I am doing AP and photogrammetry with Bixler + APM + GPS + telemetry.
It flies fine but as soon as going upwind when wind above 10mph, plane is wagging, fighting, and battery gets dead very quickly.
Bottom line I need something slow but wind resistant with good payload
According to the following parameters :
- Average wind in my area is around 20mph so plane should easily stand that much wind
- Need 1 hour battery life even when flying upwind,
- payload : 2 cameras on board for approx. 500g/600g.
- strong wings (I do not want to worry about twisted or weak wings)
- slow stall speed
According to my calculation I need some 1,5 kg along with a 500g camera and 800g / 10000ma battery
So in total 2,3 kg.
I have t4 narrowed my research down to the below list
- Maja
- Super Sky Surfer
- Skywalker 2013 but problem with twisted wings
- Skywalker Condor
- Ranger
- Survoyeur (on the heavy side though)
Can you guys help me narrowing my choice to only 2 ?
Thank you
Replies
I like my Maja. It can carry the camera payload mounted under the wings. I've flown mine in 50km/hr winds, I wouldn't do it again, but it can handle it. Landing was the toughest part. I've flown mine with 1.6kg of payload and I felt it could have handled a little more. It gets hard to hand launch with that much weight on board.
One minor downside is that I can hardly fly it in manual mode, but there is really no need to which is why I don't try. I take off and land in stabilize mode which is fantastic, and do missions in auto.
I tuned mine for a 100km attempt and got 126km (2hr 45min), so it can fly for an hour. I use it for mapping with a Canon S100 on a home made roll gimbal suspended under the wing (with a counter weight in the other wing).
By my quick calculations you'd only get about an hour flying with 10,000mAh of 3S batteries and 500g of camera, and that's assuming you aren't flying fast (like you'll need to to make headway into the wind) and that the cameras aren't out in the wind causing drag.
The Maja is definitely tough, the wing has two aluminium spars, and it can fly as slow as 9m/s when not heavily loaded.
I don't have a lot of experience with other planes though so I don't really have anything to compare it with. I had a Raptor FPV before that which is the little brother of the Ranger. The nylon fuse is super tough and I really enjoyed it.
Thank you Moglos.
I do the same, landing in stab mode and flying auto.
I also heard some pros in Europe are using it for photogrammetry.
- What is the stall speed on the maja please, with a, say, 500g payload and 10000 ma (800g) battery ?
- Have you tried the 220cm wings ?
- Also have you tried to fly it in 2 axis / 3 channels only ?
I have a 350w motor, and I limit it to 80% to keep my ESC safe. I think 500w is over the top.
I use the 220cm wings.
I don't know what the stall speed is. I would guess around below 10m/s. Again I did all my testing in auto mode, if it could't keep the commanded altitude it increased the pitch and the power. The cruise speed (maximum range or lowest drag) with 1.3kg on board would be 12.4m/s.
Thank you !
It really sounds like a conservative, a tad expensive, not sexy but solid choice...
The true issue is that your aircraft is a ping pong ball in that wind, being bounced around freely... and hence it's doing a lot of work trying to fly straight and level (thus you're draining your batteries fast). Increasing the stiffness of the aircraft will resolve only a small amount of this problem... ultimately, you need to minimise its response to turbulence. An increase in mass will help somewhat, as will an increase in airspeed (these will alter the scale length of turbulence acting on the vehicle and subsequently the time constants in the dynamics response, meaning you don't need to act as frequently).
Ultimately, the problem stems from the control paradigm of trying to minimise an error between the current trajectory and the reference trajectory (dictated by mission waypoints), where turbulence is a stochastic forcing driving your vehicle away from the desired trajectory. Without a significant change in the navigation system within the APM software you're stuck with picking a different airframe and power train and trying that out.
My 2013 Skywalker don't mind 25kph, with the 1700 wings it should be a breeze..
Consider the Talon with the wing extensions.
Also the SkyHunter has no problems with high wind.
Then there's the Mini Mugin 2.5m from PFVModel. I've ordered one. I need it to fly 2 hours at least though, so we'll see..
The Super Sky Surfer does not seems like an airframe that loves wind.
Drop the 2013 SW for the 2014 with the new wings.
Drop the Condor completely.
My choice of 2 would be between the SkyHunter and Talon, but neither are your list.
Hein,
Your comment : "Drop the Condor completely".
Can you pls detail further ?
The Condor is the 2011 design of the Skywalker, just black, with the foam boom, small fuse and microscopic elevator :) The wings are also obsolete as the new ones perform better.
Thnak you Hein,
I deliberately disregarded those 2 planes for 2 reasons :
- I do not like those kind of tails on the SH, great in the air but fragile on the land
- Talon does not seem bad at all except undercarriage. I will land on all sort of grounds, and I think I would destroy the acrylic front very quickly. Also my cameras need to point south, I mean downwards
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