Technology

This afternoon, against my better judgment, I decided to fly in high winds, hoping to test the final configurations of my autopilot. I had a bad feeling about it, and an empty field with no other RC pilots confirmed my suspicions - it wasn't a good day to fly. Perhaps the coup de gras to the whole wind assessment was the parasailer (using a 3-wheeled contraption and a sail) going for a ride. But, I had a time constraint for gathering data, and I needed to do it now. A week ago, I had sucessfully flown in 18MPH winds, and had one of my best landings ever. After one takeoff attempt ended in the ditch, I repositioned for another attempt instead of going home. If I just repositioned better, I thought, things would turn out okay. I gave it full throttle, and the plane popped up into the air, as hoped. However, a strong gust caught the wing, and torqued the plane to the right. The plane turned, and as you might imagine, the effect of going head-on into the 16-18MPH wind, then turning around with the wind to the plane's tail, robbed the aircraft of all its lift. I mashed the controls helplessly, but the plane was only 15-20 feet in the air.

It nosedove, and the resulting full-frontal impact was epic and catastrophic. The engine smashed into the asphalt runway, and most of the nose splintered into thousands of pieces. The wing, however, remained mostly unharmed, and the tailpiece broke off the fuselage. But, the damage is pretty catastrophic, as you can see. Fuselage, landing gear, fuel tank, battery, engine, prop, spinner are all gone.

However, it is reborn in a new incarnation of the Alpha, seen in the last picture. The autopilot and sensors all survived the impact, mostly because of careful planning on my part. I have tweaked the autopilot to work on the new airframe, edited waypoints, and am looking for calm weather tomorrow morning for a test flight. At the moment, will go try to start the new engine to see how it runs, and tweak if necessary. More later.

UPDATE: The new engine fired up, servo travel and neutral points are more finely tweaked in the autopilot firmware, GPS and IR sensors are functioning normally, changes to the flightplan have been made, and we're good to go! Next flight is scheduled for this Friday in the early morning, when winds are expected to be a calm 3 MPH.

See Dayton like you've never seen it before! Well, North Dayton, anyway. Radio-controlled flight of my Hangar 9 Alpha 40 at the Wingmasters' field in North Dayton, OH - near I-75 and Siebenthaler Avenue at Wegerzyn park. I was attempting to fly it at WPAFB's RAMS field, but a permit was needed, and the gates were closed. This flight occurred during my previous visit to Dayton. We drove up to Wegerzyn Park in the afternoon, and the weather proved absolutely perfect. Some loose materials caused some minor unpredictability (a wrong screw for the empennage), but the flight was good.

At one point, it seemed that I was almost about to enter a cloud - though it can be seen in the video that I'm still a few (maybe 50-100) feet away from that goal, though it's still hard to tell. There were some nice clouds in the area. Look for a view of Downtown Dayton further on in the clip. Also visible is I-75, which was very close by. The Wingmasters field is absolutely beautiful, with many more facilities than the Warner Park R/C field. It is in better upkeep, and isn't as restrictive in types and times of aircraft and flight.

Peak altitude was about 1000 ft, average flight speed about 42-45MPH, and max speed was north of 62MPH.

I'm currently writing this entry from Delta flight 1967 on the way to Albuquerque, on the way to Santa Fe. This is the first flight I've taken that is equipped with in-flight WiFi service, powered by Gogo. Representatives handed out complimentary access cards, so I decided to try it out. Even if the cards weren't available, the service charge is reasonable: $13 for a 24-hour pass. On a longer flight, I'd definitely consider paying for it.

As for the connection, it's a bit spotty - sometimes cuts out, but is fast enough - somewhere between 500-900kbit/s downstream, 200kbit/s upstream. Nothing over which I'd consider watching streaming HD video, but enough to ensure connectivity. I'm writing this post @34,000 ft. somewhere over Arkansas - maybe I'll blame connectivity issues on that - sorry Crystal. More later.

