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Shocked myself! Talon Flies!

Posted by Henry Fletcher on August 13, 2011 at 1:00pm

So, a month or so ago I told people about the crazy Talon airframe I had built and wanted to try and fly:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/what-have-i-been-up-to-since-i?xg_source=activity

Well, now I have it flying!!

I have written a bit more about the process of getting it working and what my thoughts are on it's performance : www.universalair.co.uk/content/talon-first-successful-flight

I know a couple of people at least were keen to see if it actually flew, I was a little skeptical it would be able to balance itself in the pitch axis myself!

I'll post another video shortly which shows some of the less successful flights, where it didn't quite manage to balance!

One of the biggest problems seems to be the landing gear.

Next challenge: Transistion and conventional flight :D

 

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Comments

  • Henry Fletcher August 19, 2011 at 3:22am

    Haha! Yes, I know what you mean James! Though now I'm just thinking along the lines of starting to approach the issue simply....I'll throttle up and fly directly upwards, to get airflow over the wings and see how that works...then if it all goes pear shaped I can still immediately start hovering again!

    When I'm confident enough that it is flying like a standard fixed wing I'll try leveling out! Then I'll work out the tricky in between bit for efficient, low altitude, automated, transition when I have both ends working fine!

  • Zac August 14, 2011 at 7:04pm

    Nice job, I can't wait to see how you get it to transition!

  • Henry Fletcher August 14, 2011 at 5:25am

    Jason,

    Didn't do any more tuning, but couldn't resist trying it outside:

    Not immensely stable, but there are a lot of wind eddies around the garden, caused by the buildings and shrubbery, and the wing area means these have quite a large impact on the airframe.

  • Henry Fletcher August 14, 2011 at 5:06am

    Hello Roberto!

    Yes, that looks a brilliant craft! How did you find transistion from hover to forward flight? We'll be embarking on some attempts to do that soon!

    Warmest Regards!

    Henry

  • Moderator
    Roberto Navoni August 13, 2011 at 4:30pm

    Hi Henry,

    you are doing a good work , check our work the solution is very similar but we decide to use a biplane configuration in our Fox Hybrid :) It fly first time one year ago. The video of flight start at 7.30 minutes

    http://www.virtualrobotix.com/video/test-fox-hybrid-v2-14112010avi

    Best

    Roberto

  • Developer
    Jason Short August 13, 2011 at 2:07pm
    Looks great. It seems like you've got a lot of natural stability on pitch because of the CG. Correct? I still think the wind could induce some oscillations but can't wait to see it fly outside. Nice job.
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