Third round of test flights
Today, we got 15 seconds of free flight, more than once.
Rocketman was at the controls and we flew 3 times.
It was rather windy so with out the wind we feel we could
do 30 seconds, maybe. Rocketman says the roll problem has
been solved, in fact roll has far more control than both other axes.
What happens when the Rig moves over a puddle.?
Only one shot of it flying, then Rocketman chopped the
power, then powered backup. We were both laughing
Second round of test flights
In this video, Floyd lets go for around 8 seconds.
He was only touching the plane with his finger during that time.
The next video has 4 parts. In the first scene, Floyd let it go
but I gave the wrong input on the ailerons and he grabbed it.
In the second scene, the same thing happened but I pushed
hard the other way and the plane responded. (thank goodness)
Steve the camera guy, just about ran.
The 3rd scene it was drifting around blowing dust.
In the 4th scene, he is letting go completely but only for 0.5 to 1
sec
First round of test flights
Test runs on the strap
First flight Pics
Construction Pics
Running the engine
1/8/2002
Not much of an update but I have been working
hard
on this problem for a while.
I managed to couple the gearbox to the
tail rotor that does not vibrate
and seems to be fool proof. I simply
used a piece of 3/8 outboard motor fuel
line (with 1/4" wall) to join the two.
It required turning down a piece of aluminum
and pressing the hose on. Now if there is
a misalignment the hose will bent. Took me
a long time to get some thing to work.
I also reinstalled four speed controllers
and set a servo slow function on the 12 channel
so the spool up time is now 6 sec, so
I don't break gears again.
After running for over 20 min and 2 sets of
batteries
I think this will hold together. The 10.6
inch
rotors are turning ~8000 rpm and can make
over 4 lbs
of thrust but only for 0.5 sec then the RPMs
drop
and the thrust drops to 2.5 lbs. With 2 rotors
now,
the roll rate and angular acceleration / deceleration
is now quite impressive.
With the gyro gain at %100 the whole rig wobbles
/ shakes
at about 2-4hz. But at %70 its very smooth.
I have about 40 deg of freedom in the roll
direction, as
it hangs in my shop. What's cool is I can
easily to a 20 point
bank, witch means the tail rotors are so powerful
and
accurate I can bump the stick and roll a few
degs and stop
instantly.
Anyway hope I did not bore anyone with my long,
fairly
uneventful update.
1/6/2002
I feel I take one step forward and two steps
back.
After the last round of test flights the Rig
needed
more power going to the 3 tail rotors, mostly
in the roll
direction. So now there are 4 tail rotors
(yaw, pitch, 2 x roll)
each of witch is over 10 inches in dia where
before they were like 8 inch.
As I was running the speed controllers at
%100 before, I got rid of them
and put 4 x 35 amps switches. Everything is
cool right ?
To get more power from the electric motors
we found that gear boxes
would help. After much testing I found I could
make 1.25 lbs
of thrust at 20 amps, where without the gear
boxes they were
pulling 35 amps no load and over 45 at 1.25
lbs. Stepping
forward right?
Well when I hit the switch the electric motor,
gear down to
4.5 : 1 has so much torque it broke the metal
gears in the
tail rotor. So now all 4 speed controllers
are going back in
to the plane for soft start and stop.
Coupling the motor/gearbox to the tail rotor
as been a pain
as no mater how I do it, its just not strait,
and it vibrates the plane.
I am going to try a piece of 1/2 inch dia
hose over some
spacers I made. Maybe that will work.
No new pics, because every thing I build I
take apart.
I could have built an DC-10 by now, and flown
it too..!!