Ryerson- flying Sat, May 28

[altonyeung]

Our trusty Bix3 FTV soars again on a hot and sunny day. Thanks Frank and Simon for helping us out flying the plane. The main purpose of these two flights are to once again calibrate the autopilot module and airspeed sensor. The plane is now ready for its next big step which is autonomous loiter flight. This is necessary for future experiment which requires the aircraft to flight at constant altitude and speed for ~15 mins.

Bit of background information on what this group of Ryerson student at doing at the field: we are preparing a set of experiments to measure the wind gust at low altitude using a RC aircraft (GustAV). An air data system including a 5-hole probe will be mounted on the plane to take measurement of the wind direction and speed while the plane is loitering at a constant altitude. Because it is a relatively complex system, we wanted to make sure the autopilot system can do its job on a smaller plane which is our Bix3.

If all goes well, we should be wrapping up our testing on the Bix3 and bring out the big girl (GustAV) in around 2 weeks. There are still a long list of tasks to do before we feel comfortable of attaching the expensive air data system on the plane.

Once again thanks for the support and I will keep updating our progress here.

p.s. We had a nice talk with Andy about our project and thanks Graham for taking care of our laptop. 


Our convertible Bix3


GustAV back in Feb 2016



Alton Yeung
MASc. Candidate
Ryerson Applied Aerodynamics Laboratory of Flight (RAALF)
http://ralf.blog.ryerson.ca/
[email protected]