Eurofighter FPV build

[Zeeflyboy]

Well, I managed to scare myself a bit today. I had time to do the second wing and so for the first time was able to put everything together... I had forgotten how big this damn thing is! looking at it as individual parts I had got used to it but seeing it all together really is a bit different.

It's got some real heft to it too... It should be around stock weight at the moment, although I currently lack scales accurate enough to verify it. I'm not worrying about flying it, I'm worrying about the first launch. Maidens are much less stressful when you can just take off from a nice tarmac strip! Tomorrow I might just try running it up and seeing how that greater than 1:1 ratio is coming along.

Anyway, some pics (and a beer bottle for some sense of scale!)... yes I need to mow the lawn. I can't build eurofighters and mow the lawn ya know.

[SouthPawPaul]

In the inimitable of words of Austin Powers

Yeah baby. Yeah!
Yeah, baby, yeah!

[FPVSteve]

In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, I think I'm having a crisis. :o

Beautiful.

[Zeeflyboy]

lol, I love that quote.

So, note to self. Do not run up an EDF of this magnitude to full throttle in an enclosed space... my ears are still ringing.

However, with packs at empty (resting voltage of 3.7v, show at 20% on my charger) it had a little more than 1:1 initially, then slowly dropped over the course of about 10-15 seconds to just about being able to support itself.

That bodes well, at launch with fresh packs it should be groovy - will try it out tomorrow in the garden so my ears don't get assaulted again.

[g.collins]

looks great mate, I love Heineken.
;) G

[Zeeflyboy]

That was my last one... I can't afford any more cos I spent all my money on FPV kit  :'(

lol.

Turns out I have quite a hot neighbour now in the flat above me who moved in a month or two ago... she heard the euro firing up and peeked over the balcony to have a look... she actually thought it was quite interesting. Something wrong there. When I showed the plane to my girlfriend she just said "it's too big" (not the only time she's said that ;) lol).

Anyway, took a video of the controls now that it's all capable of being put together. Set up the guardian too so that stabilisation can be switched on with the flick of a switch on the controller, the second half of the video shows the guardian at work. Gains are quite low so that I don't get a nasty surprise the first time I put it on in flight.


Eurofighter controls test.mov


Also set up the OSD to activate RTH on signal loss, or manually by moving throttle trim right back with throttle at zero... obviously I need to wait till it's airborne to finally test and tweak it before activating it as default.

[6lennn]

OMG
This is looking dangerously close to maiden time

DONT DO IT

[Funky Diver]

hot neighbour now in the flat above

It's not true without evidence ;)

Looking rather good there matey!

[Zeeflyboy]

Lol... No evidence I'm afraid.

I would love to say its close to maiden, but I still have quite a lot to do before I can even fly it, let alone finish it.

The big thing left are the main wing spars... The vendor is being a bit crap, but the stuff I want isn't very common place. I don't know when it'll be sorted and it's 50 quids worth of materials so I'm not especially keen to just re-order.

However, In good news I got a reply to a message I sent to Greg at fatshark... His new airFLO HD FPV camera should be formally announced and presented next week. I'm thinking it would be a great match for this project. Not much bigger than a regular CCD cam, records in HD while outputting 4:3 live out for the vTX.

[Dizzy]

eeflyboy up to now i have refrained from saying anything regarding your build, but as an avid scale modeller of many years experience I feel the need to comment :D

I am so impressed with your dedication to this project its been a real pleasure to see you progress through the build and your approach as been brilliently planned and brought together in a lovely model.
This sort of detail build i have experienced many times in models that stay firmly on the ground be it ships cars or even none flying models but to lavish this sort of detail in a fpv full flying model is something i really admire.
In my eyes you deserve every success with this project and i really do wish you all the luck in the world for your maiden and i,m so pleased to see your taking as many precautions as you can with her.
I look forward to your maiden vids and love the idea of flying with you when you show us all,  once again good luck with her :D

dizzy

[Zeeflyboy]

Very kind dizzy, but there's much to do yet!

My EZUHF just locked out on me earlier too and it's totally unresponsive. After chatting to sander briefly we determined it needs to go back...

Also been struggling with getting the ESC to initialise from the OSD Pro throttle out. It works fine direct from the rx, or from the ppm decoder up front, but from the osd pro it just refuses to initialise. I suspect it's something to do with endpoints, but my ezuhf crapped out before I could get to the bottom of it.

But never mind, life goes on and in the mean time I still have things to be doing!

Did a bit more work on my "avionics" bays...







And I also re-did my cockpit screens. They are now all genuine euro screens and I improved the print quality a bit. The one on the right I had to draw myself in photoshop as I could only find blurry low res pics of it.... Please excuse the rough and ready appearance, the pic is really just to show the screens!

[Coyote]

Tis a work of art, the attention to detail is incredible for an FPV airframe, love it :)

[Funky Diver]

Now, it is sad to hear that it's going to be a while longer before the leccy stuff is all up and running... BUT ar eyou going to get the AHI working? :P

Looking very good, looking forward to more

[tox]

The second thing that i thought of when looking at that instrument panel was that i once bought a keyring photo viewer that would fit in there perfectly. Granted the images were low quality but having a changing "screen" image would be really cool. You could also cycle the image at certain intervals which you could use to create animation type movement....

The first thing i thought was Wow, that is really cool, appreciate the amount of effort and attention put in there.

Very nice FD!

Tox

[Funky Diver]

Very nice FD!

Nowt to do with me...