Hi There,
Well today was the day. "Tee Hee" (Giddy little school kid.) The weather broke here North of the 49th parallel and it was a great day to fly!!! (8 Deg C (46F), South wind nil to10km/hr (6mph), partly cloudy)
I've been chomping at the bit since Xmas to get my H into the air. 25 below is a good time to get all your updates done. Today's mission was two fold:
1. Take the Q500 out and drain some juice from the batteries for storage. (Enough about that)
2. GET THE "H" OFF THE GROUND!
Found a great place outside the city I could set up a table. Open field, no power lines or buildings in sight. Open air space (I checked the charts) with land owner permission...You gotta love it.
Compass calibration took 3 tries. I'm thinking I was too slow on the first 2 tries. Is it normal that when it enters compass calibration that the ST-16 vibrates and says it's lost GPS signal, maintain manual flight? Did it all three times.(Hmm) Acceleramoter calibration - no issue.
20 satellites on the H and ST-16...Perfect! OK...props on, angle mode, get back 30ft and press the pretty little read button....what a nice hum! Double check...screen visible, all parameters showing, see bird, see screen. Up throttle... Hoo boy! Up to about 20ft and let off the stick. Hovered, then within 2 seconds started doing a circle back at me. Adrenaline flowing, OMG what's this?!?!?! Applied sticks to turn away and she responded. All seemed good from there. That was a moment of "I don't have control of this thing and something has possessed it." With that excitement over I continued getting familiar with the controls to see what would do what. Man is this thing torquey! Almost seems jerky. (Maybe I'm just too used to my Q500) A slight movement of direction and Bam, she goes! (Yes, Turtle mode is much slower but I thought gentle movement in rabbit would be smoother than I experienced today. Hmm, more practice perhaps.)
Second and third battery had a different scenario... Just after take off and at about 40 to 50ft up, she dropped like a stone to about 20 ft. It was like the props cut out and started back up again. They didn't stop completely as she stayed level all the way down. More adrenaline! Forth battery was a much smoother flight. I got some figure 8's in and tested high speed fly by. I got about 30mph. Didn't venture beyond 600ft out and 130ft up. Practiced hand catching a few times with no issues. (I normally fly where take off is possible but may not be able to land.) Also practiced some ground landings. So nice that it doesn't try to dance around. Down is down. Good girl!
What a great machine! Love it! Very responsive. Any thoughts on the wonky bits are appreciated. It may be a matter of talking with Yuneec CS and reviewing telemetry data though. I get that. I thought I was doing my best with everything but, perhaps there is something I missed. BTW: I'm not trying to equate the behavior to a particular battery. I had all four batteries charged and needed to deplete them for storage. It was great fun. Burned some fuel and got some flight time. What a GREAT DAY!!!
Cheers,
Well today was the day. "Tee Hee" (Giddy little school kid.) The weather broke here North of the 49th parallel and it was a great day to fly!!! (8 Deg C (46F), South wind nil to10km/hr (6mph), partly cloudy)
I've been chomping at the bit since Xmas to get my H into the air. 25 below is a good time to get all your updates done. Today's mission was two fold:
1. Take the Q500 out and drain some juice from the batteries for storage. (Enough about that)
2. GET THE "H" OFF THE GROUND!
Found a great place outside the city I could set up a table. Open field, no power lines or buildings in sight. Open air space (I checked the charts) with land owner permission...You gotta love it.
Compass calibration took 3 tries. I'm thinking I was too slow on the first 2 tries. Is it normal that when it enters compass calibration that the ST-16 vibrates and says it's lost GPS signal, maintain manual flight? Did it all three times.(Hmm) Acceleramoter calibration - no issue.
20 satellites on the H and ST-16...Perfect! OK...props on, angle mode, get back 30ft and press the pretty little read button....what a nice hum! Double check...screen visible, all parameters showing, see bird, see screen. Up throttle... Hoo boy! Up to about 20ft and let off the stick. Hovered, then within 2 seconds started doing a circle back at me. Adrenaline flowing, OMG what's this?!?!?! Applied sticks to turn away and she responded. All seemed good from there. That was a moment of "I don't have control of this thing and something has possessed it." With that excitement over I continued getting familiar with the controls to see what would do what. Man is this thing torquey! Almost seems jerky. (Maybe I'm just too used to my Q500) A slight movement of direction and Bam, she goes! (Yes, Turtle mode is much slower but I thought gentle movement in rabbit would be smoother than I experienced today. Hmm, more practice perhaps.)
Second and third battery had a different scenario... Just after take off and at about 40 to 50ft up, she dropped like a stone to about 20 ft. It was like the props cut out and started back up again. They didn't stop completely as she stayed level all the way down. More adrenaline! Forth battery was a much smoother flight. I got some figure 8's in and tested high speed fly by. I got about 30mph. Didn't venture beyond 600ft out and 130ft up. Practiced hand catching a few times with no issues. (I normally fly where take off is possible but may not be able to land.) Also practiced some ground landings. So nice that it doesn't try to dance around. Down is down. Good girl!
What a great machine! Love it! Very responsive. Any thoughts on the wonky bits are appreciated. It may be a matter of talking with Yuneec CS and reviewing telemetry data though. I get that. I thought I was doing my best with everything but, perhaps there is something I missed. BTW: I'm not trying to equate the behavior to a particular battery. I had all four batteries charged and needed to deplete them for storage. It was great fun. Burned some fuel and got some flight time. What a GREAT DAY!!!
Cheers,