The design report

It was here that the first problem was identified. The left engine would sometimes fail to
power on, resulting in the left propeller spinning slowly or not at all, while the right
worked perfectly. Although investigations were made into the causes of this
phenomenon, it was concluded that the problem lay with the motor itself, rather than
with any error made by the fabrication team, and hence the team was unable to find a
permanent solution. The solution embarked upon was simply to switch the engine on
and off until both engines began working to their full extent. It was estimated that the
engine failure would occur approximately 50% of the time. This approach worked well,
although it did raise some concerns that the engine might fail mid flight, which would
have had a disastrous result. However, the team did not deem this to be too imminent a
threat, as in all of the tests the engine only ever failed at the initial power on, never once
it was already running.
After it was satisfied that the engines and control surfaces were working effectively, the
engines were powered up to the point where the aircraft began to move. After this
began a series of ground exercises, designed to test the maneuverability of the EPUAV.
The first task undertaken was to simply taxi in a straight line.
Here the second problem was encountered. When no controls were pressed other than
the throttle, the vehicle should ideally have moved in a straight line. However, it was
discovered that iSpy instead was turning slightly right. This was initially immensely
dangerous to iSpy, as all the team members were relatively new to the use of the
controls, and would try to compensate for the movement right with a large and sudden
movement left, which on several occasions put the plane in peril, as it veered towards
obstacles such as bikes. The cause of the crafts tendency to veer right was investigated,
as was determined to be the fault of the right landing gear.
There were several reasons for which the right landing gear was malfunctioning. The
first of which was that during the manufacturing process the steel rod from which the
landing gear was created was bent into shape by hand. This meant that a perfect right
angle turn could not be achieved, and therefore the angle between the horizontal where
the wheel was attached and the vertical component connecting to the fuselage was
slightly greater than the desired 90 degrees. This was more a problem for the front
landing gear, as the steel rods from which they were constructed were provided by the
university, and were more difficult to bend than those used in the rear landing gear,
which were purchased by the team. As a solution to this problem, it was suggested that
the landing gear could be taken to a metalworkers, however, the problem was initially
not deemed of great importance, and this was never followed up on.