A handful of companies have fully autonomous flying wings, with users leaving the remote control in their bag.
I am considering to do the same, but how reliable is the APM auto-landing feature ?
- Is anyone using it intensively the auto-landing for a flying wing or a plane ?
- What percentage of successful landing are you getting ? ( and with which plane please ?)
Thank you
Replies
I've found that auto-landings are only as good as they're programmed to be, there's no anticipation or 'thinking' by the autopilot so you have to plan the preceding waypoints quite carefully. Different wind conditions too affect the landing,
I have experienced the touchdown generally occurs within about a 10m (W) x 50m (L) block.
I had a honest talk with one of my mapping competitors that fly a commercial NOK>500000 UAS.
They told me that landings were almost never as advertised. due to poor temperature stability or long flights, the altimeter was often off with several meters, and resulted often in serious overshoot, sometimes forcing them to press the "autocrash" button, that just make it stall and fall hard.
This is a system with a minimum of input, advertised as self-landing. They always stock up on spare wings and props (it's a delta with folding pusher.) - sorry I do not remember the name.
Anyway- commercial UAS have great need to brag, but to do a perfect landing in limited space, is often a problem, flying hear a 100x20 meter field, on the other hand, is never a problem.
I think a well tuned APM, have a pretty precise altitude, and creating a waypoint at 15mAGL 50m before the intended landing spot, gives really great landings.
If you got on a passenger jet, and you saw the pilot come on, program the autopilot, then walk off the plane...how confident would you as the passenger feel?
Not having the ability to take manual control at anytime is just incompetent piloting.