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CanoMod . Futaba-RC . A Main Hobbies

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Aerial Photography and Video > Yet another Slow Stick For AP Thread
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

OK Jason, I will adress a few questions for you real quick as I am ready to walk out the door for the entire weekend and won't be back until Monday.
Can you do video with my Aurora on windy days? Yes absolutley, but it all comes down to how much post production work you want to do after you shoot. Obviously the less wind the better and that goes for anything you are using to do video. There are elements to all this AP stuff that I haven't even begun to tap into yet such as "Deshaker" etc etc. Many of you are way more schooled in every facet of AP than I am. Truly I see myself as more of a stepping stone for people like you Jason who have engineering backgrounds and a lot more experience in photography than I probably ever will. I have no skills really when it comes to building these planes, not to mention no proper tools as every plane I have built thus far has been with a hack saw, an upright belt sander and brute force determination. I think my idea and builds will be handed off to someone like Jason who has the necessary knowledge, experience in aero dynamics, and the proper tools like a CnC machine. Then see my ideas combined with someone like Jason who can expand them and take it to a level I never imagined. Even with what all of us have accomplished so far with the SS on this thread, I truly don't beleive we have begun to capture the potential of this killer little plane. With all of that being said, I DO BELIEVE and have proven to an extent that the Big Slow Stick I have built can effectivly do video on a consistent basis. I have much more work to do on that but have had to put a lot of my R&D on hold because of just being busy with my computer business, and daily life. HOWEVER, winter is just about upon us and the long winter nights up here are very conducive to diving back into more development on my SS's. Back to the video. My findings SO FAR on what it takes to do video with my Aurora is not so much about stabilizing the camera as much as stabilizing the plane itself. Jason, this is where you will want to start. Think of your plane as your heli. Yeah yeah I know, bear with me. How would you fly your heli to do video? Straight up with infintesimal movements on your stick. I recommend when you decide on what plane paltform you are going to use, strap any camera that does video to your plane WITHOUT ANY STABILIZATION and learn to fly it as if every movement on the stick was life or death to your video. When you start to see promising results, put your AP 2000i on her and it will take you to a whole new level of smoothness. I am at this crossroads right now. I am at the place now where I will be looking at stabilizing the camera. This will probably be one of my winter projects. I am so close to getting what I would consider to being marketable video with my plane I can taste it. Anyway, I need to go. Sorry so long. Feel free to chime in guys and I will check back occasionally this weekend and for sure on Monday.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-15-2008 08:33 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
talk the torque
Senior Heliman
Location: SA

Where can I buy a hack saw, an upright belt sander and brute force determination

Hey thanks again Kev for your input
08-18-2008 11:10 PM
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Hey Jason, I'll email you some brute force determination asap.
OK gang, I have stumbled across a way to say bye bye FOREVER to the dreaded wing flutter that is so common with an out of the box SS. Being so far away from a hobby store, and due to the cost of shipping anything to Alaska, as always my mission is to use stock SS parts, do it with little or no weight added to the plane, and make it super strong. I am currently building a new wing for my Aurora and my small SS using this concept. I am going to be testing my Aurora with this new wing in the next day or two and will post some pics on my findings.

O yeah Jason, I want updates on the progress of your builds dude! AND PICTURES!!

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-18-2008 11:30 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cranester
Key Veteran
Location: Bogota, Colombia

Hey burnt I posted here more than a year ago when you were just starting the thread, and now I'm back!

I decided to give the whole SS thing a try so I went and got a SS and a Canon a 580 specifically to be flown on the SS, I usually use a Canon A650 Is on my heli but I just dont want to risk it and it's also kin of heavy. The A580 has no shutter priority so how do manage to get clear shots?

heres my setup, is this enough power?

AXI 2808/24 3cell lipos

Electrifly SS35 esc

aileron modification

AUW 38 Oz



Juan Crane
08-19-2008 08:48 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
mlmcquiggjr
Heliman
Location: Tulsa, OK

sports mode

The sports mode uses the quickest shutter light will permit. Give that a try.
08-19-2008 10:19 PM
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Hey Juan, NICE PLANE! Right on bro! I know of your experience with helis. I always am axnious to view your threads when I see a new one as it seems you are always taking your helis to a new level LITERALLY! Anyway, great to see you build a SS and join the fun.
OK, onto your camera. Actually, the person that you need to talk to is my main man Jason (talk the torque) His ships look a lot like yours and he does all his stills out the front of the plane and get incredible results. He will be better able to address your issues than me. I will however give you my 2 cent on a camera mount though. I went from 20-25% usable pictures to 90% or better when I got a Askman APcam SS camera mount with self leveling gimbals. I do things a little different than Jason in the sense that I shoot out the side of the plane instead of the front. I know he doesn't use an Askman mount and he does fantastic. Check out his website until he gets in here to tell you his tricks. Welcome to the club.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-19-2008 10:24 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cranester
Key Veteran
Location: Bogota, Colombia

I meant how do you manage to get clear shots in terms of what is a good mount system for the camera, I know the only way to get faster shutter speeds here is to increase ISO settings, so I will look into some sort of self leveling mount, what are you guys using? any good home made designs I can copy?

