others who have been in my position or can guide me/mentor me online!

I would like;

Basic waypoint Navigation (Have been looking at Garmin Geko 201 unit… http://www.garmin.com/products/geko201/

If the model isn’t under waypoint navigation then the plane will fly straight and level until I take control (Thermopiles or Tilt sensors perhaps??)

Autoland??

Base station…?

I don’t ask for much…(tehe) It is okay if I don’t know any of this yet. The idea of the course is that I research and understand stuff that I didn’t before. I would be really grateful for your help.

Thanks

Karl

[kd7ost]

Welcome to the forum. It's a rather ambitious project. I'm going to be polite but honest. If you're mixing a 3 channel glider that you're just learning with, a Garmin geko 201 and autoland capabilities in the same discussion, you have a good ways to go.

I wouldn't think about having the plane fly straight and level if control is lost. It might be too far away and that's why you lost control. You should have it start to circle or loiter at that location. Something that prevents a fly off.

Many of us, my self included can help you through the basics. There are a few really sharp software and hardware guys here too. Keep an eye on the threads and you'll see those guys show up.

The most important thing to start with is to fly fly fly. Get to know your plane and it's characteristics. Think about what you want in an end product as far as mission capabilities. Maybe something rather benign like, flies to a way point, takes a picture and returns. That's a good building block for more ambitious work. I would stick with taking off and landing manually to start with. Only a few small systems out there autolaunch and land. From what I've seen, a skilled RC pilot does a better job. The autoland provides mission capabilities for those that can't fly RC. Keep it simple to start and grow in small steps. I think you'll get a fair amount of help if you approach it right.

Dan

[typicalaimster]

The most important thing to start with is to fly fly fly. Get to know your plane and it's characteristics. Think about what you want in an end product as far as mission capabilities.

I can't agree more with Dan on this one. You need to start with an airframe and fly the pants off of it. It's good to know what your plane will do. Don't be afraid to start off with something simple like a LT-40 or a trainer. They provide a stable platform.

[Tuner]

I am almost in your same boat about a year back I got it into my head that R/C planes are boring and I wanted to combine my love of software programing and airplanes so building a UAV seemed like a natual progression.

I have been flying R/C for gosh like 15 years now wow. Learing an a airplane like the back of your hand will be invaluable in helping you unerstand on how to get a uav flying because you are basicly saying how would I handle this flying situation and then you need to get your flight computer to function in that manor.

Pleas someone more expereince correct me if I am off hear. All I know is I have pulled some crazy comlex projects out of my rear that were over my head in some aspects and building a UAV is showing to be much more challenging, as I had hoped.

Good luck I hope you find somone to Mentor you in some apect of this project a Mentor is in valuable in my opinion.

Scott
P.S.
In my opinion the Paparazzi priject has a great group of people involved in it.

[MattChave]

How long do you have? and how important is it that the project is completed in this time?
Sounds like 1 year and that it must be physicaly made by the end of that year.
Another option is contributing to one of the many open source projects out there. There's always something to be done, perhaps add a ground station or autolanding as you pointed out in your post.
It's very good that you're organising your project now, you'll be much more successfull.

matt

[captainkarl]

Hello Matt: We have 20 hours (this kind of goes to 30/40 sometimes hehe :D) of "LAB TIME" at school working on the project but nothing prevents me working at home or any other time on it! This course will start in about June and will be ongoing till about next easter I believe. I really would like to build something in this field as I am forseeing myself doing an Avionics Degree and I feel that such a project would look good on my UCAS Form.

I am just a bit like a fish lost from the large schoul....

Karl

[captainkarl]

We start this next projectin June and I still havent made any progress. I all upon the experts out there please help me I beg you!

Captain Karl

[workshop]

Karl,

There are some good tutorials here...

http://tom.pycke.be/mav

How much flight time PER DAY do you put on your intended airframe?... As others have said; fly time is most important at this point. :rolleyes:

20hrs. (40hrs. whatever) sounds like a joke. If you're building the electronics and writing the code and you're a low stick-time pilot, I'd say you need to budget hundreds of lab hours and even more at the field.

Jeff Parisse
www.teslacoil.com