I thought I would show some pictures of my Skywalker plane setup. My Skywalker is the default from FPVFlying.com. 45A esc with what appears to be a Moxie motor (no id on it). I built a wooden frame to be able to transport the UAV without having to worry about it falling over and breaking the Elevator off. Don't expect much, its just a piece of plywood with some scrap 2" X 4" pieces.
Here my plane is nice and secure. Also you will notice this also provides a great way not to loose your rubberbands.
Tail Feathers all nice and secure as well.
I cut out the side door slot and used Extreme Packaging Tape (3M) to create a nice hinge (inside and out). The door remains shut on the right side because of a set of magnets purchased from Radioshack,
Here is the door open... (overlook my jagged cutting of the styrofoam). And people thought there would be no need for Popsicle sticks in 2011!
And of course, the star of the show.... Introducing the Ardupilot Mega and its Beautiful IMU (called the oilpan). For those that don't know, the IMU measures movements of the plane so that the computer (Mega) can correct course and attitude... ok that was simplistic but you get the picture.
In the nose I have the Xbee. This is a Transciever that allows the Ardupilot Mega to send information to the ground with all of flight dynamics to be displayed and/or recorded during flight. Also, Configuration data can be sent to the plane on the fly... such as a new GPS waypoint to travel to. Pretty nice huh?
Thanks,
Peter J. Fischel
Comments
I have fibre tape running the whole length of my leading edge, plus along the bottom of the wing from centre to wing tip. I would say that 80% of the bottom of my wing is covered, and 20% (leading edge) of the top of my wings are covered.
I've also reinforced the belly from nose to tail, plus the leading edges of my vert and horizontal stabiliser. Also have fibre tape running along the top and bottom of the vertical stabiliser.
So far after 3 flights its looking all good, pulled off a couple of loops without snapping the wings. Carrying full FPV load plus 4S 6000Mah.
LoL the skywalker needs a bit of a run up to pull off a loop, first attempt resulted in a stall turn.
Brian, Jani, and anyone else,
I used some light fiberglass fabric and epoxy resin to stiffen and reinforce some strategic areas of the Skywalker which worked quite well, does anyone know how this might compare to the monokote covering or the fiberglass tape? Anyone tried all of these methods and have an opinion?
Jani gives good advice about the wing tape, but I recommend using a full covering of monocoat for foam planes. It looks great and adds a TON of crash resistance. I took a couple of nosers into the ground and only wrinkled the nose instead of breaking it off. I fly a Sky Fly Max which is a little smaller but have added a middle section to expande the wing. I've hit hard and stuff that's not covered get's damaged, covered stuff goes on...
Peter... What did i say about the tape on wings :)
And make that tape to go all the way to other side too. Then it supports extra load ok. Even my wings have rather little amount of FG tape.
As you see, they snap if you don't reinforce them. I also have those extra CF rods inside and been thinking to put 1-2 CF rods more to make it stronger.
Ah side note.. If you plan to paint your wings. Put that tape first, paint after. I had minor problems to get tape attached properly to wing on areas what I already painted. Paint is not strong and firmly attached to the wing it self. OK well it depends on the paint too what you are using..
Sorry for the loss.. But in no time it will fly again.
Here is my problem now, I took a nose dive straight into the ground, my right wing broke in half right after the Carbon Fiber rods end. I was desending, sharply then suddenly a fluttering started happening, I knew the jig was up because I wasn't able to level out at all... then the wing snapped. So annoying because my Easystar could bend its wings up to touching practically and be ok... This wing just snapped. :( Guess its time to get another SW and put Extreme Tape all over the new wing.
I also have a SW. It flies well and is a forgivable airframe.
What Jani has done regarding the tail reinforcement as well as the belly protection should be done.
The wing dihedral needs to be reinforced even with the current version.
Here is a long FPV flight that was done using another system.
https://www.youtube.com/user/skywave12?feature=mhee#p/a/u/1/9ssOI75c8J0
Right now the Ardupilot is on a copter build.
Being there is development with the SW I will place this on the SW and fly waypoints in the future.
One picture from my local test field next to our office.
Flight checks and final tuning before going to fly my SW without a radio.. All you need is a Joystick ;)
Ok well GCS laptop and telemetry is good to have too. Had a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro connected to my GCS Laptop.
To be safe, I took it up with RC radio and then switched to GCS command mode and continued flying with joystick while relaxing on chair and watching it to fly and obey all my stick commands... What a nice day.
Note! if doing joystick flying. Be sure that your telemetry works 101% and you have RC radio close by to override everything if something goes wrong.
You can even land it while controlling it with joystick... Well is that wise, make sure that there are no one close by when doing it. And that you have a backup plan if something goes wrong.
Peter, here are few pics that I took quickly from my SW that I use for testing our softwares.
First GPS mount in front of motor.
Main body reinforced with long strips of fiberglass tape. Some of our group members have even external CarbonFiber rods tapes on both sides of the frame.
The "nose skid" you can see that 10mm wide and 50cm long polycarbonate strip at center of the body. It protects main body really well and occasionally I just add 1 or 2 side way tape strips. I even glued that strip to make it even more stronger. It has been getting rather bumpy landings but no damage on main body.
Tail fin to protect EPO on landings. Without it your tail will disappear after 3-4 landings especially if you land on sand, asphalt, rocky areas. Just now and then add 1-2 strips of tape to hold it. That is CarbonFiber strip, 10 cm long and 5mm wide, 1 mm thick
Last but not least, wings from below. You can see that I have glassfiber reinforcement on both wings all the way from center to the end of the wing. And all those tapes actually continues to the other side of the wing at least another 20cm. That way fiberglass tape makes wing a lot more stiffer against bending. Even thou there are that carbon fiber rods inside the wing.. it still bends and on rough weather they might snap.
Also you can see pitot tubes on my left wing (red tip). Pressure sensor is under fiberglass tape close to the center of the wing. Maintenance is easy if needed, just open FG tape a bit.
The more you have FG tape, better it will be. Few of our team members have covered fully their bodies/wings with FG tape and they still fly +40 minutes with one battery.
On my SW i had to push motor down about 5 degrees to push it properly. Also had to make minor modifications on stabilizer to make it glide better. Now it flies like a pelican... I have hard times to get it down :)
A bit nose heavy is always good.
You could push them forward as they are not center and center starts to shift wind direction already on that area. Down side is that they are the first to break on nose landing.
I did put mine on wing 10cm away from fuselage that way they are far from getting punished on bad landings but still getting "clear" air. My sensor is also on wing and having just 3 cm long silicon tubes. Down side is that you have 1 extra cable to connect.. Well this can be fixed by combining all cables to be one bigger cable and having just one single connector to connect everything
You could even use D-9 connector or similar (PC serial port connector). Having D-9 connector you can have all GPS, Pitot, 2 x ailerons, GND/+5V on one single connector if you want.
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