Review of 2nd foam-board plane flight - with loiter

ArduPlane Plane 4.4
1

Yesterday I flew my foam-board airplane that I’m using to learn ArduPlane - it was it’s second flight.

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It wasn’t a long flight - as it was too late in the day. But after taking off in FBWA mode I was able to successfully test automated flight by switching to LOITER.

As I’m unfamiliar with many aspects of “plane” - I would really appreciate anyone’s help by taking a look at this BIN file and suggesting changes as necessary to the parameters.

I’m logging before arming - so the log covers everything from power up to power down.

As this plane is scratch built, I’m curious to know how much the autopilot might be correcting for CG placement. It’s a Clark-Y airfoil that I’ve set CG at about 28%.

The wing has no dihedral - but FBWA mode keeps the airplane perfectly stable in straight and level flight - and turns. The only issue I’ve noticed is that I need to learn how to descend for landing. The plane required a couple of 360 turns to get low enough to attempt a landing. Turns out my wing is a lot more efficient than I’d expect.

One outstanding issue is that the CubePilot Mini Power Brick is not able to register the low amperages of this plane - even after proper calibration. I’ve ordered a MAUCH PL-050 which should be much better. If anyone has any other suggestions, I’d appreciate them.

Thank for your help!

2

Hello!

I checked your PIDP.I term, and it is consistently negative throughout the flight. This indicates constant down elevator is required to maintain pitch attitude. This may be why you have trouble descending - the elevator may not not have adequate authority to bring the nose down. I would recommended trimming the elevator down trying again.

3

Excellent! Thank you so much!

This is one parameter I had read about - as a way to check CoG. It makes total sense that down elevator is added. The airfoil is a Clark-Y and the CoG is about 28%. I’ll move it up to 25%.

I’m glad nothing else jumped out.

Thanks so much!