A new mission planned - across the island

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A new mission planned - across the island

Postby icebear » Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:04 pm

Every year we spend a week or two at the island Öland in the Baltic sea off the east coast of Sweden.
It is a very popular island in the summer and even the king has his own residence here just a few kilometers from our (much less fashionable!) summer house.

This year, we have decided to try to fly across the island on autopilot while taking video from the wing. The route planned is approx 12 kilometers and we plan to follow by car.

We will start by a main holiday beach area on the west coast and follow the roads to the east coast to an area with an ancient ruin of a monastery from the 11th century and a lighthouse from 1872 - see pictures below.

Everything is planned and prepared and the route is test driven to make sure the roads are open and that are no obstacles like windmills in the way...

Now we just hope for perfect weather sometime during the rest of our stay!

Cheers,

Björn
Attachments
acrossoland1.JPG
The complete route
acrossoland1.JPG (153.79 KiB) Viewed 41416 times
thesite.JPG
Landmarks on the landning site
thesite.JPG (61.12 KiB) Viewed 41416 times
acrossoland0.JPG
Across the island
acrossoland0.JPG (145.51 KiB) Viewed 41416 times
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby Tom » Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:35 pm

Wow very cool, I'd love to go to öland one day!!!

I hope you will be able to follow the plane from your car!

Tom
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby icebear » Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:31 pm

Tom wrote:Wow very cool, I'd love to go to öland one day!!!
I hope you will be able to follow the plane from your car!
Tom


Just let me know and we'd be happy to help out with accomodation and 'mission planning' etc!

And an update regarding the mission; WE DID IT!

More details to follow...

/Bjorn
Attachments
acrossoland.jpg
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby Tom » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:20 pm

Can't wait to read the complete story :-)
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby icebear » Tue Aug 06, 2013 7:47 am

Hi all,

So - the mission is completed and it all worked out well, but as always there were some unexpected events... Here's the full story!

After careful planning we chose a path to cross the island where you could follow by car with a good line of sight as well as a good landing site (with ancient ruins and all!).

Our last day on the island promised calm weather and mild winds from the west. I had found a spot on the east coast with a large field where we could take off and make the final preparations before starting the route. The starting point is also in one of the main beach and holiday areas.

The take-off was uneventful and the Glider wing quickly went into the first standby circle at 100 meters. A final check of all parameters was performed and the 12 kilometer route was started...

My wife was driving the car and as soon as we saw the Glider turn west over the beach we started the chase. The winds were stronger at altitude and the glider now travelled at 55 kph which made chasing on the winding road a challenge at times. The Xbees communicated well through the windshield of the car if we managed to keep the distance so that the roof of the car was not shieldning.

About halfway over the island, suddenly the GCS reported "Entering Standby" - a shock! I had probably accidently pushed the Standby button as I have to stop the screen saver every now and then (note to self; screen saver OFF!!!)
However, I quickly managed to puch "Final" to guide the Glider to the final Standby circle at the landing site instead of returning to the starting point. Question; if the Route was commenced would the Gluonpilot go back to the starting WP rather than resuming the route? And can WPs be advanced manually from the GCS?

As the glider now was aiming stratight for the landing site, we would have to speed up to compensate but we managed to have the glider in sight at all times. Finally, after approximately 15 minutes we arrived at the landing site and I quickly got out of the car to be prepared to land. We let the glider circle at the site for a few minutes before making a few manual sweeps over the ruins and landing in the field.

Now for the second suprise - the GoPro 3 had stopped recording at 14 minutes!!! Huge disappoinment and to make matters worse I was unable to get the GoPro to continue recording even if the memory card was ony half full (second note to self; ALWAYS re-format the card before major missions!!!). No possibility to take extra video as I had no extra cards with me and my "mission PC" is to slow to transfer video files (third note to self; apply for family investment funds for a new mission PC!)

So, after a successful mission we were left with "only" 4/5 of the route on video. Therefore, I decided to make another attempt to film the arrival and landing site the day after.

