DSC03962

Was trying to go autonomous with a very basic platform. Wing leveling and route following without ailerons, altitude controlled by throttle. Rudder was creating the turn, and co-pilot was limiting amount of roll. To much gain on co-pilot, plane would not follow route. To little co-pilot gain, turn would spiral depending upon how much throttle was being applied at the time to maintain altitude. I think the flight that took the nose off was towards the end of an afternoon playing around with it. With the sun going down, the co-pilot was not at it's finest, and combine that with a fresh 3 cell, a hand launch while under AP control resulted in some porpoise'ing and it whacked the ground at a shallow angle at good rate of speed. Much more tame with a 2 cell. All in good fun, a little CA and it was as good as new. Well not quite :-)
A vid from earlier in that day http://www.rsnw.com/return.wmv
and http://www.rsnw.com/handlaunch.wmv

Would have been much easier with ailerons for wing leveling and rudder for control, but I was seeing if I could do it rudder only.

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

100KM

crystal garris June 11, 2008 at 1:40pm

mike'
i have played with a 3 channel with an AP ,what you just described is the same thing i found . the only way i foud around the problem was ailerons . got an easyglider and its been a blast.
sorry about the crash and good luck
Mike Myers June 11, 2008 at 10:12am

Was trying to go autonomous with a very basic platform. Wing leveling and route following without ailerons, altitude controlled by throttle. Rudder was creating the turn, and co-pilot was limiting amount of roll. To much gain on co-pilot, plane would not follow route. To little co-pilot gain, turn would spiral depending upon how much throttle was being applied at the time to maintain altitude. I think the flight that took the nose off was towards the end of an afternoon playing around with it. With the sun going down, the co-pilot was not at it's finest, and combine that with a fresh 3 cell, a hand launch while under AP control resulted in some porpoise'ing and it whacked the ground at a shallow angle at good rate of speed. Much more tame with a 2 cell. All in good fun, a little CA and it was as good as new. Well not quite :-)
A vid from earlier in that day http://www.rsnw.com/return.wmv
and http://www.rsnw.com/handlaunch.wmv

Would have been much easier with ailerons for wing leveling and rudder for control, but I was seeing if I could do it rudder only.
Jack Crossfire May 3, 2008 at 11:27pm

Would be nice to know the story behind this one.

This reply was deleted.