[Quadzimodo]

Dirk,

If you are on the fence about a disco... They really are an incredible bird, and just outstanding for under $500. The performance is as good as any PX4 or ArduPlane equipped wing out there, and certainly in a class of it's own for what you get at the price you can get one right now. I can think of no comparable product which can match the vision system. Cost and availability of replacement parts may be it's achilles heel, if it has one. $119 for a pair of replacement wings, $119 for the fuselage, $40 just for the nosecone... $249 for a replacement motor??? and that is while stocks last (there are long time disco users who are buying up the cheap aircraft right now for parts).

The alternative is to choose an airframe and build your own... depending on what sort of experience you are after. If you wanna wing that offers a DJI drone like experience out of the box... then the disco is probably the one for you. If you are happy to build your own then there are heaps of awesome possibilities. I love the Nano Talon and will certainly be building one soon. After something bigger, check out the X-UAV Clouds. I am certainly happy to assist with the build, or any questions you might have along the way.

I maidened a tiny little Wing Wing Z-84 (AUW 390-grams) equipped with a Pixracer (running ArduPlane) with all the fruit today. Came in for a particularly low pass on my last automated landing and caught the trees... The fact that the airframe cost less than $50 express shipped from banggood made that experience great deal less painful than it could have been.

[helijeli]

Hmm... pretty windy tomorrow. Sunday not as bad but still not good.

[Quadzimodo]

Hmm... pretty windy tomorrow. Sunday not as bad but still not good.

I’m spewin’! Been champing at the bit to fly all week. Shoulda got in the air on Tuesday when I had the chance.

[Quadzimodo]

The forecasted winds appear to have eased a bit. Air seems pretty still right now. Perhaps today might be a goer after all.

I’ll be at the field about 8am.

[Quadzimodo]

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.

[Quadzimodo]

I’m planning on getting to the field sometime after 9am if anyone is interested in joining me for a flight.

[Quadzimodo]

Great day flying yesterday with about half a dozen members down at the field by about 10:30am. Conditions were still a bit cold and windy, but not as bad a Saturday. There were a few poor landings though, as well as one rather catastrophic crash. Sadly Andrew's gyrocopter has now seen better days, but repairs may be possible if somewhat challenging.

The previous evening I did a bit more work trying to tune the hopelessly non-linear and inaccurate (especially at the amp levels I am pulling) current sensor on my little flying wing and was keen to give it a bit more time in the air to collect more data. This flight lasted just under 67-minutes, with 2106mAh being consumed from the 3S 3350mAh Li-ion pack. Extrapolated out, that suggests the aircraft is pulling an average of ~20.7W (~1.9A @ 10.8V) and could theoretically fly for ~101-minutes on a 100% depth of discharge (perhaps more in cleaner air and finer conditions). I am really happy about this, as it means my estimation of 150-gram cruise thrust is higher than is obviously required to maintain the desired 10.5m/s airspeed and that the airframe is more efficient than I had anticipated. Calculations suggested the necessary thrust power would be ~21W while bench tests with the relevant battery, esc, motor and prop indicated ~19.3W. But, factoring that the autopilot, sensors, servos, camera, osd and vtx collectively draw ~5W, thrust power turns out to be less than 16W. Two factors will be likely be contributing to this apparent increase in efficiency though, one being the fact that I did my thrust calculations at a 4S voltage rather than the 3S it is now flying with, and the other being the fact that I had done my calculations based on an AUW of 430-grams while the actual AUW of the aircraft is just 393-grams. I am finding it really fun working with such a small aircraft, much less stressful than bigger birds I have had in the past. Heaps more gains to be had, back to the bench...

   

[kizza42]

Very interesting, I really need to pull my finger out and finish my mission Bix3. I bought all the AP Gear under the sun ages ago and its probably all well and truly outdated by now! What controller/software are you running?

[BOB]

Hi guys. tried to file an incident report but for some reason didn't work on my way out the gate on Sunday approximately 12 o'clock I seen a guy flying a FPV racing quad he was sitting near the where on the other side of the creek seem to be flying well no problems there but wrong area try to get his attention but because he had goggles on he obviously didn't hear me or ignored me not sure how important this is but I thought we I report it.

[Quadzimodo]

Very interesting, I really need to pull my finger out and finish my mission Bix3. I bought all the AP Gear under the sun ages ago and its probably all well and truly outdated by now! What controller/software are you running?

It’s a PixRacer running ArduPlane.

Some of the older gear has dated quite quickly. For example, if your GPS is something like a Ublox Neo-6M (pretty much the standard a few years ago) then you might wanna update to something like a Ublox Neo-M8n. On the other hand even an old 8-bit arduino based FC like an APM 2.5/2.6/3.1 Mini is still perfectly capable of running a (relatively speaking) recent build of ArduPlane.

What gear you got there for the Bix3? I’ll do you a deal, you build your Bix3 and I’ll dig out and finish my Bix2.

