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Hooks just sent me the new fibreglass reinforcement skins for the Skywalker (now just $99) and they're awesome. Here's the nose/bottom shield:

And here's the tail reinforcement:

Hooks, how long until these are for sale in the store?

Yesterday, my GentleLady sailplane, under the guidance of MatrixPilot running on a UAV Devboard with an EM406 GPS and Jordi's magnetometer, achieved 3 consecutive autonomous flights, with the transmitter off most of the time. The above picture shows the tracks of the three landings. Waypoints 18 and 19 were arranged so that the plane was supposed to land halfway between them. The closest landing was 6 meters from the target, the farthest was 21 meters.

Here is how the flight sequence worked:

1. Power up with Tx on.

2. Shut off Tx, this causes the fail safe on my Rx to trigger MatrixPilot to go into waypoint mode.

3. Hand launch the sailplane.

4. Sailplane makes two circuits around the field and lands.

5. Turn on the Tx, this puts MatrixPilot back in manual mode.

6. Turn off Tx, this puts MatrixPilot back in waypoint mode.

Repeat 3 times.

Here are the three flight paths around the field:

Here is the side view of the landings:

You can watch an animated view of the flight track on Google Earth with this kmz file: LOG00122.kmz.

The kmz files are produced by a tool that Peter Hollands put together that reads the telemetry and generates the kmz file. It has some nice features, including displaying the orientation of the plane, the waypoints, the wind vectors, and magnetic field vectors.

Simply download the kmz file and double click on it, Google Earth will open it. You will not see any flight tracks when you open it, but there will be an animation tool visible that you can use to animate the tracks, and/or select portions for viewing.

There will also be items in the layers visibility for you to turn the display of the tracks, waypoints, etc., on and off.

If you are interested in looking at them, here are two other files associated with the flights.

First, there is the raw telemetry file:

LOG00122.txt

There is an excel spreadsheet with key telemetry items:

LOG00122.csv

I want to thank all of the members of the UDB team for their contributions, especially Ben, Peter, Adam, Ric, Sid, and Rana. You guys are always there for me. Thank you Jordi, for your magnetometer breakout board.

And thank you very much, Chris Anderson, for your encouragement and for this website.

Best regards,

Bill Premerlani

Parts list:

• RBBB Arduino
• LCD
• Joystick
• Joystick Breakout Board
• 5 Push Buttons
• 2200mah lipo
• Sliding Potentiometer (plus the knob)
• Rotary Potentiometer
• 2 Xbees (longer range ones are probably better)
• 2 Xbee Adapters
• Radio Shack Project Box
• Wii nunchuck
• Power regulator (custom built)

It is programmed on the side via a FTDI cable. The lipo's charging cable comes out of the top so it can be charged without having to open up the controller.

This custom controller allows for more options and modes than a normal, off of the shelf controller.

Some modes and features might include:

• RC mode
• GPS waypoint mode
• Sending new GPS cordinates
• Return to home (back track of GPS waypionts)
• RC mode with Compass assistance (like keep on x heading)
• Kill switch
• Adjustment during GPS waypoint mode
• Speed control via sliding pot
• And so much more....

I think this is the one I gave him. Glad it's being put to good use! Taken today at the Augmented Reality Development Camp, report here.

(pic from Tish Shute)