Is it possible to set up a Reverse Quadplane Tricopter with all 3 motors tilting in pitch for forward flight and vectored yaw in hover? Frame class 7 and frame type 6? Is front motor yaw tilt also possible in hover (rather than vectored yaw)?
Yes - set Q_TILT_MASK to select all 3 motors at tilting. Then set the front tilt servos to SERVOn_FUNCTION = 75 and 76 and the rear as 45. Enabling vectored yaw will only tilt the motors assigned a right/left servo function (the front motors only). Just about everything you need to set this up is here Tilt Rotor Planes — Plane documentation and Tilt Rotor Setup Tips — Plane documentation
Thanks Neil,
Just to clarify, I have one tractor motor in the nose and two pusher motors (left & right) at the rear of the wing. This is reversed over the standard quadplane tricopter in the documentation (standard = two tractor motors left & right at the front of the wing and one central pusher motor behind the wing).
Ah I see. It sounds like you will want to set up the rear tilt servos with SERVOn_FUNCTION = 46 and 47, and the front as 41. Frame class 7 and frame type 6 sounds correct to achieve a revere tricopter. This thread sounds like a similar project with only the front tilting: Reverse Tricopter-VTOL Plane - #98 by Rolf Selecting all three motors with Q_TILT_MASK should allow for all three to tilt. Good luck!
Hi Dave,
interesting project.
I think if you tilt all 3 motors, vectored yaw should also be possible. Reverse Tricopter-VTOL Plane - #19 by Rolf
We ultimately had to do without vectored yaw because the rear tiltservos always wanted to tip the motors forward after the forward transition. This was not desirable, as we only used the front motor for propulsion.
Rolf
Thinking that yaw control in hover would be more robust via left/right tilt of the front motor - rather than vectored yaw via the rear motors. The front motor would then tilt in both axes. However, I’m not sure if this can be set up in ArduPilot?
If there are no nasty surprises in the mixer it should work with both arrangements even if yaw servo is not disabled in forward flight.
plane-yaw-tilt-motor (will rotate motor around X axis with no effect in forwards flight)
plane-tilt-yaw-motor (will rotate motor around Z axis giving you vectored thrust for yaw)