FlyingWings Venturi VTOL

[Brucey]

I didnt expect you to have it built (lazy or what!), just want to see it in the flesh. I really like the idea of a twin tractor

[Billy_boy_2010]

Wow this sounds like a great project will be keeping an eye on it

[iPeel]

Right, some progress eventually made today!

First as this is going to have to do multi-rotor-esque things with the props the 60a ESCs needed to be flashed with something multi-rotor-ish, I used BlHeli as I had planned to do so when I selected the ESC. Flashing BlHeli is pretty easy if you have an Arduino lying around and the BlHeli desktop software has everything you need, except a little lead which marries up with the three pads on the ESC. I had one already for my Plush 12's on my 250 and this was the right pinout for these.



Next I got the OpenLRS flashed, and as I need analogue RSSI for the OSD there's a little solder pad on the DTF-UHF's which turns the RSSI into analogue without the need for an external buffer:



Next up, a lick of paint on the centre section and the nacelles, leaving the equipment bay naked so the sticky stuff still sticks. I fitted the motors to the nacelles and then got about channelling all the equipment bays out including also the ESCs, these will still be out on the wing next to the nacelles but as far back as I can bearing in mind all the controllers will be up front. I've also positioned the servos as far back as I can without hitting the spar which I'd asked to be farther back than the standard Evo to make room for batteries in the rear bay:



You also see the pitot tube positioned on the front in the camera bay, hopefully out of scene. The motors are wired to the ESCs with bullet connectors which can be plugged and unplugged, this is so I can now laminate the wing halves without the nacelles then glue the nacelles in afterwards which should make the laminating process easier, it also means I can upgrade to SK3 motors when they come into stock for more oomph.  ;D

The UHF antenna is just waiting for the plasti-dip to go off and then I can wire in the RX, the VTX is already wired in and once they're all complete I can laminate and the physical build should be almost complete!


Neil.

[Brucey]

That looks awesome!

[iwan_canobi]

Agreed, looks really nice! Good progress so far!

[Billy_boy_2010]

Looks amazing.

A silly question perhaps- but what's the practical use and benefit of a vtol wing?
Is it purely the vertical take off/landing meaning a wing can be launched and landed in a very small area?

Or are you treating this as more a fun exercise and a challenge with a very unique product at the end of it?

[iPeel]

Theoretically it offers a more reliable take-off and land capability than a good chuck and a gentle approach, it's also simpler to cater for VTOL take-offs and landings in automated missions. As you say it also gives the ability to operate in areas which are more constrained.

Rob and I were interested in the project some time ago and felt the project deserved more than a butchered Caipirinha! If it all goes well we will have a capable airframe that suits developers but initially we're just having fun testing the limits of what can be done with the Pixhawk.

There's not much update-wise because the airframe is pretty much ready and I'm getting to grips with the Pix and QGroundControl, aside of the fact I'm using the ongoing development branch of the firmware, there's a real lack of documentation which is compounded by the fact most people using the Pix are using it with APM:Plane or APM:Copter which clouds the Google results somewhat. Like a lot of Open Source projects the code is very under-commented too.

Hopefully in a week or so I'll have it all under control.

[skyscraper]

Theoretically it offers a more reliable take-off and land capability than a good chuck and a gentle approach, it's also simpler to cater for VTOL take-offs and landings in automated missions. As you say it also gives the ability to operate in areas which are more constrained.

Rob and I were interested in the project some time ago and felt the project deserved more than a butchered Caipirinha! If it all goes well we will have a capable airframe that suits developers but initially we're just having fun testing the limits of what can be done with the Pixhawk.

There's not much update-wise because the airframe is pretty much ready and I'm getting to grips with the Pix and QGroundControl, aside of the fact I'm using the ongoing development branch of the firmware, there's a real lack of documentation which is compounded by the fact most people using the Pix are using it with APM:Plane or APM:Copter which clouds the Google results somewhat. Like a lot of Open Source projects the code is very under-commented too.

Hopefully in a week or so I'll have it all under control.

Fair point about the documentation of Open Source projects. I guess as well as the obvious that writing docs is boring,  writing docsit also means less time fixing bugs and writing cool new features.  I think PixHawk is better than many and I am sure as it gets older and more stable that docs will get better too..

Anyway Looking forward to seeing this  beast go  :)

regards
Andy

[Billy_boy_2010]

Interesting. Really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

[skyscraper]

Here's another one... ( On kickstarter)
Introducing the Vertex Hybrid UAV

How is yours going Neil? Any updates

regards
Andy

[iPeel]

I finally managed to break away from other stuff and put some time into the VTOL project today. I've been chatting a to a few people on the PX4 forums about my issues and nobody seemed to have much to say about it. I think the amount of people active with VTOL projects are rather thin on the ground.

The problem I was having is that the control surfaces didn't do anything I expected when in fixed wing mode, in multirotor mode the motors spun and the control surfaces seemed to do the right thing, but in fixed wing mode there was no authority whatsoever over the control surfaces, it was if the radio was dead.

Today I managed to get a config together by initially configuring the Pixhawk as a FX-79 wing, then rebooting and going through all the accelerometer, gyro, airspeed config and then once that works (albeit with all the wrong outputs moving) I set the autostart ID for the VTOL config and rebooted and everything seemed to work! So it looks like you have to build and configure a regular flying wing, get everything working nicely and gradually build yourself up to a VTOL - not my style!

So now I have a wing which behaves properly in manual mode and looks like it does some cool stuff in multirotor mode. The control movements are a bit wild in fixed wing mode so I'm not going through all the PID parameters and toning them down to something sensible, unfortunately the PX4 Autopilot doesn't have such luxuries as autotune...

I've got the rat's nest sorted a little inside the bay, but this needs a bit more work. At the moment I'm using a wiring harness from a quad hacked with a couple of extra connectors for powering things here and there. Once I've got everything settled down I'll make up something neater:



I also popped round to Rob's last week and picked up some oversized winglets, which are reinforced with carbon rod. These winglets are intended to support the wing upright whilst on the ground, but don't look too comical in flight:



She's almost ready to go although I'm still not quite ready to put some props on her:




Hopefully if the weather plays ball we should be taking her for a spin towards the end of next week.



Neil.

[rank]

This design looks much simpler, than any other Vtol project I have seen.

Hope, it works well, and if it does, perhaps, FlyingWings could release the Vtol version of the wing too.

[Brucey]

Looks awesome.  Let me know if you need some air to air filming!

[skyscraper]

Wow.. Nice job so far.

Brucey You better go to maiden with him.. You know what he's like.  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Seriously .. If it doesnt feel right just put it back in the car and test again.

Anyway Will be fascinated to see how it goes!

regards
Andy

[iPeel]

Lol Andy, I seem to recall things don't get much better when you're there. Lampposts seems to magically appear from nowhere.  :o