Production Log: 2-16-2019 Project Aerospace and Photations

2-16-2019

            Today was a very exciting day. This would be the first day I would fly my fixed wing UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). This is an R/C airplane which I call Alby. Named after the waved albatross which in a lot of ways resembles and flies  similar to this UAV. I pre-packed everything the night before so I could arrive at the park and start flying immediately.

            I arrived and the environment was perfect. There was absolutely no wind just like it was forecasted. I unloaded the UAV and remote, tested flaps and took a few breaths picked it up and launched it before I could get too nervous. I have the most experience with fixed wing (Air planes) but I’ve only flew small ones and this one has a wingspan of about 6 feet, which sounds large but it has a short body. In reality it’s just a glider with a small motor.

            I created some throttle toggles for this flight. With take-off there would be a full range of throttle. However, once I was in the air I would flick the switch and the throttle would be limited to %30 power at the lowest point and %50 at the highest. I did this because I did not want to overload the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) which has happened in the past. This would also help maintain a nice slow speed and save on battery power which means more flight time. With all the battery testing this loadout could fly for a solid 20 min before needing to land. This meant that I would only fly for 12 min and leave the extra time for in case of emergency.

            The flying was fantastic. All the time spent in the X-plane’s flight simulator really paid off. In fact, the flight simulator was exponentially harder to fly then flying in real life which is what I hoped for. There were only two problems. The UAV would for a fraction of a second loose the transmitters connection. I wouldn’t have even noticed except the power to the motor would turn off. I had full control of the ailerons and elevators. So, I would just glide in a nice slow and wide spiral and gently land. I was really impressed with how slow this plane could fly. That’s a really good thing. This plane feels as though it could just hang in the air forever with almost no throttle.

            The signal lost happened twice, which made no sense unless someone intermittently using the same frequency, but the transmitter and receiver are supposed to frequency hop to avoid this. I also was flying well with-in range of the transmitter. Every time this happened I would just fly back towards myself and land. So, there were three successful launches and two successful emergency landings and a successful normal landing. I packed up then made my way back to stepping stone falls for my last shoot.

            The plan for this shoot was to use the quad copter (Drone) to take more photos and video at the last part of the park. I hiked toward the location paying attention to the trees and wind. The trees were not moving and there was no wind. So I unpacked and began flying. Everything went well with two large batteries, each one lasted 10 min which is what my battery testing estimated. One of my only smaller batteries only lasted 2 min. which was fine because I just wanted to record a take-off and landing. Then the other two small batteries lasted 6 min each and I used those to take photographs. Everything went well and I packed up and returned to the car.

            Both ways while hiking I found a section of the river where there was a huge gathering of geese and ducks. Originally the last video clips I wanted to take were going to be from my medium format 80mm f2.8 with a 35mm mount to my camera. I really just wanted the f2.8 and telephoto angle of the lens. I decided that I would not do this and instead take photos of the ducks and geese. During the previous shoots I spent a lot of time with my 28-135mm lens shooting video clips and the 80mm lens would just add duplicate angles because I was very detailed in my work with the 28-135mm lens and recorded an incredible amount of coverage of the Park.

            Taking photos with the 500mm f8 lens is getting better and better each time I use it. I took photos of the ducks and geese from about 400 feet away. These birds defiantly have a large safe zone. I was on the opposite side of a fork in the river and they were fine with me there. But then I walked to across the bridge to be on the same side and was still around 250 feet away and the birds acted as though I crossed a line. They were very polite about it. They just slowly started to swim away in no particular hurry, but in a very orchestrated manor. This gave me the opportunity to take several combination photos of male and female ducks and geese.

            Once I was finished I packed up and headed to the car. I was just in time because the sun had begun to set.

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