Juan Crane
08-19-2008 10:47 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Juan, straight up dude, The Askman Apcam SS mount with the self leveling gimbals is so cheap in IMO it isn't even worth trying to build your own. It will give you crystal clear images and does awy with the annoying blur that is caused from sudden movements of the plane. At $80.00 it a screamin deal. And with the way the US dollar is in the tank right now it will be an even better deal for you. My stills took on a whole new demension with this mount and I wouldn't have another bird without one.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-19-2008 10:57 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
talk the torque
Senior Heliman
Location: SA

Hey Burnt. I'm busy with plans and waiting for parts for the long wing version but I have carried on with the bipe in the mean time. My minds been ticking over again and I have that itch to get a video/DSLR plane going so lets see what comes of it. I'm away tomorrow for work and will only be back in 2 days or so and then I will get you some photos of the bipe in the mean time. I will also keep you updated with pics from the long wing version. Kev does that long wing not get in the way of the photos. I would think even the smallest of bank angle would cause the wing to block the horizon? I still got to admit that the bipe interests me. I like that it is small for transport. I have been sitting down with paper and pen trying to get ideas together. Regardless i'm building both so I get to try video with both

Cranster if you are facing the camera fwd and taking photos with the motor off and the brake on then you dont need any special mount. If you want to use the camera fwd and sidewards or if you want to do shoots with power on then you will need to dampen it. I'm busy testing other mounts now but all of my photography has been taken with the camera mounted on a bent piece of flat bar that is bolted directly to the SS fuze. Also remember that my camera is mounted on top of my fuze so the flat bar is very short. I fly my photo runs in FPV mode so leveling is done with ailerons, panning done with rudder and tilting done with elevator. The camera looks about 12 degrees down from level and I find this gives me between 20 and 30 percent horizon level when in a confortable glide path. I would not pick the ISO up on these small chip cameras, I keep mine between 80 and 100 otherwise noice in the shadows areas can become a problem. Sports mode is the answer I think but my camera has shutter priority so I have not tried sports mode.

Hope this helps

Your plane looks awesome
08-20-2008 01:33 AM
 
 
Tonic
Senior Heliman
Location: Des Moines

Mr Jason, I read you use bake mode on you slow stick. I though bake mode was a setting used for RC cars and truck. I'm thinking you may using it to stop you prop from spinning completely as pictures are being taken. If that's the case I'm all over that.

Tonic
08-20-2008 03:30 AM
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Hey Gang, I just gotta tell you a story. Remember this aerial I took a month or so ago?



Well yesterday my phone rings and its the guy ACROSS THE STREET! He owns everything you see in the picture across the highway from the auction I was shooting. Anyway, I am doing an aerial shoot of his property tomorrow. Come to find out he knew the guy who was running the auction and saw the very picture that you are looking at above. So yeah, there you go, almost a thousand bucks between the two and I wasn't even hired! I simply took some aerials of the auction, found out who was putting it on, emailed them a picture and the rest is history. I love it.
O yeah Jason, post some pictures of your bipe project when you can. I am really anxious to see your progress.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-21-2008 01:33 AM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cranester
Key Veteran
Location: Bogota, Colombia

Well today I maidened the SS and shot few pics, First impression was "holy cow this thing is squirly" I'm used to flying larger hevier fuel engine planes, this thing is like a leaf! Anyway I took 50 pics no blury shots at all. but landings were a handful (maybe I need more practice) but I wouldnt want to try and takeoff/land from tight locations.

Any tips on how to tame it down a bit?





Juan Crane
08-21-2008 01:54 AM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Right on Juan! Great job for your first flight, and the pictures are great!

