[Canberrauav] Mugin progress. Jack Pittar jpittar at bigpond.net.au Mon Dec 19 22:00:05 EST 2011 On Sunday I had the Mugin / Cyber Hawk ready to do a trial run. Due to a number of difficulties I encountered in preparation, I was very doubtful about committing to the air, but I did hope to get past the aircraft inspection part of the Large Model permit, do a radio range test, and do a few runs along the strip. Well, it did pass the aircraft inspection. I was able to start the motor reliably by hand without being bitten - a confidence hurdle for me. However, the motor would not run reliably. The problem appeared to be either in the fuel tank or the tubes leading to it. Not having the workshop tools available, and not being fully satisfied with the overall installation, I decided to call it a day. The only commercial mufflers I could find for the DA50 cost approximately $100, so I had spent some time looking around for one at the right price. Thankfully Stan Rucinski, a fellow modeller at CMAC donated one, so this problem was solved. During the week I had trouble with the radio system. When I moved more than two servos at the same time, the movement became very chaotic. The Servo Station I used to run the system from a LiPo, and to buffer the servos from the receiver, would drop the supply voltage to the receiver when enough power was drawn by the servos. This voltage drop was enough to put the receiver in failsafe mode while the servos were moving. On recovery, the servos would move again, and the receiver would go back into failsafe again. I replaced it with the Servo Station from the Hugin, and the same thing happened. Thinking back on it, I am fairly sure this is what made the Hugin uncontrollable. I will have to get on with our failsafe unit. Do we call the plane a Mugin, or a Cyber Hawk ? I think a Mugin is only a Cyber Hawk when it it has the all the Cyber Technologies' proprietry equipment installed. Jack.
[Canberrauav] first flight of the CyberMugin! Andrew Tridgell tridge at samba.org Mon Dec 26 20:44:23 EST 2011 Hi All, Jack and I were at CMAC today doing some ground tests of the Mugin, and some flight tests of the APM2. We spent nearly an hour getting the Mugin ready on the ground, discovering some interesting issues with running the cables. We resolved those, so Jack did some engine testing with the help of Stan. After that Jack did a few taxi runs along the runway, just to get a feel of the controls. During one of the runs the nose wheel locked solid, which will need some work. Jack did a temporary fix for that by loosening the bolts a bit, then did some more taxi tests. On the last taxi test Jack decided to do a "hop" of the plane part way along the runway to get a feel for the takeoff speed. The idea was to just go up a couple of feet then come down. What we hadn't reckoned on was how far it glides under minimal power! It flew for about 50m or so, and came down in the grass at the end of the runway. The nose wheel caught on the grass and is damaged, but is repairable, although we think a change of how it is fastened to the nose is warranted, as it is just too fragile at the moment (we discussed the possibility of using sacrificial nylon bolts, so the bolts break next time without damaging the plane). You can see a video of the flight here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKu3v3w97Zk The good news is that it was very stable in the air and well balanced, so once we do take it up properly we expect it to fly very nicely. Cheers, Tridge
[Canberrauav] First flight Jack Pittar jpittar at bigpond.net.au Sat Dec 31 21:01:02 EST 2011 Today I got the heavy model certificate for the Mugin with Ray Botten - the CMAC certifier of heavy models. The certificate is valid for three years. It comprises a structural inspection of the model, and a flight test of the model and pilot flying the monoeuvres it will be certified for. The certificate is for just basic flying - no aerobatics. Other pilots can have their names put on the certificate with a similar flight demonstration. On the second circuit we saw one of the main wheels fall off, so I decided to get some practice in while I could. The model responded well to the controls, and only required a bit of trim to have it flying hands off. I thought it was too slow and sluggish, but when I made my concerns known to Ray, he said I was flying it too fast! This is something I was going to have to get used to very quickly. My other concern was depth perception with such a big model. A good landing depends upon a good approach, and a good approach requires good depth perception. I elected to do a number of circuits and low passes in order to achieve a minimum speed landing on the middle of the airstrip. I elected to land on one attempt when the model looked particularly well lined up. It touched down a bit later than I wanted, but the wheelless leg seemed to slip along the mat with little impediment, and no damage was done. We searched for the lost wheel, but gave up after an hour because it was really a hopeless task. A fellow modeller took a photo just before the landing. I am sending it to Tridge and Steve to put on our website. Jack.
[Canberrauav] successfull Mugin test flight today Andrew Tridgell tridge at samba.org Fri Jan 6 20:30:37 EST 2012 We had a successful flight of the Mugin today at CMAC. Chris, Jack and I put the plane together in 40 minutes or so, and Jack flew it with two APMs on board, as you can see in this photo: http://photos.tridgell.net/v/CanberraUAV/Mugin/IMG_20120106_091606.jpg.html both APMs were just passive passengers, the aim being to get some Telemetry for how fast it flies, stall speed, turn radius etc. The GPS track of the flight is here: http://www.samba.org/tridge/UAV/Mugin/mugin-2012-01-06.kmz >From that we can conclude that the turn radius is about 70m or so, which gives about a 140m track separation for a 180 degree turn. That suits our plans for the OBC extremely well. The comfortable flight speed with good stability was around 30m/s. Jack could take it down to 24m/s or so, but he felt it was less stable at that speed. A cruise of 30m/s will work very well for the OBC. >From the landing we can estimate the stall speed as somewhere between 14 and 18 m/s. A very successful day! Cheers, Tridge
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