Hello all,

After a many months and months of reliable service I had a slightly damaging crash that made me decided to totally rebuild my easy glider.

Here is the original build thread when she was brand new:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=753208

From that link you should be able to see some of the video I was able to capture from this beautiful flying machine.

After flying this beast for a year or so I finally made a list of things I wanted to change. First I loved how nice this glider glided and I want to clean up my design a little and move everything I can to the insides to increase the already staggering flight times I can pull off this thing. I want to make it able to fly with and without camera without having to add too too much nose weight (my crash that caused this rebuild was giving it a firm hand launch without dummy weight in place....so it was about 6oz tail heavy ). Lastly it has to have the wings easily removable as currently the servo connections dont allow for easy disassembly.

Here we go!

FLIP
My eassy glider..after long time "sleeping" in..Woke up ..
Fixed all in and soon Test flight
What camera do you use? mounting the camera on?

Tx
Guy

Originally Posted by guyg

FLIP
My eassy glider..after long time "sleeping" in..Woke up ..
Fixed all in and soon Test flight
What camera do you use? mounting the camera on?

Tx
Guy

The camera I am currently using is a lumix LS70 if I remeber correctly. I bought it on sale mainly for video use, but it still takes very nice photos for a point and shoot. I am thinking about buying one of the cheaper HD cameras and hacking it down to make it a little lighter and smaller but I have to find one that I am happy with both the quality of video and price.

The camera is mounted on the nose in 2 different configurations (forward shooting and side shooting). Not entirely sure if I am going to keep that mount or move to custom pan and tilt style mount. I am very interested in FPV so I am kind of building this with the possibility of adding a FPV system in the future (considering I have a new in box OSD that I would love to put to use!)

Curt

Curt ...
Tx allot for the info
Guy

Well I finally pulled the trigger on a downlink system! I purchased a 900mhz 500mW system! I have heard a few reports in the FPV forum of this unit not playing nice with 2.4 radios...but I am an EE buy trade and figure worse come to worse I am sure there is a way to help filter any sidebands I may not be able to solve with equipment placement.

I did not purchase a camera with the unit as I have heard that both the 131 and 171 are not the best cameras so I am looking into using my lumix as a live video out device. I heard live out is possibly now I just need to find out how.

Now I cant wait to get this thing air born! Hopefully I can put in some work this weekend and have it airworthy again!

Curt

Quick Update:

Build progress has been steady and quick but I have been snapping lots of pictures that I'll hopefully have online shortly (I am shooting for a weekend maiden). I did however discover that my lumix has live video out in both movie mode and picture mode so my downlink should work perfectly with this bird!

I hope to have the downlink installed and ready for testing nearing the end of this month (waiting on online orders is what seems to take up most of the time)!

Curt

Heres a quick update of whats been done as of late. Now I just need to tweek the CG a little, slap a little tape on leading edges and such and I should hopefully be able to squeeze a flight in later on in the long weekend.

Onto the pics!

Curt

Beautiful motor mount. Can't wait to see her fly!

Originally Posted by quailbird

Beautiful motor mount. Can't wait to see her fly!

Thankyou quail! I hope to have her airborn soon! I have far to many fun projects on the go and I try to make time for all of them so this one is a little slower to finish then most.

Question:

I am going thru the process of wiring up my Act Labs OSD right now (the one that I actually won from this forum!). Act Labs removed documentation for the OSD on their site and an email with them said to just use the manual for the blackbox as it has the same OSD functions......well that didnt get me far.

If anyone has a manual for this unit and could help that would be great! Other wise I am just going to wire it up, plug it in, and stumble my way thru.

Curt

PS - New canopy for camera is nearly finished! Should have pictures up later tonight of the now almost totally complete FPV canopy with lumix!

Well its about ready for a maiden flight! For once I nearly have my CG dead on without any nose or tail weight! All in all I am much happier with the way the rebuilt turned out. It has quite a bit less gear hanging out in the wind and should make for a more efficient flying glider. I will be working on fully completing my FPV system now and will decided which plane I will install it on. I just need to add some strapping tape to a few locations on the glider, redrill my canopy locking pin hole, and test it all out.

If the wind dies down a little bit today I should be able to get a few flights in before I have to go shoot some pictures tomorrow evening.

Sorry for the grainy images, I needed to take pictures of the camera on the plane so the old cell phone camera to the rescue.

Curt

well dne
great work!!
Guy

Originally Posted by guyg

well dne
great work!!
Guy

Thanks Guy!

Heres a few more pictures of the ready to fly bird. I figured I might as well install the video TX on this plane as I know it flies very stable and it will let me get into FPV easier. The canopy only needs power from a servo connection plug I made so it is very easy to get at all the inside when removing or installing batteries.

There is more information about my aluminum box ground station in the FPV forum.

Curt

PS - Once again I apologize for the less then steller picture quality. My big cannon has been damaged so the cell phone is the only other way to take pictures when the lumix is installed...sure gives me a good reason to look into a DLSR tho.

Curt Very nice work.
Can you tell us more about the pusher configuration? Did you design and build it yourself?
How does it fly? How does the wood fasten to the fuselage?

Originally Posted by john339

Curt Very nice work.
Can you tell us more about the pusher configuration? Did you design and build it yourself?
How does it fly? How does the wood fasten to the fuselage?

John,

Thanks for the kind words. The pusher was designed and built myself out of many ideas from the people on this forum. I wanted something very clean but still functional. The pusher pylon is cut about an inch deeper then what you see and is locked into the glider with ample amounts of hot glue. The mount is extremely solid, I have no doubt that they fuse would snap in half long before my mount was damaged. This may be partially due to the fact that it was made out of 2 separate layers of liteply that were then CA'd together before being permanently glued in place.

Flight Report:

I was able to get a flight in the other day with the new design...maiden flight with all video gear on board (lumix camera, and downlink...nothing turned on at the time tho)...flies basically exactly like the old one. With the pusher mounted high above the CG and even with my tweeked thrust angle I still get a medium pitch down effect if I slam into WOT. So long as you ease the power on slowly the pitch down effect is not noticed. I flew it this time without any additional elevator to throttle mixing (I did increase my thrust angle by about 1 degree to hopefully get rid of my mixing). It was quite nose heavy on its maiden flight as I did not intend on having the video transmitter installed so quickly, and as such needed a little more up trim then normal to fly around.
Without power it glides significantly better then my last design. This is exactly what I was shooting for when moving the battery into the cockpit. Once I correct the CG issues and clean the design a little more (needs some protection tape here and there) it should be an amazing flier and a great video platform...again.
It cannot handle as much wind as some of my other planes but it was never built to be a windy flier. It was built to take nice smooth video and it does that very well.

I am putting quite a lot of work into other projects at the moment but if I left any questions un-answered please let me know. I am happy to help or post more pictures.

Curt

Thanks for the mount info.
Is this idea OK for someone else to use?
I guess I mean can you post the dimensions of the mount?
I love my Easyglider Pro but would like the pusher idea for taking video.
I cannot find a larger pusher then my Easystar but the glider is so much smoother and is a better platform for my video camera.
Thank you for answering my questions.
A pusher Easyglider Pro would be perfect for my uses.
John