The route was edited to include only the last 3-4 WPs and the final standby circle and even if the next morning was more windy with headwind, we made an attempt early in the morning. Take off was fine and following the glider with a strong headwind was easy at 20-25 kph. The westerly winds also made the wing more stable as there was less turbulence.

However, just as we entered the landing area by car I heard the GCS report an immediate "connection lost" and the glider went into a spiral dive from 100 meters. I managed to go manual, but had no control what so ever and the glider crashed in a nearby field. The good thing about missions in the country side is that 99% is cow fields - which is were we ended up this time...

In spite of a full speed dive into ground the only damage was two big cracks in the foam, a ripped Xbee antenna and a broken servo horn. All repaired and test flown again with no issues. The reason for the crash needs to be investigated and this is the first issue I have had in 100+ flights with the glider and I cannot say if the problem was mechanical, hardware or software related.

Anyway, the mission itself was a success and an edited video will be posted here shortly. In the meantime some pictures are attached below...

Enjoy!

/Björn
Attachments
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.22.36.jpg
The ruin and the lighthouse at the landing site
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.22.36.jpg (31.04 KiB) Viewed 41368 times
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.21.19.jpg
Take off!
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.21.19.jpg (39.75 KiB) Viewed 41368 times
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.30.52.jpg
The take-off site
Skärmavbild 2013-08-06 kl. 09.30.52.jpg (45.68 KiB) Viewed 41368 times
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby Tom » Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:07 am

Hi Bjorn,

Wonderful story!

Thanks for the hint, maybe I should implement a feature "go to this waypoint", instead of just the beginning of a block.

Too bad for the crash, did you see any suspicious text like "address error" on the GCS? Which firmware version are you using? A few weeks ago my X5 crashed when flying in manual mode... No sign of the cause so I am blaming my RC-receiver (on 35MHz, I was flying low and it was located close to the video TX), but it is always difficult to determine...

Can't wait to see the Gopro3 video :-)

Regards,

Tom
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby icebear » Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:10 pm

....and finally the video to prove the flight was made :D ...

http://youtu.be/Om2_Q4ywjao

Enjoy!

/Björn

PS; I also hope you enjoy David Sylvians soundtrack 'Forbidden Colours' from the movie "Mr Christmas Mr Lawrence"
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby Tom » Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:46 pm

Very nice images!

The first half is rather shaky. Was there a lot of wind? Maybe add some nose-weight to balance?

I just bought the mobius keychain cam. The full-hd version of #16, with improved colors and dynamic range. Of course it won't be as good as the GoPro but I hope to get some nice videos with it!

Last year my biggest feat was flying above the clouds, I hope to do something better this year. Flying around clouds in FPV or maybe a nice video over a nature park like you did. I have the X5 but I am rebuilding my old funjet for FPV :-) The keychain cam with pan-servo for nice panoramas, and a big motor to let it climb really fast ;-)
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Re: A new mission planned - across the island

Postby icebear » Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:48 am

Tom wrote:Very nice images!
The first half is rather shaky. Was there a lot of wind? Maybe add some nose-weight to balance?
I just bought the mobius keychain cam. The full-hd version of #16, with improved colors and dynamic range. Of course it won't be as good as the GoPro but I hope to get some nice videos with it!
Last year my biggest feat was flying above the clouds, I hope to do something better this year. Flying around clouds in FPV or maybe a nice video over a nature park like you did. I have the X5 but I am rebuilding my old funjet for FPV :-) The keychain cam with pan-servo for nice panoramas, and a big motor to let it climb really fast ;-)


Thanks Tom! And yes, the shaky part is due to the fact that it was a hot day with turbulence over land. The second day I shot the last part of the flight and you can see that it is much more stable since it was colder and we had the wind coming from the sea. At home we live by the sea as you know and some days the air is very numpy and the wings/planes get bumped around and on other days it can be windy but I get very smooth flight.
I think the wing is very well balanced and trimmed, so I have to put down the shakyness to the 15 kph winds and turbulence.
Nice to hear about the new cam - múst check it out! And I look forward to some more cloud videos... :D

/Bjorn
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