The design report

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Flight Test 6.2 The flight test aimed to examine the ability of the EPUAV to perform maneuvers such as takeoff and landing, as well as its ability to undertake certain mid air operations. For a successful flight test, all control surfaces must be in excellent working form, as they are all necessary to maintain control of the vehicle during the mission. The mission profile in this case was of relative simplicity, the aircraft needed to be able to take off, fly for at least 11 minutes, while performing some basic flight maneuvers and then safely land. The flight tests were conducted on Wednesday the sixth of January, 2009, at a site approximately 30 minutes from NUAA which had an adequate runway for the task. On this day, three flights were undertaken by the EPUAV iSpy. Flight test 1 6.2.1 The first flight test was performed with the plane carrying no payload, although the small spy camera was taped to the underside of the wing to document the crafts performance. The Centre of gravity for the aircraft with no payload had been calculated to be at 32% of the chord, this position was marked on the wing to in order for the pilot to have a choice of CG position. The first flight test began on a worrying note. As the plane built up speed down the runway, it appeared that the landing gear issues had resurfaced. As the plane reached high speeds on the rough surface, it was obvious that the wheels were shaking and moving around a lot, indicating that the large forces exerted on them from the roughness of the ground were having a highly negative impact on the landing gear. The aircraft resumed its previous inclination to veer to the right. At higher speeds, the veering was even more severe, and the pilot was forced to steer the plane left in order for it to remain on the runway. Thus, the aircraft had to be corrected on takeoff by ailerons being deflected at takeoff However, once the plane was airborne, the problems with the landing gear became obsolete. iSpy performed marvelously in flight, proving that it was able to successfully turn, climb and dive. In fact, the pilot commented that the in-flight controls were excellent, and that the aircraft could easily dive and regain height, although he too acknowledged that the landing gear was problematic. The landing was excellent and problem free. The aircraft descended gracefully to touch down gently without an issue, and was quick to stop once hitting the tarmac, meaning that the faulty landing gear had little effect. Once upon the ground, the team examined the landing gear and found that the previous problems had indeed resurfaced, and were again causing the aircraft to veer right. It was agreed that this problem could not be solved on site; however the team concluded that the pilot was clearly incredibly skilled, and able to successfully take off even with problematic landing gear, and therefore the landing gear would not impinge upon the actual flight to a great extent.
Flight test 2 6.2.2 This flight test was conducted after adding 500 grams of payload. Some of the payload was in the form of the pod, which was attached for this stage of the test flight. As previously mentioned, the centre of gravity without payload was at 32% of the chord. The team had calculated that this could be moved to 25% if an additional 200g was added in front of the battery. However, the pilot suggested that the aircraft would attain greater stability if the centre of gravity remained at 32%. Thus rather than adding balancing weights, the extra payload was added in the pod, directly under the centre of gravity, so as not to change its position. iSpy was able to successfully perform while carrying half a kilogram of payload, and managed to take off, maneuver and land as successfully and well as in the first test flight. However the problem with the landing gear remained and the second takeoff was equally as shaky as the first, although the pilot managed to brilliantly overcome all obstacles and attain lift-off. Flight test 3 6.2.3 The third test flight was more in keeping with the planes mission as a spy plane. The payload was removed, and the camera taped to the wing again. Then the team instructed the pilot to fly as low as possible over the team so that they could appear on the video being taken by the spy camera. This was an important mission, as it is a critical attribute of a spy plane that it be able to fly low and conduct reconnaissance work. iSpy completed this mission stupendously well, and then spectacularly undertook a few more maneuvers before beginning descent. On this third and final descent, the pilot shut off the engines for landing, to test the gliding ability. iSpy rose splendidly to this final challenge and glided magnanimously to safety. Overall, these test flights can be viewed as an overwhelming success. On a basic level, ISpy was able to successfully taxi, takeoff, fly and land, and is still intact enough to be able to perform all these procedures again if necessary. All the control surfaces worked perfectly, and the plane proved to be fantastically well designed and built, such that it was able to withstand the forces applied to it during flight. The exception to this is the malfunction of the landing gear, but even this was not too severe and did not drastically affect the performance of the plane. Despite its faults, the landing gear was able to withstand the forces applied to it during landing. The test flights also showed iSpy to have successfully achieved the aims set out in the design parameters, both those set by the professor, and those set by the team. Despite the shaky takeoff, the takeoff distance was not too great, and the plane was never in danger of overrunning the allotted distance. As well as this, iSpy was easily able to lift the 500 gram payload, and remain airborne for the designated length of time. iSpy also fulfilled the mission set by the team, and showed itself to be capable of undertaking reconnaissance work. Overall the test flights were a marvelous success, and iSpy emerged triumphant.
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EP-UAV Project 2009 iSpy Kate Rietd
Page 3 and 4:
Preliminary and Detailed Design 4 S
Page 5 and 6:
Executive Summary 1 iSpy is a twin
Page 7 and 8:
Design Requirements and Objectives
Page 9 and 10:
Initial Sizing 3.1.2 Estimating air
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Airfoil design 3.1.4 Wing: Before t
Page 13 and 14:
Tail: A symmetric airfoil with a th
Page 15: Empennage design 3.1.6 The dimensio
Page 19 and 20: Pod Layout 3.1.9 The pod of the air
Page 21: Weight estimation and Centre of Gra
Page 26 and 27: Figure 3.2.303 - Stability axis der
Page 30 and 31: CAD definition of the concept 3.2.5
Page 32 and 33: Figure 3.2.505: The vertical tail F
Page 34 and 35: Preliminary and Detailed Design 4 S
Page 36 and 37: Figure 4.1.109 Figure 4.1.110 The c
Page 38 and 39: Material type was chosen for each c
Page 40 and 41: The nose section of the fuselage co
Page 42 and 43: This part of the fuselage is the mo
Page 44 and 45: Empennage structure 4.1.3 Prelimina
Page 46 and 47: An ‘L’ shaped support was also
Page 48 and 49: Landing gear 4.1.5 Initial stages o
Page 50 and 51: Pod Structure 4.1.7 Figure 4.1.701-
Page 52 and 53: Fuselage fabrication 5.2 Since ther
Page 54 and 55: The servo holder plates in front of
Page 56 and 57: Landing gear fabrication 5.5 The de
Page 58 and 59: Fabrication of Pod 5.6 Like the fus
Page 60 and 61: Control surface fabrication 5.9 Ail
Page 62 and 63: Note: The weights taken after fabri
Page 64 and 65: It was here that the first problem
Page 68 and 69: Appendix 7 Appendix A - AVL files i
Page 70 and 71: TRANSLATE -0.450 0.384 0.00 # BFIL
Page 72 and 73: CLARK YM-15 - Re = 250000 Alfa Cl C
Page 74 and 75: Appendix C - Preparation of materia
Page 76 and 77: Appendix D - Control surface sizing
Page 82 and 83: Conceptual Design Preliminary Desig
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The design report

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