The perpose of this project is to build a small remote controled aircraft capable of carrying a Canon S100 SX camera for the purposes of imaging the earth beneath. 

 

This project formaly commenced in the month of September 2008, with the first taxi test happing in early November of 2008. To date the airframe has been completed and all the electronics have been installed. The engines have been tested on the ground along with all the control surfaces. The initial test flight will hopefully happen on Sunday November 23, 2008.

 

Initially the aircraft will be flown without the camera installed. Once the vehicle has been proven the camera will be installed and further test flying will commence. 

 

 

 

Test flight of APP-01 commenced at on a field behind a local high school. The selected field was not optimal for flying as it was walled on one side by wires and on the other by residential housing, however it would do for a test flight. 

 

The weather was perfect, semi clear skies and not wind. It was -6 degrees outside with no precipitation. 

 

At approximately 4:20 pm the checkout procedures for the aircraft were commenced. The following deficiencies were found:

 The deficiencies that were found were deemed NOT to be critical items and the test flight procedures were continued. At approximately 4:30 pm the engine run-up procedures were commenced. The following events were noted:

These issues were deamed NOT to be critical items and the test flight continued. At aproximately 4:40 pm the aircraft was released for take off and the engines were powered to full. After about 20 ft of rolling, rotation was attempted. At this time it was noted that the elevator and aft portion of the fuselage twisted by about 20° followed by a seriouse pitch up. To correct for this pitch up, the elevator was driven down to its full travel in an attempt to bring the aircraft under controll agian. The aircraft at this time was banking sharply to the left and the alerons were commanded to correct for this, however do to an oversite durring construction the control inputs for the alerons were set to a very high sensitivity and therefor the vehicle snapped to the right in an uncontrolled fassion. At this point controlled flight was deemed to be un-achivable and the engines were brought back to idle and the aircraft was allowed to fligh out of control into the ground from an altatude of about 15 ft AGL.

 

In conclusion, due to very poor pilot desision making and neglagent construction of the aircraft the first test flight of APP-01 was a complete and total failure. As a result of this analysis a much refined and re-designed aircraft is going to be built to replace APP-01, this new vehicle being designated APP-02.