Thank you...

I highly recommend that everyone go and get your ham license. Its not that difficult and you will learn a lot of FPV applicable information in the process. Besides, you need it to legally fly with the higher power transmitters we normally use.

more FPV video... Beta testing of the Eagle Eyes antenna tracker...

Flying In Mobile (4 min 23 sec)

Hi Mike

Why didn't you follow the arrow home?? or am I missing something

Simon

bignose13: when caught in a wind, you need to first find out where it is coming from and fly into it until you can fully trust the arrow back home.

that said ... that wasn't downwind, it was a downbreeze around 15mph from what I could tell - and the field you were flying from was visible at all time ?!

either way ... good to see you're beta-testing the eagle eyes. are you using the 11dbi diversity antenna?

the glide speed of the queen bee is only about 20-25mph... its no speed demon by any stretch...

It was mostly just me being stupid... I climbed too high before I got my bearings and rapidly found myself getting downwind and a little too close to my comfort zone!

Bignose, the home arrow only works with a reasonable amount of ground speed. when I was pointed into the wind, the ground speed was essentially zero. I found myself chasing the arrow until I was way downwind... stupid mistake, but a common one...

The eagle eyes beta unit works great! People will be very happy with it when its released soon. My base consists of the 11db diversity antenna attached to the yellowjacket, and a older lawmate rx with a 3db whip for close in work...

Well sir, you just sold me on this, I'll be ordering one tomorrow... Have any suggestions on a motor/prop/esc? Also, do you think this thing would be capable of holding 2 5000mah batteries?

I am sure it would carry both batteries... I just never had a reason to do it. my single 5000 pack will last a long time in climb/glide mode, which is how I fly it.

my current power system is putting out about 600W. Its plenty for this airplane...

Its not all sunshine though... Before you order, be aware of a few of my minor gripes with this airframe.

1. Its slow... glide speed is about 25mph, but even with power its top speed is around 50. More than that and it has a tendency to flap.

2. It takes time to assemble at the field. its not a lot of time, but its still about 5 minutes.

3. when building, it will be tricky to rig up a motor mount. I wound up having to shave the foam in the back, epoxing a piece of plywood to the foam and using a clamshell mount to hold the motor. Getting the incidence correct is not trivial and mine is slightly off.

4. it doesnt like to slow down. Landing this beast is sometimes not trivial. Flying normally is no issue because you just mix in some crow to slow down, but I never figured out a clever way to do this and still retain autopilot control.

5. It will tip stall. if you get it slow, it likes to drop a wing and it takes a good 50 feet to recover. Of course even if it does nose in, its rugged, so its more embarrasing than anything else...

of course all of these are easily managed and in the end you will have an airframe that no one else probably has ever seen, LOTS of payload capability, enough space to spread out all your components, a very nice glide ratio, and a rugged airframe that can last you for a long while... I still like the queen bee, but I just wanted you to be aware of its limitations...

Hey downey, thanks for all the concerns, HUGE help. Most of them aren't too bad for me. I'll probably ditch the duel 5mah batteries, really no need for them, just a single. And for each of the points you brought up, well here is answeres to each :-P

1. This PERFECT, I like a slow plane, I am looking at the easyglider as an alternative, so speed isnt important. Also I'm getting a funjet for my quick, darty flying.

2. Doesn't it always take like 20-30 minutes to get set up at the field anyways? This isn't that big of a deal, 5-10 minutes when you are flying for a couple hours isn't too bad.

3. This is my biggest concern. I am no pro at rigging stuff up to just work. Do you think there are any motor mounts out there that I can buy that will be a little easier to attach?

4. This isn't bad... it's the reason im ditching my duel 5kmah batteries :-P

5. I have killed every plane i've owned in tip stalling accidents... I've kinda gotten this one beat lol, Also, I plan on being ~2000ft above the ground at any given time heh.


I am really excited that it is as durable as you've said, I am terrible at ESC/Motor/Prop calculations and figuring that stuff out. I normally rely on what I'm told to do heh... So, Any advice on those 3? Could you post links? (Like, seriously, I'm not lazy, i'm just stupid)
Also, I've never flown a wing before, so I don't know where the CG is, or if you need a flap mixer or anything like that maybe a little advice on that would be great too lol :-)

I think my motor mount method is probably the easiest... you need to be a little careful putting the motor too far back because its harder to get weight up front to offset it... just use a clamshell mount...

http://www.atlantahobby.com/Store/pc...0-410p1514.htm

I think my CG is about 14in right now... the manual I think says 13, but thats a little too far forward...

I am using a nice hacker motor right now because I had one left over from another project, but I think a direct drive Mega 22/30/3 should work ok on 3s... I would start with a 10x6 and work on up to 11 or 12" prop... I dont have motocalc handy right now, but when I broke the gearbox on my hacker I was going to buy this setup while the hacker was getting repaired...

I Love what you have done downeym I enjoyed reading throught this thread.
Your wing, wirring diagram, base station setup, Daaaaaang! and the videos of your acomplishments.
It's great how much you have shared with us. "One Big Thank you!"
Keep it coming.

I am in the research end of FPV at this time, "the brain is swelling with all the info I have come across in the past month". A great thread like this helps to sort things out, before going gun ho with the Pay Pal.
Ken

Nice thread here. Great videos and wonderful setup. I'll be watching this.

Thanks for the comments. I hope that people can find the info I post here helpful.

I recently replaced the futaba 72mhz reciever with a dragon link UHF reciever and managed to get a few test flights before I had to travel for business. the maiden flight about 2.5 miles of range with lots of headroom. I mostly turned back out of nerves!

Maiden flight of the Dragon Link (4 min 19 sec)

Cool video. Why was the drop outs only affecting throttle? And do you not have RTH sensing enabled for this UHF (didn't see RTH triggering)?

And screw the kids on the field. Grin. Give them one good fly over with that 10-foot monster and you'll have plenty of room to land. LOL.

The dragon link came with a 5/8 whip antenna (a long piece of wire) and I just taped it to the bottom of the wing running out the right side... when I was getting the dropouts, I was standing off the right wing, with the antenna pointing right at me (the worst possible orientation)

the 5/8 whip is fairly directional which means that there is a significant signal loss with the antenna pointing at you.

I guess at full throttle there is enough interference to cause a small dropout, cutting the throttle and then allowing signal recovery.

Since then I have the antenna coming out the top of the wing, which should help these issues.

Originally Posted by downeym

The dragon link came with a 5/8 whip antenna (a long piece of wire) and I just taped it to the bottom of the wing running out the right side... when I was getting the dropouts, I was standing off the right wing, with the antenna pointing right at me (the worst possible orientation)

the 5/8 whip is fairly directional which means that there is a significant signal loss with the antenna pointing at you.

I guess at full throttle there is enough interference to cause a small dropout, cutting the throttle and then allowing signal recovery.

Since then I have the antenna coming out the top of the wing, which should help these issues.

Hum. Interesting. I'm still not sure why the ET wasn't triggering signal loss and kicking in RTH (maybe not enough "drop out" to trigger the full fail safes?).

Which brings me to another question regarding UHF. Do you still use your traditional transmitter, and somehow "patch" the broadcast over to UHF land, or do you have to use a custom transmitter. I sure would hate to give up all the trim/mix/setups I can do on my 9CAPS. I love being able to just "plug" modules into the back for 72MHz synth, 2.5Ghz FAAST or Spektrum or WOW-RC...