With the plane down from the tree and taped up, we were the last team of the day to do the last run. The winds had picked up to 10-15mph, gusting even higher. We had one run to hit it. Jordi took off, went downwind and switched it into autonomous mode. It made the first waypoint (into the wind) easy and them zoomed by the second one, then took the third waypoint (downwind) really wide. Then it started heading back into the wind towards the finish line. Oh no, it looks like it's too close to the building and we're going to cut a corner! But then, at the last minute, the plane corrected, moving slowly into the wind, and drifted to clear the corner by about a foot. Then straight and true over the finish line!
36 seconds! First place! Hurray!!!!!
Needless to say we were trying to get a good time, not just finish the course. In retrospect we could have nailed it the first time with more on-site testing: the Google Maps coordinates were a bit off and we clearly didn't have enough margin of error in our waypoints. But by the third round we were doing lap after lap, within a few seconds of the same time.
Comments
Enjoy the ride.
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