Comment by Philip Giacalone on December 6, 2011 at 10:38pm

Hi all,

Here is my first T3 entry. This was the flight of a modified Dynam HawkSky piloted by the UDB4.

Total time was 47 seconds on the first lap.

Here is an image showing all 7 laps flown that morning and demonstrating the UDB's excellent control.

The .kmz file is posted here

The waypoints file is posted here

Here is a photo and description of the plane

Modified Dynam HawkSky

Electronics: UAV Dev Board v4 running MatrixPilot 3.2.1, EM406 GPS, Spektrum DX7 TX,  AR7010 RX, upgraded motor and ESC (Grayson Hobby MicroJet V3 & 20A ESC).

Physical changes: 6 1/2 inches trimmed from wings, propeller (APC 6x4), enlarged tail surfaces, carbon fiber rods in tail boom and tail surfaces, reinforced fuselage, clear plastic canopy, RC Powers motor mount.

Here are some more pictures of the plane

Special thanks to the UAV Dev Board team for making all of this possible. Thank you Bill, Pete, Ben, and you too, Ric, for helping me at all points along the way! As mentioned above, it's an honor and pleasure to be involved with such wonderful people.

Developer Comment by Pete Hollands on December 6, 2011 at 11:47pm

@Hi Phil, lovely flight, beautifully set up.

I'm not able to access the "pictures of the plane" or "waypoints file". I'm being denied access by Google at the moment. Are they "published to the web" ? I can access the KMZ file.

Best wishes, Pete

Comment by Phil Giacalone on December 6, 2011 at 11:58pm

Hi Pete,

Oops, sorry about that. I just made the photos public. Hopefully you can access them now.

BTW, thanks for the excellent Flight Analyzer tool that produced the google earth .kmz files shown above.

Best regards,

Phil

Comment by Riccardo Kuebler on December 7, 2011 at 7:12am

Hi Phil,

great entry !

Seems I still can't relax, I'm wondering to cut the wings of my Acromaster too ;P

Best regards,

Ric

Comment by Phil Giacalone on December 7, 2011 at 1:11pm

Thanks, Ric. Yes, seems we're all living on the 'cutting edge' ;-)

But you better look out, man. A bigger motor just arrived in the mail yesterday. You might still be safe, though. They forgot to include the propeller!  

Best regards,

Phil

Comment by Ben Levitt on December 7, 2011 at 11:48pm

Here's my first attempt (also my first T3 entry).  My plane wasn't going full throttle, so if I get another chance, I'll enable racing mode.  :)

I was flying an old UDB3 prototype in a Multiplex ParkMaster.

I measure this as an 84 second run, so not a contender currently, but very fun to set up and fly!

Here's the KMZ file.

And here's the UDB LOGO program I used:

SET_ALT(100)

REPEAT_FOREVER
   // Point South
   SET_ANGLE(180)
   SET_POS(130, 85)

   FD(170)
   REPEAT(10)
      RT(15)
      FD(10)
   END

   FD(245)
   REPEAT(10)
      LT(15)
      FD(10)
   END

   FD(180)
   REPEAT(10)
      LT(15)
      FD(10)
   END

   FD(245)
   REPEAT(9)
      RT(15)
      FD(10)
   END
END

Comment by Javio on December 8, 2011 at 5:04pm

Lol, it sounds funny!!! Maybe I´ll be able to participate next time...

Cheers from Spain!

Javio

Comment by Krzysztof Bosak on December 9, 2011 at 4:56pm

@brakar "usually calm weather. "

Now that was good I cannot find a day with less than 7m/s wind since 2 weeks in Poland.

Circle times are rather close to two than one minute.

Weather is a big factor for any closed loop time competition!

Flying lenght L with airspeed A and windspeed W, there and back, takes: L/(A+W)+L/(A-W) time, which is larger than L/A for W<A.

Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on December 10, 2011 at 12:35am

Don't forget gang tomorrow is the cut off day. As ever these deadlines are elastic but within reason. So let me know now via PM if you are going to try and the WX is an issue and then I may just put the clock back on my confuser.

Comment by Colin on December 10, 2011 at 1:11pm

Hi all,

I’ve just completed another attempt at the course, this time with a new airframe. It’s all been a bit of a last minute rush to get it working in time, but I’m very happy with my time: 39.25 seconds

Here’s a google earth screen grab of the track:

The plane I used was a Multiplex Funjet.

I used an APM 1280 using Arduplane 2.24 with a crosstrack fix. I installed the IMU on the CG as shown below. Also the motor only weighs 40g, so I mounted it on the outside to help keep the CG back.

I originally used a much larger motor (120g), which although had more power, was an absolute pig to launch (maybe you can see the resultant dirt on the nose) and didn’t fly all that well either. This undersized motor that I had left over from another project transformed the plane, I love it!

I had a lot of problems with electronic noise coming from the balance plug on the lipo, if incorrectly placed it’d stop the gyros from initialising or create massive amounts of jitter on the servos and throttle! In the end I found a sweet spot and things were okay for the circuits.

Files for the flight can be found on my github page: KMZ, APM log, waypoint locations

Thanks again for the contest, its been fun :-)

Colin

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