RC Model Reviews

Skywalker is just about assembled, have everything together. Used a fair amount of strapping tape along with the supplied glue. I've placed velcro inside as I am sure I am going to moving things around for a while. Servos are mounted and clevises are glued on and drying.

Got the bird in the air. Had some issues with the cg and the dragon link and no neck strap. To boot, I've only ever flown my hobbyzone trainer with no ailerons. Any how for a first flight I'd say it was a success. Smooth landing and no damages. All the issues have been resolved and I should be back out to give it a try in a couple days.

Warning, 90% of this video is taken by my kids and they have a short attention span and shaky hands.

http://youtu.be/osm2I22hFYg

Love your film crew!! Wish I could get my grandkids to show that much enthusiasm...

Got some very basic footage up in the air. Saw another guy flying at 3:14 .

http://youtu.be/LMnIUJqoHdU

Alright, a bit more progress. Got the FY31AP all configured and mounted the GPS under the main wing. Takes a couple minutes to get the gps lock but that's alright. Got all the cg issues sorted out as well. The return to home feature is unreal and the stabilization is great too. Should be able to get some great longer distance footage this weekend if the weather holds out.

Ok, so I am getting a bit more bold now. I was able to go out to 2.5 miles. Now that I have the fy31ap working I can take off, get the plane up a few hundred feet and then hit the auto circle mode while I get my goggles on. the first three minutes of the vid is just the plane in circle mode, after that I took off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an7C1UaClFQ

I have adjusted the camera to give a better angle, here is some of the new footage.

http://youtu.be/CDo5A-nRNuI

It's pretty cool having the safety net that the FY31AP offers isn't it?

A system like this is a *must* for any long-distance (beyond visual range) FPV work. I'll be comparing the FY31AP to the Nova Cyclops RTL system this week.

So true, the whole time I was heading out I was prepared to throw that switch.

When I first got it installed I thought that the plane would crash for sure the moment I flipped that switch. The look on my father and I was priceless when the thing just turned around, headed right back to us and then circled overhead. Simply awesome!

The best thing is that once you set the failsafe up, even an RC failure will bring your model back. Worked out to be a life-saver when I accidentally fitted the wrong gender of antenna to my transmitter module and the RC stopped working at just 400m range

Haha, I remember that video. I made sure that when I set it up I had/have the RTH on as a failsafe as well as the motor running. I have my motor set to draw 3 amps running on the failsafe. It has shown to be enough to keep me flying home, albeit I haven't tried that in a head wind. Day 1 of my testing involved me flying away from myself and shutting the controller off.

Thank you so much for everything Bruce, I hope you know how much help you have been to me and so many other folks just like myself.

I watch all of your videos...