Discussions

After about two monthes of preparation (i began multicopters activity about three monthes ago), i finally decided to test a real fly with my Hexa X frame.

The machine is quite expensive, and quite a lot of work on it. So this decision was not so easy :=)

I've used ACM 2.0.44 with default PID settings, on a modified DroidWorx heavy lift frame.

I connected the Lipo, did the preflight tests, did engage Dual rate reduction on roll and pitch, reduce a bit the throtlle power with the throttle curve on the transmitter (70% as i have no camera load on the frame yet), and tried to push slowly the throttle stick.

I needed to make some small corrections on pitch and roll so that the frame did not flip on one side. After a couple minutes studying the ground effect and stick corrections, i pushed a bit more the throttle (keeping a finger near the throttle cut button if something did goes wrong) and the Hexa rised at about 1.50 meter height, a couple meters in front of me ! Nice !

Impressive to see such a quite heavy machine (about 4 Kg and 12 Kg total thrust) flying so stable ! I did only minor stick corrections, mainly on pitch and roll. I've used stabilize mode, as this is the mode i'm used to on my PC simulator. I did try to forget the machine price, concentrating on the piloting skills i got on the PC simulator, and finaly i was able to hover in a 2 meters x 2 meters square without problems.

I tried to manually hover at about 1 - 2 meters altitude, during about 5 minutes. All was ok, i had only about 4 meters x 10 meters to fly. Unfortunately the Lipo telemetry was here to say me that i should land. Ok lets land this baby, i tried to perfectly hover at about 50 cm, and decreased the throttle. Perfect landing ! Almost like in PC the simulator.

Next tests in a larger area with fully charged Lipos (8 Ah), and eventual PID corrections if instabilities are detected.

A big thank for all the community, for the programming work, nice hardware and advices here in the forum.

Olivier ADLER