Black Horse Westland Wyvern – First Flight
After two weekends work the Black Horse Westland Wyvern is complete and ready for it’s first ‘proper’ outing at the club. She’s a large plane at 2.25 meter wingspan and an all up weight in the region of 12 Kg. Powered by a DLE 55cc petrol 2-stroke engine she has true vertical performance climbing straight up until a dot (not too scale like then!).
The recommended control surface movements are great for scale like flight, however I did add in an extra 30% for additional authority on the landings. As the wind was blowing right down the runway at around 20 MPH, the huge tail fin weather cocked and prevented me from turning after landings. Should be great on a suitable day though. The other departure was to double the flap deflection on the second position of the switch (first position = recommended setting). I expected to use half flap for takeoff and full flap for landing. The full flap for landing is excellent and really slows the aircraft down to a walking pace making landings effortless.
On the take off roll the throttle was slowly advance, however it always seems to leap into the air at about the 50%, making the takeoffs also a cinch.
I added my own design electronic gear door sequencer to the inner doors but kept the original pneumatic retracts. These have considerable slop but have so far worked without issue. I think that I’ll probably upgrade to a set of electric Robarts for even greater control over the timing on the sequencer in the near future.
Would I recommend this aircraft? Heck yes! She’s easy to fly and goes together well. With street prices around the £420 price that’s an excellent deal for a model of this size.
Ill post up the flying video as soon as it’s uploaded.
In: Arduino, Gear Door Sequencer, Model aircraft, Radio controlled · Tagged with: black, Black Horse, Controlled. Control, DLE-55, DLE55, flight, flying, horse, model, R/C, radio, Westland, Wyvern
How to build the Arduino Pro Mini R/C Shield
This post will guild the reader through the steps necessary to solder up the Arduino Pro Mini R/C Shield. I prefer to solder the Pro Mini directly to the shield, though the reader may substitute solder male pins for a male/female pair if desired.
In: Arduino, Arduino Pro Mini R/C Shield, PCB Designs, Radio controlled · Tagged with: Pro Mini R/C Shield Build Guide
New downloads page added
All software is now downloadable from this page.
In: Arduino, Arduino Pro Mini R/C Shield, Gear Door Sequencer, Lighting Controller, PCB Designs · Tagged with: Arduino, dowqnload, PCB, software
FTDI Interface cable detail
Instead of soldering FTDI pins to each of the PCB’s I prefer to use a single header inserted into a pair of 3 pin R/C style cable plugs.
This picture shows the Sparkfun FTDI interface. I have soldered a pair of R/C leads with plugs to the connector ion the FTDI Board. Note the 6 pin header lined up.
In: Arduino, Arduino Pro Mini R/C Shield, Gear Door Sequencer, Lighting Controller, PCB Designs, Radio controlled · Tagged with: Arduino, FTDI, PCB
Light controller: test fitting to aircraft
This video shows the controller board being fitted to a Hangar 9 Piper Pawnee aircraft. You will observe the landing light is coupled to the flap switch.
The anti-collision, beacon and navigation lights are connected to a single channel using a three position switch on the transmitter.
Images of the controller board whick is available as a DIY kit or ready assembled below. For purchase and pricing see here.
In: Arduino, Lighting Controller, Model aircraft, Radio controlled · Tagged with: aircraft, Arduino, controller, kit, lighting, model, Pawnee, PCB, Piper, R/C