My new parts arrived on Friday. Included in the order was a new RC plane (Firebird Phantom) as well - it turned out that it was cheaper to add the complete model to the order rather than ordering each of the parts separately. So, on Saturday morning, I took my new bird out for another spin.
The winds were much closer to ideal this time, and I imagine they were well within the tolerance of the UAV to maintain control - given a reasonably competent operator.
I launched the Phantom by hand and maxed the throttle to get it some altitude. I am always surprised by how fast that thing gets into the air - it climbs on what seems to be a 60+ degree angle when at maximum throttle. With the surprising rate at which it went up, it was likely only at 50 feet when I reactively released the throttle - which caused it to immediately dive. Not being able to think clearly about what I was doing, and not having (although rapidly gaining) the experience needed to settle the craft down, I moved the throttle to maximum again.
The little bird started accelerating towards the ground, under its own weight and powered downward by the thrust. As before though, the dive quickly gave way to a steep, rapid climb - and I released the throttle again.
This time, the peak of the arc was lower than the first peak, and so it started to dive - towards a cement parking lot - with a lot less room to correct for my previous over-corrections. I maxed the throttle again, and the Phantom started to pull out of the dive. It looked like it was going to make it too - the trough of the dive was at about one to two feet from the ground - but I didn't notice the parked car directly in the flight path.
SMASH!
The tail virtually shattered on impact (no small feat for a craft built almost entirely of foam), but the fuselage appeared to survive due in large part to the soft nose. I ran over to the car and inspected the scene to see that the car had definitely come out of the ordeal with the better bargain - nary a scratch.
I collected up the pieces of my 2nd Phantom and returned home. My cumulative totals as an RC pilot stand at around 90 seconds and two crashes.
Lessons Learned
The Phantom should be easy to fix. I ordered a replacement tail with the Phantom that I just crashed, and will put another order in for more parts - they will hopefully be here before I need them. I've also decided that I need to get my plane to higher altitude. The Firebird Phantom comes with built-in ACT (Anti-Crash Technology), but I think it needs to be at a high altitude to be able to activate and auto-correct in time.
I'm nervous about taking the plane to higher altitudes though, because there is built-up areas surrounding the park that I fly in. So, for my next flight, I'll be heading out to an area on town called the sandpits. It's a couple Km out of town and should afford me the freedom of space I need to experiment with higher altitudes and longer ranges.
Darkness arrives earlier and earlier now as we move towards the winter solstice, so this flight will likely have to wait until next weekend. That's fine - I need the time to rebuild my Phantom.
Until then - thanks for reading.
