Production Log 2-22 through 2-24-2019 Project Aerospace

2-22-24-2019

Went to Kersley park at 10am to fly Alby. Alby is as fixed wing UAV (RC airplane). Today’s flight was a special one because in this flight we would be testing the first camera array setup. This set up consisted of three cameras all recording at 60 fps. One camera was pointed looking to the left of Alby, another to the right and one camera looking forward. As you can imagine this added 3 times the weight to Alby. Alby is really a glider with a motor and can fly very well at slow speeds. This means that at medium and high speeds, Ably is so efficient that it can carry quite the payload. Earlier I tested with one Camera this is the YI 4K video camera. This is a GoPro clone but a little heaver, it was mounted to the nose of ably. Then with the proper balance it flew great. This was on Feb 16-2019. So, I was pretty sure that with two additional cameras Alby would be fine and would just need a little more airspeed to carry the additional weight.

Balancing Ably was a little challenging. The 3 Cameras are mounted at the nose and Mid front of the plane. In order to compensate I would position the battery further towards the tail of the plane. Usually Ably is a little tail heavy.

Take off was great and the entire flight was incredibly calm and smooth. The transmitter did lose a connection to the plane 4 times. The connection lost does nothing for the servos which had direct control of the plane. A connection loss stops the motor from spinning because the transmitter assumes the plane is on the ground next to you and will refuse to start the motor until the throttle is in the off position. This is a safety feature so if you start the transmitter it won’t instantly start the motor at full blast if the throttle is accidently in the full position. Unfortunately, while it’s flying this means that the motor will stop and wait for the transmitter to reduce throttle to off then the motor will restart. The fix was easy and all I have to do is turn off the Throttle Hold (Cruse control) then throttle down wait a second then throttle up again. This takes about 3 seconds. This is where Alby’s glider characteristics are helpful. I just gently nose down to maintain speed.

            The fifth time was not good. I was gaining altitude. When the motor cut off and the plane nosed down on its own, and before I had enough time to turn it skimmed right into the top of a tree.

            I went to inspect the tree and it was about 60 feet in the air right at the top and secure unfortunately in the top branches. This was a no wind day so I would have no help from nature. I drove to Home depo and picked up a 500-foot rope and a heavy washer then returned to the park. Using the heavy washer as a counter weight attached to the rope I spun the rope like a sling and launched it into the tree. The goal was to reach the base of the branch where the Alby was stuck. For 3 hours I attempted to latch on to the branch. I even climbed about 20 feet up the tree and was still not successful. I had to stop because I had received too many blisters that broke and wore my skin off till it started to bleed. I was also exhausted from climbing the tree.

            I returned every couple of hours to see if Alby had fallen and it did not. Saturday the next day I was able to lasso the branch Ably was stuck in and using my body weight I was able to shake the branch but not enough to release Ably. While I was worried but I still had hope because the next day there would be winds up to 40 mph and I was confident that the wind would blow Ably out of the tree.

            Sunday I went to the park at 7am. Still Alby was in the tree. The winds were supposed to rise at 10am so I set my alarm for 10:30am. I returned and to my joy Alby was no longer in the tree. I went to the base of the tree and Alby was on the ground. Two of the tree cameras were attached. Unfortunately the river had over flowed from the warm weather melting the snow in the area. The whole grass lands were flooded by several inches. I spent my time looking for the third camera and to my luck I found it 7 feet away resting on top of the water. Ably had some damage. The tail rudder and elevator were disconnected, and the landing gear was a little bent but everything else was fine. Both these issues will be easy to fix.

            I sorted through the footage and everything looked good. I submitted the footage to encode before editing. I discovered the simulated slow mo that I use for the quad copter did not work so well on Alby footage because Alby’s footage is recorded in UHD at 60 fps instead of HD at 120fps the Slow mo only helps when applied to higher frames per second. There was still a solution which was to slow down the 60fps video into 30fps making the footage half speed and twice as long. This made the flight footage extremely smooth yet not so slow.

            Editing will begin soon as well as Alby’s repairs. The Repairs will not take so long and I’m looking forward to it. I will also be reprogramming the transmitter to disable the fail-safe of throttling down. What triggers this is a fraction of a second signal hiccup and will make Alby’s flights more relaxing and more reliable. This will allow for better footage and a safer flying environment. I should also note that there will never be any flying over buildings or people which is against the rules and common senses for licensed UAV pilots. Which is why I only fly when there is no one at the parks.

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