Aug 6, 2014
Bixler 2 test flight with the FY41AP Lite flight controller.
We had some issues to begin with, teething problems with the controller, but in the end we got it flying very well, pity my landing wasn't too great :D
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Bixler 2 test flight with the FY41AP Lite flight controller.
We had some issues to begin with, teething problems with the controller, but in the end we got it flying very well, pity my landing wasn't too great :D
Tuning
I flew the second tuning/test flight with the APM today. It's been a beautifully calm, sunny day but the bank holiday meant that there were too many dog walkers and errant dogs present to do too much testing.
I flew in FBW-A mode to test out some new pitch and roll PID settings and the aircraft performed much better. FBW-A mode is amazing and makes the flying of the aircraft so much easier.
The screenshots below are from KMZ exports from the logs of the aircraft flying in a few different flight modes.
Loiter mode. 3 laps were flown. APM does a good job of keeping altitude and I don't see any GPS wander. I tried some rudder input that's where you can see the tightening of the circle.
FBW-A. A few FBW-A logs. You can see how APM smooths out the flight nicely.
The whole flight
Balancing my Bixler 2 with nothing more than three pieces of wood.
Finding the correct CoG (centre of gravity) is an important step, fail to do this properly or at all and your plane will not fly very well, or it may even crash on launch.
Nose heavy - the plane flies badly and can "lawn dart" after launch.
Tail heavy - not what you want at all, the plane will launch, but will stall almost immediately, making it very difficult to control, possibly leading to a crash.
Just right - where you want to be, the plane flies level and will launch easily without much effort.
Remember "A nose heavy plane flies badly... A tail heavy plane flies once.
The Bixler has landed
My second Bixler has arrived. I ordered a Bixler kit as a replacement for the last, crashed one. You can see the remnants of the last Bixler below the box of the new one in this photo.
I also ordered a decent ESC and a new Turnigy 9X transmitter. I can't believe what you can get for £35! A 9 channel computer radio used to cost at least £700. HobbyKing are a good job of lowering the cost of entry to radio control. After a bit of soldering iron action to make a Futaba to Turnigy power adapter I can now use a 2C LiPo instead of the 8 AA battery holder the Tx came with. I think a couple of evening's work should be enough to get the Bixler airworthy.
Autopsy
I'm taking advantage of having a broken Bixler to learn from. One thing that I have noticed with the Bixler 2 is that because of the long nose it can be quite difficult to keep the CoG in the right place. So this evening I have deconstructed the crashed Bixler 2 to see where else radio control and survey equipment could be placed in the airframe.
Under the wings there is a large space that could be opened up with a replaceable hatch. The battery pack, receiver and other "heavy" items could then be located behind the CoG. This would allow for the nose of the aircraft to take a camera which will likely be the heaviest piece of kit.
Ordered
As I posted earlier, I've decided to go with another Bixler 2 to replace the previously crash damaged one. The Bixler 2 will take a reasonable load and still perform reasonably so will be serve as a test bed for a UAV.
I have also ordered a Turnigy 9X radio system to replace my very old and battered Futaba Skysport 6A which may have possibly caused the demise of the previous Bixler. The order has been placed so now it's just a matter of waiting.
Crash
Oh dear. The ESC or receiver had threw a tantrum at 200 foot today. All control surfaces went to full lock and the plane spiraled straight into the ground. Despite EPO foam being pretty resilient to my previous landings (controlled crashes) this crash was too much for it and front of the fuselage and wings are beyond repair.
I'm going to invest in a new 2.4 GHz transmitter and receiver set to try and avoid this happening again. Rather than replace the Bixler with another, I think I may upgrade to an X5 which will server as a better base for a UAV.
FPV video camera
I mounted an old 808 video camera that I bought from eBay a few years ago to the Bixler. It was attached to the canopy with some velcro. The camera is so small and light that it has hardly any effect on the centre of gravity.
The videos aren't of any outstanding quality but it's still quite nice to have an aerial view of the surrounding area.