Up up and away!

So with Little Red fit as a fiddle and my lesson learned about flying in the back yard over asphalt I took the chance last night to flight in calm sunset weather up at a little field on the north side of town.  This field is a lot larger and gives me room to move.  Now, what that really means is that I've got more room to make even bigger mistakes.

I powered up, bound up, spun up and trimmed up.  I got used to the hover again, this really being only my second flight outside the workshop.  I started again with back and forth, side to side, get control again, bring it back, crash into the grass, run and get it, rinse and repeat as needed.  All was going well.  So here is where I should write that I learned from my mistake from the first flight and kept things low and slow and under control.  But.... like I said: I've got more room to make even bigger mistakes.

So I figure I am out in the wide open with lots of room around, I can get some altitude and see what it looks like from up there.  I brought Little Red home, turned on the camera and sent him back up.  And up.  And up.  And ... hrrmmm, he sure is drifting, gah, that was rudder, not aileron, no, don't panic,  no not that way, this way, THIS WAY.  Little Red soared higher and off to the west over nearby 8-foor apartment buildings.  Did I say over?  Run, try to regain visual contact, ease down on throttle ... PRAY he isn't right over the top of an apartment building .... throttle's full off.  Okay, for better or worse, he is down.  I ran through the breezeway to the other side of the tall buildings and scanned the area.  Who's bright idea was it to build gazebos and pavilions?  Why on earth plant so many bushes and trees?  Don't they know that people might want to try to find an errant quadcopter here some day?  So, I stood stock still, took a deep breath, listened very closely and goosed the throttle.  Off to the left I hear an faint whine.  Whew.  Okay, so he's not on top of a building or snuggled down in a mockingjay nest.  I kept goosing the thottle lightly and listening, following the whines.  At last I found him behind a little gazebo upside down and blinking madly. I quickly recovered him, stopped the recording and started the trek back to the field.

Lesson learned:  Stay within my abilities and learn to walk before trying to run.

I am VERY lucky on several counts:

1. I didn't loose or break Little Red on his second flight.
2. I didn't damage anything/anyone when he soared out of control
3. I learned how easily it is to get disoriented when a little square quadcopter turns into a black speck at altitude.
4. I got some amazing pictures from this flight.

And First Repairs

I'm an old model builder from many MANY years ago, so repairs, for me, are a natural part of flying models.  In fact, it's pretty much "THE" part of flying models.  But more on that another time.  Today the repairs were to replace the body (see previous post "First flight, first crash") and one motor.

I did try gluing up, just to see if it would work, but the only CA I have in the workshop right now dries about as fast as furniture polish.  I didn't expect much from the glue-job, as the body of an X4 is full of compound curves and projecting pods.  I didn't really have a way to keep it straight during glue-up, so I wasn't too upset when the glue didn't bond well.

So, after the maiden flight I had to order a new body for Little Red.  Hobbex in Malmö doesn't carry the bodies in their stock, and they could order it to the boutique, but it was at least as fast for me to order it direct home.  Which I did.  In fact, knowing me, I ordered two.  And while I was at it, I grabbed a set of motors. Today the body shell arrived and I set to work replacing it.  It wasn't a difficult task, but it was tedious.  The motors need to be disconnected from the flight controller board to get them out of the old body (I needed to replace on of them anyway) and they construction of the X4 has the motors soldered directly to the flight controller.  The smallest soldering iron tip I have felt about the size of a baseball bat in there on those tiny solder points on the flight controller, but with a little patience (yeah, right) the motors came loose, everything moved to the new body and everything went back together again (Note: Keep track of orientation so that the right motors go back in at the right places).

A comment on the screws on the chassis:

They are tiny.  I mean tiny.  Microscopic is getting close to the right description.  So if you take apart an X4, get the absolutely smallest philips you can get and see if it will work (my smallest phillips in my jewelers set was too big, so I used my fallest flathead screwdriver).  Another tip is to have a plastic tray of some sort to work on, preferably with a raised lip around the edge so rolling screws don't take a nosedive onto a sawdust-covered workshop floor.  Ohh, and even more importantly: don't flail around wildly with your elbows in search of your coffee cup and knock the carefully placed high-lipped plastic tray holding microscopic M1x3 screws onto said sawdust covered workfloor.  Not that that happened to me ... more than the one time.  Fortunately the four screws holding in the battery compartment are of the same size as the outside screws holding the body together and I decided that four screws was probably more than necessary to hold things in place, and two of those screws went to the outside.  Those missing screws are bound to show up sooner or later.

But long story short: The body and motor replacement went well and tonight after the kids are down Little Red will take to the skies again.