Comment

Comment by William Shaler on March 30, 2013 at 10:35pm

Can we start a collection of tuning files? I think it would be great to have a starting point for everybody. 

Comment by Rick Eis on March 23, 2013 at 9:58am

Dudz,

If you have never flown an RC plane, you might invest in a flight trainer before you fly a plane such as a Zeph2.  Unless of course you have significant $ for repair or replacement. RealFlight Expansion Pac 6 even has one of Chris's (Ritewing) wings.  This is what he suggested for me :)  It appears to be a very fast plane - gets out of sight in a few seconds - ha... not much time to recover :)

Even then, it might be cost effective to learn to fly with a slower trainer - That is what I am doing :)  Actually, even though I have years of flying slow gliders, I still purchased the flight trainer with Chris's wing AND I'm currently building a slower Skyflyer from ReadyMade RC mostly for FPV  :)  I too have a very nice ZephII almost complete hanging on the wall.  I'm probably going to put the APM2 in the inexpensive slow Skyflyer just for practice before I launch the rocket (ZephII).

Hope this helps,

Rick

Comment by FlyingMerf on March 23, 2013 at 7:54am

Duds,I agree 100% with Parke's opinions on relying completely on a "blind" setup of the APM for the Zephyr. Individual Zephyrs can have different flight characteristics depending on weight, CG, servo type, control horn length etc. The Zephyr is a great flyer, but it is relatively fast and it is not inherently stable like a trainer plane, so when something is not working right, it will hit the dust in a hurry. If at all possible, ask an experienced RC pilot to help you during the setup process. Better yet, learn to fly it manually yourself. It is a LOT of fun. Good luck!

Comment by Parke @ ParkeFlyer on March 21, 2013 at 3:36pm

Dudz, personally, I would avoid trying to fly the plane without "knowing" how to fly the plane. This could be a recipe for disaster. From my experience over the last several months, the APM is far from perfect out-of-the-box and often needs to be tuned and tuned again over several flights. Even then, it screws up from time-to-time (or I screw something up). The feature to fall back on is that you can always turn the APM off and simply fly the plane. If I hadn't had this ultimate failsafe, I would have surely crashed my wing trying to get the APM tuned. When you think you have it setup pretty well, flying in stabilize mode might help you get more comfortable and switching to manual from time to time to get practice. Also, you will want to make sure your wing itself is flight worthy (COG, reflex, etc.) before expecting the APM to fly it. You'll get the hang of it quickly, and then move on to APM flight LOS. In no time, you'll probably be ready for FPV using the APM, and actually get your plane back for another flight. If you just jump in, it might be a one flight plane. :)

Comment by dudz on March 20, 2013 at 3:57pm

I have built 90% of my Zephyr II with apm2.  I have up until now only ever flown a quadcopter.  I use it mainly in Auto. In FPV I keep throwing the goggles off whenever I loose video quality in fear of crashing. Question is, can I finish the zephyr, and only use it in Auto without actualy flying it in manual ?.... what are the chances of it flying as it should with the standard parameters straight away ?

Comment by Bret C on March 11, 2013 at 12:21pm

Mike - here are my parameters for my Zephyr II.  I don't think it will correct your RTL situation though.  

Bret CAgEagle%20ZII%20BretChilcott%20031113.param

Comment by Mike Klinker on March 11, 2013 at 12:05pm

Can someone upload a full parameter list for the ZII?? I have done some tuning but my fly by wire does not level out, RTH is not working. 

Thanks!

Mike

Comment by Treggon Owens on January 18, 2013 at 4:49pm

ZXL + APM meet world.  The Zephyr Xtra Large, 81 inches, 3" elevons... I have it dialed as far as the ground, now to check to see if it flys at all in stabilize mode.  I have some concerns with how the throws in stabilize mode go beyond the max I set in the options, but hey.... she's at least pretty.

Comment by Chris Prefect on October 7, 2012 at 3:04pm

So does anybody have a good config file for the Zephyr? I have a 60" Zephyr 1 and use the APM Board Version 2.5 with the better GPS module.

I basically just changed the speeds to about 60km/h cruse speed and set the descent rate to 10° and climb rate to 50°. What else should be changed?

TBA Zephyr 1

Comment by FlyingMerf on September 15, 2012 at 3:48pm

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page