02-06-2018, 03:52 PM
Well, the weather was no good at all. I turned up at the field about quarter to 8. It was cold and windy as, but I was there at that point so I opened the gates and headed in.
Having converted my Theory Type W flying wing back for sports flight (from endurance) I was keen to give it a run. Of course, as usual, I crashed it real bad on takeoff. Admittedly the wind didn't help, but it wasn't the key contributing factor. Anyway I split a winglet again, so the Theory Type W went straight back in the boot along with the stack of charged batteries i had hoped to get through.
Following the successful maiden and tuning session of my new autonomous flying wing last weekend I used some spare time during this week to add an FPV cam, OSD and VTX (along with a few other tweeks and improvement). Umming and ahhing for a while, I decided that I would take the risk and throw it in the air. Auto takeoff had no issue getting up despite the (by this time) relatively high winds, which (by this time) were approaching 40km/h from a southerly direction.
I flew the wing in auto mode for several minutes and observed it's behaviour. It was surprisingly stable, though with the target wind speed set at 10.5m/s (37.8km/h) was only a touch faster than the prevailing wind speed. I considered raising the target airspeed, but figured I'd see how it goes flying at a speed comparable to the prevailing conditions.
I eventually got game enough to knock it out of auto mode and into manual, the result of which wasn't good. I was completely unable to maintain altitude or attitude fighting the wind, and came incredibly close to planting it
into the ground before flicking it back into 'please, help me' mode (auto.. which sends it back to 100m and into an 100m orbit of my position). I finished the flight in fly-by-wire mode, which provided ample control to shed altitude and put it down softly. I recorded the entire flight, both Telemetry stream and FPV feed, from my ground station. Check out the videos section if interested in viewing the flight.
Having converted my Theory Type W flying wing back for sports flight (from endurance) I was keen to give it a run. Of course, as usual, I crashed it real bad on takeoff. Admittedly the wind didn't help, but it wasn't the key contributing factor. Anyway I split a winglet again, so the Theory Type W went straight back in the boot along with the stack of charged batteries i had hoped to get through.
Following the successful maiden and tuning session of my new autonomous flying wing last weekend I used some spare time during this week to add an FPV cam, OSD and VTX (along with a few other tweeks and improvement). Umming and ahhing for a while, I decided that I would take the risk and throw it in the air. Auto takeoff had no issue getting up despite the (by this time) relatively high winds, which (by this time) were approaching 40km/h from a southerly direction.
I flew the wing in auto mode for several minutes and observed it's behaviour. It was surprisingly stable, though with the target wind speed set at 10.5m/s (37.8km/h) was only a touch faster than the prevailing wind speed. I considered raising the target airspeed, but figured I'd see how it goes flying at a speed comparable to the prevailing conditions.
I eventually got game enough to knock it out of auto mode and into manual, the result of which wasn't good. I was completely unable to maintain altitude or attitude fighting the wind, and came incredibly close to planting it
into the ground before flicking it back into 'please, help me' mode (auto.. which sends it back to 100m and into an 100m orbit of my position). I finished the flight in fly-by-wire mode, which provided ample control to shed altitude and put it down softly. I recorded the entire flight, both Telemetry stream and FPV feed, from my ground station. Check out the videos section if interested in viewing the flight.