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My APM Test Platform

Posted by Paul Thompson on November 16, 2010 at 5:30am

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Hi guys, thought it was about time put up some photo's and some details of my APM aircraft.

First up I have to give a big thanks to the DIY Drones community for developing such a great system, particularly the support documentation. After setting up, tuning and test flying APM the last few months, I have now had many long auto flights with this aircraft without a hitch, with the longest being around 15km.

The aircraft is a 1940's design Trenton Terror originally for free flight. This particular airframe is 20years old and still going strong. Wingspan is 2m, All up weight is 2.2kgs. Powerplant is an electric .32size rimfire outrunner turning a 14x8 prop. I normally run it on a 5Ah 3cell lipo, giving it an endurance of around 25-30mins in a 40kph cruise

Along with APM, I have also installed a 2.4ghz Video link, with a Remzibi OSD.


Belly mount camera

The Trenton Terror prior to being refurbished for APM testing,

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Comments

  • Ed Stewart November 16, 2010 at 7:40pm
    Here's a link to a forum I've recently been reading about a simple antenna you could build youself that is getting great reviews in the FPV comunity. A homebrew V shaped model.
    http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1228331
  • Andrew Van Der Plaats November 16, 2010 at 2:45pm
    Paul,
    Thanks for the quick reply. My primary interest is with that belly camera and the sort of pics/video
    you're getting with it.
  • Paul Thompson November 16, 2010 at 1:51pm
    Just flying on the standard code, Im not very farmiliar with writing code myself. Only thing I plan to change is to setup still camera triggering at waypoints. The aircraft is very stable, so it was only a few flights to get it flying well. I have really not had any great issues with bugs, only a few minor things when booting APM, but nothing during a mission. I have been meaning to get some good footage to share, the few times I recorded the video stream I was trying a few different antennas and was getting pretty bad video. I'll try to get some good video this weekend.
  • Andrew Van Der Plaats November 16, 2010 at 9:07am
    Looks like a GREAT way to orient a camera. Could you please share some footage,
    so I can get a better sense of how this setup works?
  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer November 16, 2010 at 8:55am
    Lovely, that's a proper plane.
  • Recmaster November 16, 2010 at 8:40am
    Yello Paul,

    did you change a AP code?
    Could you share your's changes wiht explanation
  • Developer
    Doug Weibel November 16, 2010 at 7:10am
    Hi Paul,

    Great to hear of your success!

    It is good to know we have another person flying APM regularly. We need issue reports. If you find any bugs please report them here: http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/issues/list

    While the main features of the code have been pretty well tested there are lots of smaller things that need to be verified.
  • Developer
    Mark Colwell November 16, 2010 at 5:57am
    Nice setup!
    l love legacy models
This reply was deleted.