About three-and-a-half weeks ago, I purchased a new silver 2009 VW Jetta TDI. It is a 2.0-liter Turobocharged Commonrail direct-injected diesel engined-car, with a double-clutch automated manual transmission. I was presented with a loan opportunity too good to pass up, and after a few calculations, it made sense to purchase it. First off, my average fuel economy on the old 2.5 was about 26 MPG. I was driving the car at a rate of 35,000 miles per year (in 9 months of driving it, I had put over 25,000 miles on it). At 80k-miles, an expensive $700 service was awaiting me.

I purchased the new car, and immediately experienced the fuel economy differences. On my average commutes, I'm getting about 42 MPG, including both city and highway portions. On my trip to Dayton this weekend, I averaged 49.3 MPG (!) with cruise control (which is NOT the most efficient way to drive, by far). If I push it a bit, I can get an average of 52.3MPG average, but this requires almost no traffic and as little stopping as possible. The best mileage is obtained at about 42MPH in 6th gear, at which I can get about 64 MPG on a flat surface with no wind. Infact, this is the very year and model of car that was used to set a 50-state fuel economy record, at 58.82 MPG average over 9400 miles (approx.)

The fuel savings alone amount to a MINIMUM $1100 per year, and if gas/diesel climb towards the $3.50 mark, I will see a savings of over $2000/year. In addition, I qualify for a $1300 tax credit for an advanced lean-burn vehicle. Along with a 0% APR on the loan, it all adds up. The car is amazing to drive (it's the same body style as the older 2.5, but with some improvements), and is significantly faster than the old car, and of course more efficient. The transmission uses two sets of gearboxes (one for odd gears, one for even gears), and two clutches that automatically engage. Rather than using a fluid coupling, as found in an automatic, the clutches provide better fuel economy, and much faster shifting. The transmission can shift gears in 8ms, which is faster than any human could do the job. As a result, you get the economy of a manual, the performance of a manual, and the convenience of an automatic (though you can take full manual control if you wish.)

The engine is marvelous. It is quiet, and CLEAN. There is no appreciable smell, and it is very responsive. It generates 236 lb-ft of torque, which is comparable to that of many V8-powered gasoline-fueled SUVs. As a result of the emissions system and the reduced fuel consumption, the car also creates significantly-reduced hydrocarbon output. In any case, while I did wait to post about this, I'm very glad I got it. It's a wonderful car. More later.

Today, I took the Alpha 40 out with a twist. Rather than capturing video, I modified the side-mounted camera rig that I had built. After adding some foam padding to reduce vibration, and boosting the camera's ISO setting to maximum, I was ready to retry interval still captures. I had already attempted this once, with less-than-ideal results. The camera selected low ISO numbers for less graininess, but almost all the photos were blurred due to the vibration from the engine.
The foam padding was designed to reduce the amount of shaking and vibrations passed on to the camera. As you can see from the resized stills, this worked perfectly. Boosting ISO equivalency also enabled the camera to take pictures at 1/2000th of a second, which made all the images nice and crisp. Unfortunately, there is a good deal of graininess to the images. I will see if I can find a happy medium.
Today is also the first time I ran out of fuel in a flight. I had timed the flight carefully - I can normally get about 20-25 minutes on a tank, no problem. However, the air was much calmer today, and I needed significantly more throttle in order to gain altitude. Everything was fine right until touchdown. I decided to go for a go-around, because I felt that I was going to overshoot the runway. Right as I pushed the throttle up, the engine died, and I had to make a hard landing. I ended up in the grass, but there was no damage. Despite this, there was still about 5 minutes-worth of fuel left in the tank (not in any flyable capacity - any tilt to any side would have drawn in air) which I then burned off by running the engine until it went dry. All in all, the flight was good - minus the wasp sting to my left hand as I was getting out the door... I saw it out of the corner of my eye. The wing must have bugged it (heh), and in within half a second, the lil' f*cker had landed and stung me. Three extra photos from the flight after the break.

This weekend my long time friend Kristen and her friend Matt came to visit me on the way through Nashville. I took the plane out again, and attached the camera once more. This time, I had fixed the broken servo tray, added more rubber bands, and picked a nice flying day. There was a good deal of turbulence, but it was very manageable.

I took the plane up to a peak altitude of about 1000 ft to get a nicer panorama - this happens at around 3:29 in the clip. It's high up - was barely able to see the plane with any detail - I could tell that it was there, but determining much more than that was more of a challenge. It looked like it was brushing some clouds, but as you can see, those were probably another 500-1000 feet higher, corresponding to the reported 2000 ft ceiling reports.

