Falcon taxing for takeoff (photo by Constantin Diehl)

Falcon Unmanned is pleased to have demonstrated Falcon and Falcon Hover at this weekends Rocky Mountain Airshow in Greeley Colorado.  This was the first time in the US that a UAV without a military designation or special airworthiness certificate was able to perform in an outdoor air show demonstration with the FAAs consent.  In the end we were flying under AMA rules as an AMA sanctioned event however I believe that the precedent has been set to open the door for future demonstrations of this type of technology under the COA process.  The actual demonstration included a bungee launch of Falcon, a couple of passes of the spectatros, and recovery.  This was followed by a flight of Falcon Hover along the runway across from the crowd.  During both flights we were broadcasting the video feed from our new stabilized gimbal on the jumbotron.  Following the main demonstrations flights were completed using Falcon Hover in an indoor netted area.  While we were limited flight time this is an important milestone for the industry and showed the general public the positive benefits that unmanned aircraft can provide.

We'd like to thank the Rocky Mountain Airshow staff Jim Cimiluca and Constantin Diehl for their efforts to coordinate this event with the FAA and also Mike Harrington with the AMA for his support for this event.

Chris Miser

Owner

Falcon Unmanned

www.falconunmanned.com

Falcon Hover getting a birds eye view of a P-51 (photo by Constantin Diehl)

Image from www.downtownmiaminews.com

Hey Folks,

A little while back we at Falcon Unmanned developed a tool that we like for doing data analysis on a flight.  What it does is takes the data from a flight log and generates a lot of different charts for some important parameters.  In the spirit of opensource and sharing and world peace and kittens we figured it might help a few of you out there with your own data analysis and troubleshooting.  So below you will find the link to the macro enable spreadsheets.  In the spread sheet you will find an instructions tab which goes through the steps to run a flight log.  

We are providing two different versions.  One we use for our Fixed Wing Falcon and one we use for our Multi Copter Falcon Hover.  Falcon flies for a long time so the data logs generated and file sizes can sometimes exceed Excel's capabilities so the Fixed Wing Arduanalysis only plots the data from the time you go above 10m to the time you go below 10m as well as a 1000 data points before and after to hopefully capture the take off and landing.  The Multicopter Arduanalysis will plot the entire flight log.  If you have more than one takeoff and landing in a fixed wing flight or they images don't capture your complete takeoff/landing then use the multicopter arduanalysis or change the code to suit your needs.

The spreadsheets are offered up as-is and with no warranty as I tend to drink alot of craft beer while coding.  I have left the macro unlocked so you review and modify the macro code as you wish.

Import things to note:

RTFM (i.e. instructions tab)

Excel is required so you might want to have that

These are macro enabled excel spreadsheets so your virus software or firewall may not like them

Give the macro time to run

Fixed Wing Arduanalysis

Multicopter Arduanalysis

Drone on,

Chris Miser, Owner Dude Man

Falcon Unmanned

www.falconunmanned.com

Falcon Unmanned is proud to have provided support to the Mesa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) in response to a large landslide which hit the county on Sunday night.  After hearing about the event on Monday morning we loaded up a few aircraft and headed out arriving Monday afternoon.  We flew one mapping mission with our fixed wing Falcon over the lower third of the landslide which is the best estimated location of three missing persons in the area when the slide hit.  We launched and parachute recovered from a narrow path about 8 feet wide with tall scrub oak on either side of us.  After returning to the hotel we were able to process over 750 images using Photoscan in a few hours.  The processed data included updated maps with the slide, an elevation model of the slide area covered, google earth overlays, and of course the raw images.  The size of the slide is just mind boggling and still hard for me to comprehend.  It was 2.8 miles long, 1/2 mile wide at the widest point, and on the lower third of the slide our elevation model revealed about 20-30 feet of new elevation gain with some spots over 100 feet deep.  We flew a second flight with Falcon Hover to capture some HD video to hopefully put things in perspective.  When we are clear to do so we'll do another post providing the Google Earth overlay.  As always we are proud to support the Mesa County Sheriff's Office!

Chris Miser

www.falconunmanned.com

info@falconunmanned.com 

Link to article and video

Heres a piece CBS did this morning on conservation and drones based on our work (falconunmanned.com) with the World Wildlife Fund.  They didn't do any screen captures of the GCS but we are happing to be flying 3DR products and using Mission Planner!

I know there are many in the DIY community who also do UAV/UAS work as their profession and are members of AUVSI.  I cast my ballot this morning and the leadership is still very top heavy in Defense Corporations and Mega Corps.  This year we do have a chance to have our DIY and small business voice represented with two people who are up for election.

Ben Miller (http://benforauvsi.com/), of the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, is running for the Public Safety Board position.  Ben currently operates my companies aircraft, Falcon UAV.  We used to run Procerus/Lockheeds Procerus autopilot but have now converted all of our aircraft to APM and Ben is fully on board with that.  In fact this week Ben and I executed some Falcon/APM mapping missions over in Mesa County.  He is a firm believer in the power of open source, member of DIY Drones, and supports two COAs for Falcon and Falcon Hover running the APM autopilot.

Mark Blanks, Kansas State University, is running for the Academia Board position.  Mark is a very common sense down to earth guy.  Their university team is  very much a DIY team putting together platforms for Agriculture and Public Safety uses.  Mark is currently running a program dealing with airworthiness certification and will be an advocate for small businesses who don't have the money and funds to put their aircraft through an expensive airworthiness certifications and will apply common sense to how small businesses would operate.

If you are a member of AUVSI and want the voice of the little guy heard I highly recommend you put your vote in for these two candidates.

Thank You,

Chris Miser

Lead Falconer

Falcon UAV

In Nov 13 Falcon UAV traveled to Namibia in cooperation with the WWF and Namibia Ministry of Environment and Tourism to participate in field tests for anti poaching and other conservation missions.  While in Namibia Falcon flew a number of day and nighttime missions at two separate parks and based on our performance we were selected for an initial fielding to occur in 2014.  

We are very proud to be selected for this mission but realize that we didn't do this alone.  We proudly fly the APM autopilot and use Mission Planner on the ground and want to take this opportunity to thank the DIY community, the APM dev team, and the staff of 3DRobotics.  Special thanks to Andrew Tridgell, Michael Oborne, and Craig Elder for their support of our efforts in Africa and beyond.  This system wouldn't be as amazingly capable as it is without the contributions of the entire community.  So thank you all for your contributions to this noble mission.

For more information on the WWF project:

http://worldwildlife.org/stories/an-eye-in-the-sky-for-boots-on-the-ground 

Sincerely,

Chris Miser

Falcon UAV