Pushing the limits

While I have, for some time now, hinted at our intentions to obtain a more capable aircraft which will provide longer endurance and higher payload capacity, I have kept it mostly in the shadows. Well, it is now time for me to [very excitedly] announce the arrival of the newest and most capable addition to our fleet of aircraft: the Mugin v3 aircraft.

This impressive aircraft will launch us into a whole new class of UAV remote sensing, giving us capabilities far beyond our current stable of electric aircraft. Here are some of the details:

Wingspan:	3m
Material:	Wood structure, fiberglass and film covering
Powerplant:	Saito FG-57TS 57cc, 4-stroke, twin-cylinder, gas engine
Propeller:	Xoar Beechwood 22x10
Flight controller:	3DR Pixhawk
Cruise speed:	120 km/h
Endurance (expected):	~5 hours
Range (radio limited):	~100 km

This aircraft is not widely used, but there are some notable exceptions. CanberraUAV used an earlier version of the aircraft in the 2012 Outback Challenge. There are a handful of others who are discussing using it with APM/Pixhawk or are in the process of adopting it into a program, but we are certainly spring-boarding ourselves to the forefront of this work.

Stay tuned for updates on the build and testing of the aircraft. At the moment I have done the little bit of assembly that is required on the fuselage, gotten the motor and fuel system set up, and installed all the electronics. The next steps are to break in and tune the engine and power up the electronics, configure them, and test them out. The it will be flying time. As I have been building I have been looking around and found that there is an utter dearth of information about this airframe, so I will do my best to document the process in painstaking detail.