I also tried out a few barrel rolls in addition to loops. All in all, a couple great flights. On this one, I porpoised a bit at the end, but all in all, it went well. No broken props, though in an engine demo the day before, I split open my left index finger on the prop - minutes after cautioning to stay away from the prop. However, the injury isn't too bad and should heal up in a couple weeks. More later!

View bigger clips here!

Today, I took the Alpha 40 out to the R/C field again. The previous night, I had made a small camera mount attachment that would clip over the lip of the fuselage and hold a camera in place for side camera photography. I made three flights, with the camera mounted on the first flight. At the R/C field, a few other people from the local club had gathered, and one member was flying a very well-done R/C nitro helicopter. He was quite skilled at inverted flying, rolls, and other aerobatics - with a chopper. After 10 minutes on the first flight, I came in for a nice three-point landing and removed the camera.

During the course of the flight, some thermals had established themselves - and made for some very rough air. To worsen the problem, the rubber bands that hold the wing assembly on had started to stretch and were no longer taut. The caused unpredictable handling, and the flight characteristics were skewed due to the drag and weight of the camera, though it didn't seem to bother the plane much. Most of the problems arose from the turbulence, the wing movement, and the camera sliding back and forth on the fuselage. Regardless, I made three nice flights, didn't lose any props (though I shaved it ever so slightly on the last landing), and had an all around great experience. Enjoy the clip!

Extras: Bird flyby at 5:44! Also, the video ends at 7:45. I accidentally undid the music cutoff in Premiere.

UPDATE: Another reason for flight instability was found: During one of the prop failures at high engine RPM, the servo tray had become unglued. This allowed it to slide back and forth, up and down, which naturally affected inputs to the rudder, elevator, and throttle. The ailerons have their own independent servo, so this was not affected. So, in summary: high turbulence + weak rubber bands + loose servo tray = poor handling. The tray has now been reattached.

Today I ran a number of test flights, with a video camera! Two flights were recorded, but the first one was of considerably higher quality. I have inserted a clip from a few aerobatic loops captured in the second film. Enjoy!

P.S. I found the real reason for why the second clip didn't work out well - I had accidentally zoomed in the camera - WAY in. This caused tracking problems for the autofocus, and also made the clip look like it had been taken from a much lower altitude, when infact I had taken it from a much higher altitude. I will retry on Friday.

Click here for larger video size!

On Sunday, Api and I went out to fly the plane for its first flight! After fueling up, getting everything ready, and a trip back to get a forgotten glow driver, the plane was ready to go. After having spent 2.5 hours in the simulator, I felt that I was ready to give the plane a shot. Not helping the stress level was the large crowd that had gathered in the field to play soccer. (Flying is technically supposed to be done on weekdays between 8AM and 3PM, but I decided that the weather was simply too good to pass up.)

After a flawless engine start (and some gathering around by kids waiting for their siblings to finish soccer practice), I took off. It worked perfectly! Api took up videography duties (for which I thank her) and filmed as much as she could. The HD cam was poor in its focusing abilities, so much had to be cut out. Then it came time for a test landing. I took three go-arounds before I was comfortable landing. The landing was smooth, though I nearly hit my girlfriend in the process! She was busy filming, but fortunately escaped injury. The second flight also went equally well, though the landing killed the prop - the winds had shifted, and I had to land on a much shorter stretch. I had to choose between running the plane down a hill and steering it to stay on the runway - which tilted the plane severely enough to catch the prop on the asphalt.

However, all things considered, it was a great pair of first flights! The simulator was remarkably accurate, with the only exception of the layering of the winds - it was a bit more pronounced than in simulation. However, the plane is a joy to fly, and I can't wait until replacement props come in!

The Alpha 40 trainer plane came in today! After repeatedly flooding the engine, and eventually investing in an electric starter, I finally got the engine running reliably. And reliably it runs! The plane creates a LOT of wind to say the least, at full throttle. It also shoots a steady stream of unburned fuel out the exhaust, coating the side of the plane in a nice nitromethane-y film. And anything else in its path, like my hand, or a leg, as I held back the plane by its tail during engine breakin. With a full tank of fuel, it took about 30 minutes to exhaust the supply to complete the breakin procedure.

