The plane is ready.
There’s no going back.
All this hard work.
Dun DUn DUn
Okay, It was not a dramatic as that, but I was sure anxious. I plugged the battery in (which was scary because it was in the compartment right under the propeller) and tested all the controls. Everything was good.
First thing I would like to say is that all these flights were incredibly short test flights.
The GP200 flew! Yay! For the first 3 seconds, it soared gracefully. Then, I did a kind of successful (not sure if it was intentional) turn and stopped it. 3 and a half seconds later, I began another turn, hoping to turn 270 degrees back towards me. I began to turn, but the plane banked and tip stalled and crashed.
Things I noticed:
Elevator was very responsive, but Rudder was not
Flight 2: This time, I decided to go faster to avoid stalling. In my first plane, It kept on stalling because it was a bad design, but also because it was too slow. The plane flew forward, faster, but when I turned it tip stalled again but not as badly. It seemed like speed was better, but the high lift wings would pitch the nose up if I had too much power.
Things I noticed:
Getting out of a turn was hard
Plugs could come out easily, to be reattached
Flight 3: First thing I did was to make the rudder move more. I knew that the airflow was sufficient, because the elevator was perfectly fine, but I still wanted to see what happened. I did not learn to much from this one, except the stall speed. I got too slow
Flight 4: I turned the rudder control, or “throw,” all the way up. The flight started fine, lik always. The plane began to turn at about a 30 degree bank angle. I could not get out of this turn, and I quickly “landed it.”
Things I noticed:
Getting out of a turn was harder than I expected
Flight 5: I did not turn the plane this time, to see what would happen. I still had to keep it flying straight, but that was normal. It flew fine, and pitch was great. After a bit, I decided to turn as hard as I could. The plane started side-slipping but did not turn. I managed to land fine and actually flat.
Overall, I think this was a success for being a first test flight of a new design that had not been fully mathematically proven. I think if I locked the useless rudder in place and used that servo plus another for ailerons, that would be a lot better. Time to improve!
The LiPo Projects 