Alright on to your question about being squirrley. Welcome to the Slow Stick with the flat wing! The flat wing is WAY different than the stocker with the dehidral factored in. However, it just takes some getting use to. As far as the taking off and landing in tights spaces the flat wing should have no effect on your stall speed, and the Slow Stick is the KING of STOL. Which makes me wonder why your having trouble in this area. It could be that your CG is off. I check my CG exactly 5 inches back from the leading edge of the wing. I usually try to leave a TINY bit of nose heavy but not much. In the past I have forgotten to check this and have had some SCREAMING fast landings due to my CG being WAY off with to much weight forward. The CG is CRITICAL. All my Slow Sticks big and small will take off in like 10-15 feet and will almost go vertical. Same with landing, I can put them down on a dime. It could be also that you are heavier than mine too. Is there any way you can give me an AUW of your SS? Regardless Juan, good job, stay with it and your SS will be a regular workhorse in your inventory.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-21-2008 02:24 AM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Tonic
Senior Heliman
Location: Des Moines

I had a little trouble with flying the SS the fist few flites to Jaun. I took it to a large unused parking lot close to the house and ran 4 batteries through it doing tough-and-goes. Burnt said he just does tight circles down to the landing ...so that's what I've learn to do. Now I need almost no room to take off and just a small patch to circle down to. For me I found using a little power in the circleing decent worked the best, I fly it to the ground so to speek.

Not hard to sell referrals Kevin, that's what I'm best at with the pest gig.

So what's the deal with brake mode Kevin? Does that stop the prop from spinning even in a non power glide?

Tonic

How about that Shawn Johnson (home town girl), GOLD in Beijing on the beam.
08-21-2008 03:14 AM
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Hey Juan, one more thing that will help you too. I was just looking at your plane pictures again. you will get way more performance out of a Slow Flyer prop. You will get airborne WAY faster and you will be able to stay aloft longer as you can fly the same speed but with less RPM.
Robby, my brake is set to stop the engine completely when I cut the power all the way. My Castle creation ESC is fully programable and you can program the brake to do all kinds of stuff, but it is on the stock setting right now. In my early days I did all my SS AP by lining up my target, chopping power which stops the prop, gliding, and then shooting my pictures. This is how I got away from vibration showing up in my pics. But to be honest, I had almost forgotten about that as I went to an Askman Camera mount over a year ago and now I can fly power on and take pics at the same time with no vibration in my pics.
One more thing I found out to, and again I give all the credit for this to Jason, as he is the one who told me about it. I would also love it if he would eloborate on this more too. Juan, this is another thing you can do to land in tight spots. Jason told me to give this a try and to say it works is a grand understament. THIS TAKES PRCATICE. I took my Small SS out in the feild took it up to 100 feet or so. I then cut power about 95% leaving just enough on to "windmill" the prop. I mean it is BARELY turning. Then gang I just put it into a Stuka almost vertical dive. The prop in the windmill phase acts as a brake to slow the plane down. Gang you can power dive your plane all the way to the ground, flare out and land in the smallest tightest spot you will EVER land any other way. The first time I did this I was blown away. I charged up every battery I had, went back out and did this for an entire evening. I figured out after an hour or so of doing this that if a guy gets really good at it, you could put your bird down just about anywhere. What is amazing to watch is the effect that this has on your plane. When you go into a dive your like "HOLY CRAP" because you think you are going to go way to fast, but what actually happens is the plane goes really slow. Almost like it is being lowered on a string. Its incredible. Anyway, you guys need to try this out it will blow you away. Make sure your wings are STRONG so when you flare out clost to the ground it doesn't overstress them. The hardest part of this manuever for me was learing to keep the throttle JUST PERFECT so as to NOT engage the brake, while using the rest of the controls on the TX. But with enough practice I got to where I got the "feel" of it and was able to do it with no problems. I tell you it is one sweet trick. Thanks Jas!

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-21-2008 04:12 AM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cranester
Key Veteran
Location: Bogota, Colombia

AUW is 38 Oz.
I checked the CG before takeoff, about 10cm from the LE because thats what the manual said, but should I try 5 inches then? Here's a video of the two "controled crashes". The second "crash" my battery ran out of juice (I used the same one for two flights by mistake )and it just stalled because I thought I still had power, when I noticed it was to late.
It was also kind of windy.

It would be very cool to see some of your "circle landings" could you post an instructional video?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t043ghs8vi4

Juan Crane
08-21-2008 05:01 AM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
mlmcquiggjr
Heliman
Location: Tulsa, OK

I'm gettin off the Pot!

So I'm gonna assemble my AP Stick, with the askman camera mods, and I would reallllllly like to hear about Kevin's (is it okay to refer to you that way?) anti-flutter wing. Picts not necessary, just an explanation will do!