On another note - the plane is HUGE. The wingspan is 63" long, and the plane takes up most of the space in my kitchen. Here is a shaky camera phone picture, with a guinea pig for size reference.

This week I decided to purchase a Hangar 9 Alpha 40 trainer aircraft. It is a nitromethane, single-cylinder internal-combustion-powered plane with a 63" wingspan, and fully-functional control surfaces. I have wanted one since I was little, but Nitro R/C aircraft had been prohibitively expensive. So, I purchased one used on eBay - it had been assembled, but not flown. It is also one model behind the current iteration of the Alpha 40, with the only difference being the coloring scheme and the type of radio transmitter/receiver in use. (The new one uses a DSSS 2.4GHz transmitter/receiver, the older one uses a 72MHz PPM-based radio signal.) Once I have enjoyed flying it, I am intending on retrofitting it with a computerized, open-source autopilot. Schematics and software can be found at the Paparazzi project. Once so equipped, this plane can be a part of my dissertation work (I will explain this in more detail once more of my work has been published) as a networked, unmanned aerial vehicle.

On Sunday, Omar, Api, and myself went to the 2009 Dayton Airshow. We had happened to meet in Dayton on the weekend of the airshow, without planning it. The show was AMAZING to say the least. We didn't get to see the Thunderbirds, but everything up to that point was spectacular. Among the best shows was the Brazilian Airforce's Smoke Squadron, called the Esquadrilha da Fumaça. The pilots flew Embraer T-27 Tucanos, which were powered by Turboprop engines. After their aerobatics, the group did some skywriting with computer-aided smoke distribution for a nice conclusion to the show. Other performers of note were an A-10 Warthog, a P-51 Mustang, the Oracle stunt plane piloted by Sean D. Tucker, and many more. All in all, I took nearly 1500 pictures and filled up over 7.5GB of space on my memory cards. I'm so glad we caught it!

Click HERE to see 10 pics form the airshow!

Today I met two representatives from Palm Inc. that had flown from Sunnyvale, CA to meet with some representatives at Vandy ITS. Accompanying them was a Sprint regional sales representative, and two local Sprint corporate representatives. I was chosen to represent the student perspective on campus in the meeting.

The main objectives of the meeting were to determine how the Pre and webOS was being received on campus by both the student and faculty population, as well as by the information technology component. The Palm reps were interested in learning how the Pre's presence could be expanded and how things might be improved to provide optimal services for a university. I took the time to detail my "top 20" list of things that needed changing as far as the webOS software went - many of the items were already known by Palm, but some provided some feedback that they had not heard of yet. More after the break.

Hello everyone! I have decided to open up a separate photo blog, powered by PixelPost, to showcase new photographs that I have taken. Most will be captured on my EOS 50D, but some may come from other sources. The link is HERE, or if you prefer to click on the URL itself,

http://www.adrianlauf.com/phlog

New pictures will be posted as they are taken. My only request is that you respect my image copyrights. If you want a copy of a photo, I'd be more than happy to give it to you in full size. Just send me an e-mail at photorequest@adrianlauf.com and I will be happy to oblige. Enjoy!

As I was preparing to goto my advisory meeting, I received a call from Best Buy. Prior to the call, I had pitted Palm and Best Buy in a race to see who could replace my unit faster - it was confirmed that the bluetooth power state bug was infact a hardware fault. So, not three days after having bought the original phone, the Nashville West BB had a replacement in for me! They had put my name at the top of the list of people that were wanting to purchase a Pre, so things were sorted out really quickly.

Following activation, and an automatic restore of my data/profile settings (the Pre backs up your data and settings automatically every day, even though most of my actual data was coming from various clouds such as Exchange, gmail and Facebook), things were back up and running. I tried out Bluetooth, and lo and behold, it works! Perfectly! First time, every time. Thank goodness! Now I can enjoy a properly-functioning phone. It seems that there were some production quality issues with the first batch. This feels more tightly assembled than the last one. More later.