Hexadecacopter

I am making a hexadecacopter with 16 propellers, each 6 inches diameter.

I got my plane back.

Three days ago, I sent my plane on a 10km mission to the local town and back. It didn't come back. After hours of searching along it's flight path, we found it in the woods. For 2 days we tried everything to get it down. Today, we went with ladders ( again ) and a windsurfer mast and fishing rods, but the plane had jumped out of the tree by itself. I'm hoping the electronics will dry out ok. Thanks to John for seeing the plane in the tree.

plane with autopilot

I have tried the autopilot, that I got for the quadcopter, in my plane. Here is a successful 5km flight that it did on Sunday. The height above sea-level was pretty much constant, but I was hoping that the height above the ground would be constant! The top picture is the height above sea level. The bottom picture is the heights of the waypoints above sea level.

Quadcopter over the Cottage

quadcopter testing

With the wooden frame and no payload:

Plywood frame, about 650g, total flying weight 2160g.
8 mins flying time.

With 1240g payload, total weight 3400g, 4mins 26secs flying time.

I've found that I wasn't charging the battery fully. With my charger, I need to set it charging three times. A few minutes through the third time, it tells me it is full.

Quadcopter first flights

I built a 150g carbon fiber and plastic frame, but it broke on my first flight.

 So I made a frame from 12mm plywood, weighing 600g, plus a cardboard box taped to the bottom, as a shock absorber. I have had some fun learning to fly this; it's not so hard as I don't need to touch the yaw control, so I just have throttle, roll and pitch to worry about, like on my plane. I only got 8 minutes flying time from it.

Wingtips

I made some homemade wing tips. They definitely fix the yaw oscillations, but maybe dangerous?

Morning Flight

I did a quick flight from mum and dad's patio over the mist in the valley, this morning.

I was getting the hang of doing fast slow passes over mum and dad's house, but smacked the plane into the stone path. The camera and battery came off and landed on the grass. Nothing a bit of glue and tape won't fix. Maybe my next plane project should be a stable camera pan and tilt platform.

Lehmann Aviation

I wanted an EPP plane and I don't have much time, so I ordered a couple of moulded plane bodies from here: http://www.lehmannaviation.com/
They came from France in less than a week. They didn't have white, so I agreed to black. They cost 20 Euros each, plus 25 Euros postage.
It flies ok, but pitches up too much when I apply power.
This is made better by removing the wing tips, but makes it more unstable but more efficient.
I am ready to add some computer control, I guess, at least to try to stabilise the flight.

powered flight

I flew my plane this morning with power. It flies well, with plenty of control over roll and pitch. I got to the point where I was perfecting full power, low, flat passes, but just touched the ground and broke the propeller blades off from the hub. I've ordered a new hub. Also, I made a new motor mount on my 3D printer, giving it more area to tape it to the wing.

Brushless motor

I fitted a motor to my plane.

I made a replacement servo horn. This picture is of the old one:

 and this picture is of the new one, made on my 3D printer:

 Here is where my plane lives:

Can't wait to try it.