Skycat parachute launcher for Drones

Dear reader,

We are now live at www.skycat.pro. The development project continues, and updates are added to this blog in random intervals.

We have parachutes launchers available in many weight ranges; optimal 1 - 6 kg and these could be extended with higher impact level up to 11 kg. For larger up to 23 kg multicopters we have XL - series with pilot chute principle.

For those who wants to digest all information available of products, we have left this blog as it is. This blog follows closely main steps we have gone through while developing parachute launcher. Blog might feel like Do It Yourself kind and to be honest, in the beginning it was.

After hundreds of hours thinking, designing, prototyping and testing our patent pending launcher turned to be the most reliable parachute launcher for professional use. We have searched all possible boundaries of technology and from this blog you'll find results of these successful tests but also not so successful tests.

You never know where The final limit of technology is without experiencing it. That's the reason why we have done tests for scenarios which might not be even realistic on flight.

For production versions of Skycat we could proudly to say that we have experienced zero mishaps, never failed a single eject and parachute has deployed every time. This includes rescue scenarios with every imaginable scenario copter could face in air. Check this out as one sample of our test sessions! 

Skycat parachute launcher has been tested beyond all imaginable abuses copter possibly could experience in flight. We have sink it to water, it has been heated hours to 90°C and exposed to extensive moisture, we have frosted, defrosted and frosted it again, it has been in mud and snow and still it has worked. Same overshooting tests we have done also for electronics. This is not promise you can use our products outside of submarine but we have tested it so :)

This blog will still be updated as well our Facebook pages www.facebook.com/skycat.pro and Twitter at https://twitter.com/skycatpro

Fly safe - Let's keep our copters flying!

Henri

Skycat.pro

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DJI Inspire 1 / Skycat X55-CF parachute integration by www.remotevision.ch:

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Other documentary videos:

Skycat Twin test session

OPENTX for parachute eject and 6POS switch

DUAL spring loaded switches - single RC channel for parachute eject, OPENTX

Brake enabled SimonK firmware

Ground eject demonstration in slow motion 

Water test

Aerial test No 2 for Opale Paramodels 2.5m^2 parachute 

Aerial test No 1 Opale Paramodels 1.8m^2 parachute 

A moment of deploy

Tower test 3

Tower test 2

 

Manufacturers contributed to this project:

- http://www.opale-paramodels.com/

http://www.fruitychutes.com

- www.vectorheli.com

- www.3drobotics.com

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Replies

    • Beautiful shot, so naughty and I use it as a screen saver (if I may)

      • Please do!

        That would be a great honour for us.

  • This is Perfect, That is 10meter is the Bottom line?
    Thank you and keep up the great work.
    Helmut

    • Thanks Helmut,

      It is bottom line what we have tried. To be honest it wasn't planned to be that low :) Power run out from some reason.

      BTW, video has conversion typo. I'll replace it.

      • Here is a video recorded from our twin chute test session. First eject was done at altitude of 25m (82ft) and another at altitude of 10 m (41ft).

        Footage is from Nokia 920 helmet camera, JVC GC-PX100 HS camera (100 fps) and Gopro from the air.

      • Hello Henri,
        Looking forward to the web-store, (Christmas is coming soon)

        The two screen solution is perfect for me.

        • Hi Helmut,

          It's nice to hear, thanks! We are pushing through all barriers on the road and I'm pretty sure this year we have conquered all of them on the way to Santa Claus village 

          This double parachute is very interesting. It is commonly use even with triple version on space industry so it can't be that bad solution. Descent was very stable even wind was too high on time of the second eject.

          Today we did also some calculation / estimation of the descent speed of my 4 kg Vector equipped with 2.5m2 parachute. Theoretically it should have descent speed of 5.1 m/s but seconds counted from video tells it to be closer to 3 m/s. That is really unofficial result but is interesting surprise anyway. I expected some level of damage on impact but it looks that copter didn't have a scratch even parachute on a strong wind pulled propels to mud.

          If our theory applies through the whole range of  the parachutes is this very welcome surprise.

          • Hi Henri,  Is that two 4M Opale chutes I take it (they are 10 gores each, ours at this size are 12).  You are going to be more cost effective is you size a single chute for recovery.  But if you do use two chutes you do have redundancy.

            If you want the two chutes to fly out less then you have to use longer risers between the canister and the chute.  The chutes flying out like this is natural and despite the angle still result in about the same amount of vertical lift per chute.

            • Hi Gene,

              these were Opale 4m2 parachutes. Size is about the same than yours IFC-60-S which fits also in to same launcher.

          • Can you check in the logs the actual descent speed? With opale parachutes, the surface (2.5m2) is the one of frontal disk or the whole chute surface?
            Maybe it depends on the Cd you take in your calculations, but 3m/s is really nice!
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