First FPV project - EasyGlider*

[electricmick]

Having spent loads of time reading and asking dumb questions it was time to make a few decision and reach for the wallet. As I am a regular LOS pilot with lots of kit I have planned a two stage project:

Stage 1  - learn to fly FPV at the club where I have lots of friends to help, therefore I will use my existing 2.4 radio so I bought a 5.8 Fat Shark kit for close-in flying.

Stage 2 - when I want to go beyond the field and have the confidence to spend more money on FPV then I will buy a UHF for uplink and either 1.3 or 2.4 video downlink and a build a ground station. I can then utilise the 5.8 to connect the ground station to the goggles giving more freedom of location. Theoretically no wasted money, we will see.....

The platform is the trusty EasyStar but to get more wing area and ailerons I elected to use the EasyGlider wings and therefore also used the EasyGlider tail feathers for yaw stability. I chose EagleTree OSD with a Co-Pilot4 for stabilisation. Servos were stock Turnigy 53317S for the tail and HXT900 for the ailerons. Motor is a HXT 2835 2200kv in-runner driving a 6x4 prop. ESC is a Mystery 40A which has a low noise switching SBEC, this runs everything on board. The Fat Shark kit came with the RCV922 camera, 100mW transmitter and built-in receiver. For recording I picked up an Aiptek MPVR camcorder as it has a video-in socket.

Therefore, following the instructions carefully I connected all the electronics on the bench. This only required some minor soldering to get the connections right. It all worked first time and the OSD was easy to set up, the instructions could be a lot better.



Following some previous threads I chopped out loads of foam from the fuselage and decided to use some magnets to hold the front fuselage halves together with the tail and motor mount glued, a compromise for rigidity and access.



I followed the post on RCGroups to trim and fit the EasyGlider wings, this was easier than it sounded, just lots of white bits everywhere!!



I had to wait for weeks for the EasyGlider fin & rudder and horizontal stabiliser & elevator to arrive as the N. American Multiplex distributor had to get them from Germany. More foam chopping as the fit is different on the two models. All worked out OK as it ended up square to the wing once the glue dried.



Then put it all together and set up the radio. It took a long time moving all the components around inside the fuselage until I was happy with it.



With the magnets you can take split the front fuselage to gain access to the OSD and CP4 but it is limited by the rudder cable. Better than gluing it but only flying will tell if it was a good decision. This should enable me to upgrade it later to Stage 2, if the EasyGlider* lasts that long.

Lots of trimming and setting up the radio and OSD then it was time for a first flight. The weather, as always, was not co-operating. Loads on nice days when I was waiting for the tail but now it is snowing and windy. I decided to fly it LOS to get the aircraft trimmed out and to check out the CofG and stability with the blend of bits from two aircraft.

When I got to club field it was -3C with wind at 20km per hour gusting to 40, great. At least it had stopped snowing. It flew no problem, very stable and controllable. A few clicks to trim it. A bit underpowered for the conditions. A friend helped me by wearing the goggles and shouting out what was displayed on the OSD and giving feedback on video quality. It appears that the goggles to camera lead is not good as when a connection is moved lots of noise and interference or maybe this was interference on the transmission, hard to say, needs more investigation. With the throttle closed it needed some heavy down elevator to get it to penetrate into the wind and descend. I managed to get it back down onto the runway for a safe landing.

I have the video and will work out how to edit it and post it later, time for a drink to celebrate. Phew.

Thank you to everybody for their help and advise getting this far. The adventure has begun. A few more LOS flights in hopefully better weather and then FPV.....

[Coyote]

Great build Mick, looks a great platform and well done on the sucessfull maiden in not the best conditions :)

Looking forward to seeing the videos to come

[n00b@FPV]

looks very nice.nice big gap to get to stuff  :D
this seems to be the best platform if you dont want to put in a lot of stuff and/or you want to run 35mhz

[mark1975]

bravo mick well done matey on your flight .. she is looking very sweet very nice build indeed..

[n00b@FPV]

I have the video and will work out how to edit it and post it later,

upload it to vimeo or youtube then copy the link into a post

[tox]

Looking good,keep us posted ...

[electricmick]

Thanks for the encouragement.

Here is the video, my first go at video editing.

EasyGliderStar first flight

The soundtrack was deleted by You Tube, I will try again.

[n00b@FPV]

i think that if you specifie the details and say you dont own the song or what ever i think they let you have it

[mark1975]

good effort there mick well done thanks for sharing ...

[Coyote]

With the song you have an option, if you let them put a small advert on the bottom they will put the music back on for you.

Nice flight, looked bloody cold. Seems to glide very nicely :)

[electricmick]

Yesterday was a great day in Montreal for flying, low wind, no sun, no snow. So packed the car and set off to the club field to try real FPV.

For the first flight, we launched the EasyGlider* flying LOS and when I was ready I gave the radio to a friend, put on the goggles and after a few minutes took the radio in my sweaty palms. WOW. It is fantastic, got completely disorientated so totally relied upon my two spotters to guide me round the sky: left, right, up, down but after about 5 min I started to get the feel for the location. I have been flying from this site for 3 years but it is totally different in FPV. I managed a good landing on the snow covered runway. What a feeling, awesome. Sadly no video as I must have stopped the recorder as I put in my pocket.

Second flight even better, I took off with the goggles on the top of my head and 15s into the flight a friend pulled them down over my eyes. a good 15min flight and another good landing, feeling more confident.

Third flight and this time all FPV from the launch to the landing and celebrations. Another 15min flight. Video worked great on second and third flights as I had somebody hold it and check it. All very monotone video but that's what winter is like here, won't see grass again until April.

This FPV stuff exceeds my expectations. All those great videos from other people and now mine:

Mick's first FPV flight

Yea, I know it's not great artistically or a stunning view but it was totally awesome to me.

[mark1975]

Bloody hell it looks   cold lol well done you must have    been buzzing

[Coyote]

Great flight Mick, spot on mate, love the abort abort lol The video loss on final return was a bit scarey i bet :)

[electricmick]

Yea that was really scary.

The 5.8GHz video is only the stock Fat Shark set up but the variation in performance is huge. On the second flight I once got to 380m LOS with a good picture but as soon as the aircraft banks the video breaks-up even at less than 100m. Turning away from where I was standing was the worst as the transmitter aerial points directly away from the receiver. I will have to practice flats turns using the rudder with opposite ailerons. I also notice some interference at certain places every time I flew over them, even if the aircraft is level, that spot over the trees on approach is one of them. I will try a different frequency next time out. I would be happy for now with a consistent 200m. If I don't get that I will have to start down the slippery slope of a ground station.

[electricmick]

Sadly all good things come to an end. I enjoyed two more flights today until I flew out of range of the video at the same moment my spotter shouted "I can't see it, where are you?" The video came in and out, the now 5 spotters around me saw it occasionally but it was a hazy day with very light snow, clearly the visibility was worse than I thought. I nearly recovered it but it got away again and then we could not even hear it so I closed the throttle.

We got the last lat/long off the intermittent video recording, programmed it into an iPhone and went for a long walk in the snow using snowshoes. It was not there. Spent an hour looking and listening for it but never found it. As I use an Hitec Aurora 9, I could tell that the battery and receiver were still working as the transmitter displays receiver voltage but after an hour the BEC voltage got down to 3.3v and then went out. Never got anything out of the video.

B......ks