"It just won't flat spin"

Yesterday was an outstanding day. We joined some other local FPV flyers for a small fly-in at the RAMS RC club (the field where we normally test our planes). We took the DAO, the Phoenix, and my plane (an FPV Raptor), which I'll just call the Raptor for now until another name presents itself. We were also joined by Kevin Wang, the newest member of the lab, a freshman who is interested in computer science and wants to work with us to enhance our systems. We set out to do a few things:

1. Get me some flight time on the Raptor, both LOS and FPV
2. Return the Phoenix to the skies
3. Do a long range flight with the DAO, simulating a flight to Pilot and back.

On all three counts we succeeded. From this point on I'll tell the story with pictures.

We arrived and promptly set up the "Christmas Tree Farm," our array of tripod mounted antennas and video monitors. As you can see here, the skies were pretty clear and the wind was light from the North (from the direction of Pilot).

Kevin got to learn from the best.

The Phoenix was revived and ready for action.

I wasted no time getting the Raptor ready to fly.

The Raptor took to the skies after an FPV takeoff and gave us great FPV views of Pilot under the wispy clouds. The flight was a completely uneventful (a good thing) 40 minutes of FPV bliss. After I had my fill of flying I brought her in for a landing under FPV.

The DAO, unmodified since our 7.25 km flight, was sent skyward with Tim at the controls.

Our flight plan was to travel out to the west of Pilot, pass it, and return. Pilot is the large dark green forested area at the top, west of Pinnacle. As you can see, we returned a little short (about 2 km) of our target. At about 12.6 km we started to get some spotty reception on our Dragonlink. We made it out 12.8 km from home. Surprisingly, the FPV system (800 mW 1.3 GHz tx, RMRC rc w/ SAW upgrade, homebrew half-wave dipole on tx, and homebrew biquad on rx) gave us totally rock solid link for the entire journey (except for turns when the bank angle turned the tx antenna out of polarization). The RFD900 telemetry system and yagi also gave us perfect performance, with Mission Planner reporting 98% RSSI the whole time. We plan to remedy our Dragonlink reception issues by flying higher and using the Moxon (more directional) antenna.

If you happened to be on the observation deck at Pilot, this is what our flight path would have looked like.

Here you see Pilot from the DAO shortly after takeoff. Range to Pilot here is ~13.5 km.

Pilot mid-flight, just about to pass over the bend in the Yadkin River and leave it behind for bigger, better things. Range to Pilot here is ~9.75 km.

Pilot again mid-flight, passing over some farmland. Range to Pilot here is ~7.75 km.

Pilot shortly before turning back for home. Range to Pilot is ~3.0 km. Range to home is ~12.5 km.

And she returned home safely. The RAMS is the green grassy area just below the center in this picture.

After flying the DAO, it was time to see what the Phoenix could do. Here you can see it leaving Tim's hand on its re-maiden. Unfortunately, the settings in the transmitter had not saved after Marcus changed them and the ailerons were reversed. This led to a very quick but spectacular return to earth with minimal damage.

After some quick repairs to the tail and the necessary adjustments to the transmitter, the Phoenix was sent skyward again. She flew like a bat out of hell. She has tons of power, can almost hover, knife edges well, but doesn't like to fly inverted. Also, according to Marcus, "It just won't flat spin." I should go ahead and note here that we were not, in fact, having fun but were testing the full range of flight capabilities of the aircraft. The big news here is that we have another functional aircraft which will be useful for testing new features, firmware, techniques, etc so we don't have to use the DAO for that anymore.

Here are the DAO and Phoenix after flying, in good shape and ready to fly again.

Stay tuned for video from the DAO long range flight and the Raptor.