radar-msp-post-eclipse

This is a follow up to my eclipse post.  I was forced to end my eclipse flight 10 minutes before the peak because a line of rain was just starting to roll over the top of me.  I waited about 20-30 minutes for the rain to clear and launched a post-eclipse flight that lasted just over an hour of flight time.

Here are some interesting things in this set of flight videos:

  • You will see the same augmented reality heads up display and flight track rendering.  This shows every little blemish in the sensors, EKF, flight control system, and airplane!  It’s a great testing and debugging tool if you really hope to polish your aircraft’s tuning and flight performance.
  • IT IS WINDY!!!!  The skywalker cruises at about 20 kts indicated airspeed.  Winds aloft were pushing 16 … 17 … 18 kts sustained.  At one point in the flight I record 19.5 kt winds.
  • At t=2517 (there is a timer in seconds in the lower left corner of the HUD) we actually get pushed backwards for a few seconds.  How does your autopilot navigation work when you are getting pushed backwards by the wind?!?  You can find this about 20 seconds into Part #3.  Check it out. 🙂
  • In the 2nd half of the flight the winds transition from 16-17 kts and fairly smooth, to 18-19 kts and violent.  The poor little skywalker is getting severely thrashed around the sky in places.  Still it and the autopilot seem to handle it pretty well.  I was a bit white knuckle watching the flight unfold from the ground, but the on board HUD shows the autopilot was pretty relaxed and handled the conditions without really breaking much of a sweat.
  • When the winds really crank up, you will see the augmented flight track pass by sideways just after we pass the point in the circle where we are flying directly into the wind  … literally the airplane is flying sideways relative to the ground when you see this.
  • Does this bumpy turbulent video give you a headache?  Stay tuned for an upcoming video in super smooth air with a butterworth filter on my airspeed sensor.

Note: the hobbyking skywalker (1900mm) aircraft flown in this video has logged 71 flights, 31.44 hours in the air (1886 minutes), and covered 614 nautical miles (1137 km) across the ground.