---

Hi guys. tried to file an incident report but for some reason didn't work on my way out the gate on Sunday approximately 12 o'clock I seen a guy flying a FPV racing quad he was sitting near the where on the other side of the creek seem to be flying well no problems there but wrong area try to get his attention but because he had goggles on he obviously didn't hear me or ignored me not sure how important this is but I thought we I report it.

Thanks for spotting that. Maybe shoot a quick PM to Rob with any relevant information while it’s fresh in your head so we at least have a record of it. I’m pretty sure it was Rob who diligently created the online field register/incident form, so any feedback on that can also be passed on directly.

[dfw]

It is not the first time we see someone flying race quads there. I spoke to one guy months ago, He has a membership with Vinyard, wasn't even aware of our club operating the field. He said he did a frequency scan. I told him we might not be aware he is flying there and cause interference, and that he's welcome to join PRCAC and fly the field, but he is not legal where he is flying just next to the Bicycle path. The biggest concern with him flying there is that it is a nuisance for pedestrians and cyclists, and he flies close passed people's houses. anyone wanting to complain will just point a finger to PRCAC causing trouble. So best to monitor this and go have chat with to whoever flies there.

[BOB]

Hi Pete. will you be down at the field this weekend?, I've got Ron's camera and he's not there I can give it to you .

[peterh]

Hi Bob, hope to be.

[kizza42]

I'm really sorry guys, I intended to fly this weekend so its raining!

[ptk]

I'm really sorry guys, I intended to fly this weekend so its raining!

Sods law!!!

[helijeli]

Actually could be my fault (the rain). I've taken the coming week off and generally it rains when I do that. We can at least share the blame Kieran.

[Quadzimodo]

I'm really sorry guys, I intended to fly this weekend so its raining!

Perhaps it's a weekend for the work bench? Pull out the bits for the Bix3 and get crackin'!

   

[Busboy]

Actually could be my fault (the rain). I've taken the coming week off and generally it rains when I do that. We can at least share the blame Kieran.

And usually when I have holidays with my kids it rains, but this time I'm staying home and yet it still rains..... WHY???????

[samste]

Very Sad,

Just when i get a chance to come down the Field Tommorow for a Days Flying its too wet.
Even spent the week nights getting planes ready, new Battery an all.

Even fixed up Bob's Quad for him to Fly Tommorow

[samste]

So it will be interesting Forecast for This Weekend will be ok or too windy.
Does anyone have a field report update Please regarding wet conditions we had and has it recovered enough for this weekend or should we wait for a couple weeks for it to recover.

Getting keen for a fly,

[BOB]

Hi guys. Here is a funny Facebook video on a guy who lost his DJI Maverick.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...3694638245&id=535427620162520

[srl]

Will be flying tomorrow.
Light winds in the morning turning strong I beleave .
Mccoy has been dry since last Sunday. No rain since ?

srl

[Busboy]

Hi guys. Here is a funny Facebook video on a guy who lost his DJI Maverick.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...3694638245&id=535427620162520

The things we do to get our toys back

[Quadzimodo]

Will be flying tomorrow.
Light winds in the morning turning strong I beleave .
Mccoy has been dry since last Sunday. No rain since ?

srl

I’ll be at the field about 8:30am.

[Quadzimodo]

Conditions at the field are ideal.

[Quadzimodo]

Today was good fun but, as usual, not without its casualties. I was lucky enough to get in a long and faultless flight before the wind picked up, even gave Bob a good steer. Great to catch up with few blokes I hadn’t seen at the field in a while. I managed to send Kieran’s lovely new Stryker into a spiraling crash before it could even get on song (if anyone ever sees me attempting to discus launch anything at all from now on please do all you can to intervene). Fixed the arming issue on Todd’s 250 Eachine, updated it with some decent escs (in doing so sorting his motor sync issue), discovered and addressed a disarming issue... it now flies like it’s on rails. We brought his Taranis out of the Bronze Age too, updating it from OpenTX v1.1.? to V2.1.9

Hope the weather is ok tomorrow morning. If so I’ll be back again.

[GezArnold]

Came down to fly with my son this morning and the wind is blowing hard. Will give it a go another day with him.

[Quadzimodo]

Came down to fly with my son this morning and the wind is blowing hard. Will give it a go another day with him.

Tis a shame today’s weather was so poor. Hope it is fine next weekend.

[robbo]

Hi guys. tried to file an incident report but for some reason didn't work on my way out the gate on Sunday approximately 12 o'clock I seen a guy flying a FPV racing quad he was sitting near the where on the other side of the creek seem to be flying well no problems there but wrong area try to get his attention but because he had goggles on he obviously didn't hear me or ignored me not sure how important this is but I thought we I report it.

Thanks Bob,
I'll add this as an incident.

[srl]

BBQ and lots of flying at McCoy tomorrow with activities starting at 11am.
Bring your quad and your motorized glider to see who can stay flying the longest.
Jason has been waiting for this.
srl