Eurofighter FPV build

[Liam B.]

Any updates on this?
Was really interested in this!
Liam

[Zeeflyboy]

I assume you saw the maiden FPV video?

Not much to report at the moment, life has been too busy. I wasted a lot of time trying to get RVOSD to work properly with my HV setup, but in the end I gave up... I've now re-installed eagletree, although I took the opportunity to improve the install.

I'm also very happy to say that Bill at eagletree managed to sort out my problem with the ESC arming from the OSD pro. He managed to track down a bug where in sppm mode the OSD would start outputting 33ms frame rate... He sent me an updated software version et voila! It now works flawlessly. The main reason for ditching the eagle tree was that I couldn't get that working... I also had a chat with him about some features I'd like to see and he seemed to like my ideas. Firstly, custom sppm alerts... since the OSD sees all channels in the SPPM stream, you can set up a monitor system that will produce a text alert when any given channel reaches a certain value. Eg gear down when the gear channel is flicked, flap 1, flap 2 etc etc. Secondly I asked for a more advanced AHI and he seemed to think it would be fairly trivial to add.

Really impressed with eagletree currently, great customer service and interaction.

Anyway, I'm almost done with the re-installation... Just replacing a burnt out retract now and then I need to finish the nose gear door, steering linkage, and the starboard main gear door. Should be back up and flying soon enough now.

I also bought a new cockpit which I will be using to make a mold for attempting to pull some canopies.

However, I've also started ordering the parts for my new project... Unfortunately I think it's going to make this one seem cheap by comparison. I'm really excited about the next one, as it'll be really something quite special I think, assuming I can pull it off!

[Zeeflyboy]

good question!

The plane is pretty much ready to go again, although due to a lack of linkages the gear doors aren't finished lol. Now it's just finding the time to go somewhere I can use it. For the first go with the gear I really want a BIG runway for takeoff since I don't know how long a run it'll need and an even bigger one so I can't miss on landing lol.

There's a supermarket about 15 mins away that has a huge car park that backs on to massive empty fields that fits the bill, but it's only closed on sundays. Unfortunately I'm working most sundays this month.

My next project will be addressing this issue lol.

[FPVSteve]

;D

Caveat: what if some arse decides to park on your landing spot while you're in the air ... :o

I had that when I was flying off an unlisted road in the middle of nowhere, some guy comes along in his car and decides to stop and watch right where I'm coming in to land. Had to divert into the hedges and snapped the nose off, I was pissed!

And that was only a cheapy WildHawk, not a ££££ beauty of a plane :)

Any cricket fields nearby? Or, *cough* a bowling green? ;D

[Zeeflyboy]

hence why I'll only go there on a sunday when it's closed lol... even if a load of people suddenly did decide to park there for some reason it shouldn't be an issue since I could use the perimeter road for take off (one north/south and one east/west - perfect!) see the attached pic for reference.

There is also a very, very big car park just by the bottom of a ski lift, it's unused at this time of year and has some mighty fine views, also attached.

[Zeeflyboy]

oh, and just while I'm posting anyway....

I wasn't happy with how the batteries were being held, so after making sure the CG was looking sensible I decided to mount them a bit better. On my two "arrivals" the batteries were slammed forwards causing some minor damage to the battery stop.

I wrapped them in cling film and then made a mix out of broken up packaging polystyrene balls and gorilla glue with a dash of water. This is super duper mega ultra uber light weight, but pretty strong.

Pasted the mix into place and then pressed the batteries home into their position and allowed it all to foam up and fill in the gaps while keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn't go places it shouldn't or completely envelop the bay lol.

Then just removed the batteies, cut it back to shape at the top et voila! Custom molded battery bays! I was going to use a spot of velcro along the outer edeg to hold them in, but it seems with the foam wedge even holding it upside down and shaking it won't get them to budge... should be fine.

[Zeeflyboy]

oh, and here you can see the covers in place, my improved odd/elogger installation and the ASI/Alt up front. I move the ASI up her so that i could keep the static and pitot pressure lines as short as possible to try and correct the slightly low readings i was getting.