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?