Lee (future stickster)
08-21-2008 07:55 AM
 
 
talk the torque
Senior Heliman
Location: SA

Hi guys

Sorry for not answering, I'm away from home but at an internet cafe now.

Tonic yes I do use the brake when I throttle down the brake comes on. Although I also have a setting that when I hit my flap switch, my flaps go down, my ailerons go up and I mixed a small percentage of throttle with throttle so that it releases the brake and the prop will windmill when flaps are engaged.

Cranster my CG is also at 100mm, the plane does lean slightly fwd at that, mine is not squirly. Could also be that your movements are aggressive around center. I dont have exponential set but that could maybe help. One thing that I did notice on your photo is that you had your batt across the top of wing. Thats like a spoiler and that section of wing is not working well. Try put your batt underneath. I still think your problem is more to do with a high motor. Now this is not a problem but it will take a bit of setup. When you apply power your model will tuck towards the wheels. You are probably chasing the trim everytime you change power settings and airspeed. Now in most cases you would not want to give a plane motor up thrust but here it will be fine. You can also do a throttle to elevator mix but the upthrust will be a benefit when you doing powered landings. I am keen to build a std SS with your configuration some time, looks good. Mine started at 38oz with a 8.8oz camera but has now ended up at 44oz with flaps, video TX, mini camera and camera pod. Still supa light for all the equipment. Just my payload is up to 15.5 oz now

Kev you will be the first to get pics the windmilling is grand hey..hehe
08-21-2008 10:23 AM
 
 
Envision
Senior Heliman
Location: MI

I suspect the higher center of gravity would also not help. The motor and battery are above the wing. I agree the battery below the wing would help.

I've read this thread from its beginning. I prefer balsa and monocote so I purchased a yardstik and flew it for a year without a camera while I was learning to fly helis.

I talked to serious competitors for long smooth flight and such. One thing lead to another... I purchased two yardstiks for a twin boom pusher, I have the tail and booms built but after talking to the pro's it's evolved and I'm almost complete with the 120" main wing.

It was discussed that for my application they would recommend a long wing with low drag versus something with high lift like a telemaster. I tested a 2 meter wing with this setup and it would already carry my A640 w/AA batteries, with the large flaps it didn't fly much faster than my yardstik when I wanted to slow it down. I have a 450 watt brushless that will climb vertical with an estimated (from test flights) 25 minutes on a single 2100 3cell lipo (the motor is overkill) My test plane is not all that light, it even has 40 nitro size steel landing gear and rubber tires. It maintained altitude at about 1/4 throttle or less and was not twitchy. 12x6 prop. I'm hoping the long wing acts as a balancing stick like someone walking a tight rope. (smooth video)

I also have a 4' parachute I'll be testing too.

The camera will be front mount in a ball hanging slightly lower for a 360 pan.

I live in farm country. Open fields everywhere. Size does not matter here. The leading edge of all wings and booms are carbon arrows (donated)for wing protection in rough landings.

I know the object here is for the use of slowsticks and cheap foam parts, but has anyone tried a two meter sailplane wing with flaps. Sailplanes can handle any type of wind simply by adding more ballast to the front. ARF wingsets are available. Instead of reinventing the wing, use something available. Also noted by the competitors, kit built wings weigh much less than ARF wingsets.

My suggestions from research and testing...

Troy
08-21-2008 02:51 PM
 
 
Burnt Offering
Veteran
Location: Winter Wonder Land, Wasilla Alaska

Hey Troy good to see you on here again buddy. I agree with Troy and Jason. It would be better to have your motor down lower and your battery under the plane. Any way you can keep from interupting the airflow over the wings. I have my engine down level with the frame, and my battery rests just behind the engine. However all my pictures are taken out the SIDE of the plane making it easier to keep the engine and prop from interfering with my pictures. One of my first Sticks was with a forward shooting camera. I had the engine raised up just like you Juan. Squirrly doesn't even beging to describe how wierd it felt to fly it like that. I immeadiatly changed it back to being level with the frame. If you go back on this thread a couple pages you will see picures of Jasons plane. Jason has taken a forward shooting camera on a SS to an incredible level. He solved the problem of the prop interfering by making a pusher. Anyway Juan I am as we speak working on some video of my SS doing some takeoffs and then shotting some pictures and then landing I'll get it posted just as soon as I can.

Kevo

American by Birth, Alaskan by the grace of God!!
08-21-2008 04:10 PM
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
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Aerial Photography and Video > Yet another Slow Stick For AP Thread
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