End of 2023 Updates

I’ve not made any posts since summer, but I’ve been busy flying and working on several upcoming projects. Here’s an update on things I’ve been building in the meantime!

PuRES V2

I built a balsa and carbon glider from a kit to have a model to use for soaring in better weather. The PuRES V2 is a v-tail aircraft designed to meet the F3RES competition ruleset. Although I don’t plan to compete, the aircraft is a great performer for catching even the smallest of thermals. Sadly, there weren’t any good soaring days between me finishing the build and the turn of autumn, so after a few test flights I will have to wait until next year.

A bungee system is used for launching which I made following the very simple guide on BARCS.

Mini Caelus

Following the crash which I detailed in my last post, I redesigned the booms to be manufacturable using the materials and tools I now have access to. This resulted in 3D printed parts and a short carbon boom. There is scope to improve the motor mount component, as I designed a quick fix using the previous model to test the concept and never iterated on it, hence the bulky looking parts! Although there is a unavoidable minor weight penalty, the new booms performed well and Mini Caelus flies again. I had some covering film left over from the PuRES build, so I covered the wings in white and gave the fuselage and winglets a splash of spray paint. After a few months in storage, the covering had wrinkled slightly, and I’d forgotten to colour coordinate the booms, but some other fliers at my flying site were kind enough to get some action shots.

The control tunes are now reasonably good and gives a lot of confidence in the aircraft when flying. The hover tune allows for a lot of authority with oscillations in yaw only, caused by tilt servo lag when performing tilt differential, and the forward flight tune is excellent with a snappy response in FBWA. Adjustments made to the transition parameters from the last post have dramatically improved the transition performance, now providing a very smooth and reliable transition in both directions, and the confidence to perform the transitions at low height to save on battery.

LW-PLA Testing

I got my hands on a roll of LW-PLA filament - the offshoot of PLA which expands when printed, reducing density and part weight. I’ve been characterising the performance to find the best print settings for my setup and will hopefully be writing up a full post soon.

Other Stuff…

I’ve not made a huge amount of progress on my other projects but next year I’ll share some information on my LoRa-based GNSS-denied RTH solution for fixed wing aircraft. I’m also looking to do a build log of my upcoming 7” quad.