Hi all,

I already fly a Wing Dragon for FPV, but I also have a spare that I use to "test the air" every time I go out. Call me paranoid...........

However, I decided that my 2nd Dragon needs to be converted also, so I've ordered the necessary OSD, camera & Tx parts etc.

There are some necessary mods to do to the Dragon in order to make room for the FPV hardware etc. Here are some photos........more coming soon.

First, it's necessary to make more room up front for the OSD hardware, bigger battery etc. The way I chose was to move the servos back in the fusilage about 5 inches. This involves removing the existing servo plate and fabricating a new one from 1mm aluminum and mounting it on place.The added advantage here is that with the new weight up front, moving some back helps to compensate.

I also replaced the stock brushed motor with a brushless outrunner, which mounts very neatly off the back of the old motor/prop position.

And finally in this first series of pics, I also upgraded the landing gear using suitable piano wire and bigger wheels.More weight yes, but the thought of my FPV hardware having a hard landing....ugghh!

Thats cool,
Keep use updated

What about the wings? Wlll let the same ?
Don't you need more area for additional carry ?
May I suggest to adapt the 1400mm aileron wings designed for AP slow stick ?

Here's a pic of the new and original wing for comparison.

I chopped the ends off an old 3-ch wing I had and epoxy'd them on the ends of the 4-ch wing. Adds about 14" in total to the wing span. The new span is 55.5" (1410mm).

There is also some 2mm carbon rods on the underside to strengthen the wing.Possibly not necessary for slow flying, but in the event of pulling hard on the elevator I was afraid of breakage.

Ian.

Your modded WD looks great. I wish now that I hadn't thrown my old WD away a few weeks ago.

Hi all,

Now the elevated platform for the pan/tilt camera setup.

Baseplate fabricated from 0.7mm sheet aluminium, barely thick enough but it does help keep the weight down.

U-bracket from 1.5mm flat alu bar. Could have been thinner but it's what I had to hand.

The servo is elevated on 10mm pillars in order to have the camera poke it's nose over the front cowl. I like to have a clearer view of forward and down. Note:- My glue gun gets some work to add some rigidity on the underside of the servo, also stops the screws working loose.

The baseplate is held in place using duct tape, yellow of course to match the plane!

Note:- The tilt servo will be attached to the back of the camera (KX-191) itself, but more of that later.

Hi all,

Next step is the camera and tilt servo mounting.

Roughen up the back of the camera in order to create a good glue key (epoxy) and attach the tilt servo.

I didn't use the screws that came with the camera, instead I inserted some threaded rod (glued in place) that gave the length required for the bracket. The rod is quite neat in the holes on the bracket, i.e. the camera doesn't wallop about and thus needs no nuts on the outside.
Note: Be careful inserting the rod, the internal electronics is very close to the hole. I'd advise opening up the camera (2 screws) and having a look.

The pan servo still needs a line of hot glue around the topside just to add a bit of extra stability and strength. You'd think by looking at it that it would be a bit top heavy and easily broken, but actually it ain't too bad.

Also, the way I have the tilt servo setup is to give lots of down view and not much upwards...........as the cam is very near the front of the plane I can see the ground quite clearly. It's easily changed though just by relocating the servo arm.

Next on the agenda is mounting the Tx in the fusilage......coming soon.

Ian.

Hi all,

Now the installation of the Tx (2.4ghz, 1000mW).

With the antenna attached it actually descends lower than the undercarriage, therefore it's necessary to hand launch the plane. The antenna should be orientated so that on landing it will fold towards the tail. I've flown them this way before and nothing gets damaged, the antenna simply flips back on contact with the ground.

I've look at mounting the antenna on the upper side of the fusilage but there's not really an ideal position.

Nice looking setup.

Your vid Tx looks very close to the servos.
Will be interesting to see if your servos will chatter being that close.

Originally Posted by galaxiex

Nice looking setup.

Your vid Tx looks very close to the servos.
Will be interesting to see if your servos will chatter being that close.

Hi, this is my 2nd WD, the first being identical.........and I don't really get any chatter that I notice with that plane,no more than normal anyway. However, to be safe though on this plane I might try shielding with some thin aluminium plate, i.e. covering the hole I had to make in the fusilage to install the servo's.

Ian.

Good to hear the 1st one didn't chatter.

Sometimes they chatter, sometimes they don't...

Seems to depend on brand/model of servo, and luck with the RF gods...

Good idea to shield them, be interesting to try without the shield just to see....