Best plane for UAV application

space_nut July 16, 2010 at 9:55am

Chris & Co have always made it pretty clear that the Easystar needs some mods to make it work with Ardupilot.

The great advantage of sticking with this platform is that you can use the stock settings (header file) and not worry too much about PID tuning. If you are attempting autonomous takeoff and landing the program is very sensitive to tuning (again this is made clear in the code)

I've been working on this for a while (basically because I'm a pretty crappy flier) and I've found that it's not as easy as it sounds. You may want to approach this in phases - Doug Weibel has a really nice article on this.

Hope to hear good things from you.

Peter Seddon July 16, 2010 at 4:50am

I've had two EasyStars and both have gone the same way into an unrecoverable vertical dive. As a result I have gone back to my electrified Tiger Trainer.

Whilst the Easy* has many advantages it also has a number of vices, which may be made worse by the bigger props and more powerful motors. I put in a brushless motor and 6 x 4 prop. Both Easy* were always difficult to launch (I used the stock CofG) - they tended to dive at launch even though I tried different power settings. At full throttle I don't think the thrust line is right and that causes it to dive. With a small prop doing high revs I think the prop maybe be partially stalled and hence loses thrust until airspeed is established. With hindsight I wonder if a less powerful motor and smaller prop (the stock setup) might be better.

I always found flying under power they were squirrely although gliding was fine.

The other problem that killed both my Easy*s was tucking under. Applying too much power in a dive and it will not recover but go in vertically. This could be back to my first proposition that the thrust lines are wrong. No amount of elevator would pull them out.

I have also tried a Twinstar which to my mind is better, easier to launch and easy to add an undercarriage. The Tiger Trainer is a pussycat (although I did have a problem recently with major windshear coming over a treeline) quite heavy, easy to convert to electric and has quite a bit of space up front.

There's my tenpen'th

Peter

ionut July 16, 2010 at 4:32am

Another issue.Why all your(ours) elapor planes look like somebody stepped on them or look like a flying sausage.This elapor is strong but after first flight and first landing it will get ugly.It will deform, brake, stretch,bend and in the end my beautiful plane gets so ugly.I want something more durable.Not this disposable plane.

http://ugly.It/

Moderator

Gary Mortimer July 16, 2010 at 3:29am

Wheels are a drag

ionut July 16, 2010 at 2:10am

Thanks for advice.I will change the motor with a brushless one.I am looking for a plane that can take off from an airstrip using his own landing gear ,do a circle and come back and land on the same airstrip without crashing.My EasyStar is far from this.

3D Robotics

Chris Anderson July 15, 2010 at 10:59pm

You have to mod it! We've always advised people to upgrade to a brushless motor and larger rudder, with loads of tutorials on the site (search for "easystar mod") on how to do it, including the one linked from the manual.