NOTE: I know of all the rules in my country. I follow all those rules. Ive been asked about this before so before I say anything else, you don’t have to worry about that.
In simple terms, I have failed to find decent info about this new project of mine.
I want something that is hand launched, isnt too heavy (Im not sure if I could throw anything much heavier than 4-5 kg), is reliable, and has a lot of range.
So this is what id want:
Sub 5 kg or around that for easier hand launching
Can fly like 100-150 km (total)
Flies pretty fast like at around 20-30 m/s or more
Can slow down a lot for landings
Can be hand launched easily and safely
Does NOT have a front prop (Ive broken quite a few props)
Can carry all my Ardupilot sensors and the FC.
Im also curious: How can I get the camera feed into the Mission Planner via 4G telemetry?
The perfect plane for my mapping project* likely does not exist, but I hope to find something that can stay in the air for long enough
*A project of mine, I want to try and create a 3D map of an area near where I live. Im also thinking of putting a camera on the plane and doing hyperlapses
1 more thing, I already chose my Ardupilot components.
An asw28 foamie will fly nice and can be hand launched, folding prop so you wont break it, can do 4g link, wont do 20-30m/s for very long, might fly for an hour at 12-15m/s i do 10ah 3s in mine and when thermalling can fly for hours.
The MakeFlyEasy Believer can be hand-launched (albeit a bit heavier than your estimate at a MTOW of around 6kg) and should be able to complete all of your requirements.
That Striver Mini Hand Throw interests me… and then I find that it is sold at dual and single motor versions and I cannot find the tradeoffs / advantages of single or dual motor operation (obviously, two motors means a bit of redundancy)
As they have parachutes can they still land on the ground normally?
Im willing to give up some of the easy-to-hand launch stuff for more and better flight.
What we really need is data on different airframes which tells us the airspeeds in level flight at a given power consumptions, then the total battery capacity onboard at the tested configuration. Then we could compare the different airframes and see which ones would work best. I find that if there is much wind at all the ground speed drops away very quickly and they are just not quick enough to be useful. 10m/s windspeed is not unusual and plenty of airframes dont go much over 15m/s without drawing high currents and resulting in a 15min flight time. To go long range on a windy day we need full size airspeeds like 40-50 m/s. To do that we need something very slippery and much bigger than a hobby grade foamy
Thankfully, there isnt that much wind where I live (but when its windy it does get unsuitable for any kind of flight)
I was thinking of doing that kind of test once I get my long range plane functional and in the sky
(the period of time while autotuning is a bit of a headache 4 me as Im never quite sure how the plane will be in FBWA while autotuning)
I did consider the idea at one point of custom designing a plane to be as efficent as possible, with the body being the perfect size (and having the perfect spaces) to take waht I want to put on the plane and that is it.
Unfortunately, I have no experience designing something like this and jsut starting is way out of my depth
This would be an interesting project! And very useful too. As you may know, e-calc does provide power/airspeed estimates for motor/battery/wing loading published data, maybe that would info could help until better information comes along.