Hawk+Mouse
The Project, The Hawk and the Mouse.
For my whole flying career I have always viewed aerial photos with wonder, for this reason just after Christmas I decided to embark on a project, so that I may produce some aerial photo's of my own.
The first phase of the project happened completely by accident, I brought a second hand Reno Racer off Bernie, in one of his famous sales. I replaced the 480 motor with a Mega 15/14/4 brushless motor. Unfortunately several unsuccessful flights forced me to decide that this plane just wasn't for me. The motor was far too powerful; the torque produced by the motor was causing the plane to spiral in during high-powered turns.
I found out that UK-wings manufactured a combat wing called a Unicorn, this used a Mega 15/14/4 brushless motor, etc. This seemed like the ideal plane for my motor, as it had cost me over £50.00, plus £60.00 for the speed controller, I had to find a use for it somewhere. I had also read a lot of good reviews about the Unicorn on the Internet forums. Also I had seen some very good aerial photos taken by Dr Edward Penman with his Unicorn wing. Decision made, £60.00 made me the proud owner of a Unicorn electric flying wing.
Now it was time for the camera, after a lengthy search on the internet, the information gathered pointed me in the direction of one particular camera which seemed very popular for aerial photography, this being a Pentax Optio S. It's small, compact and very little, the camera !!!, it also has a lot of features for a small digital camera. I think it's safe to assume that this day and age, no one would be considering a traditional camera with film. Take your laptop down to the flying field, down load your pictures and see your results there and then on your laptop, simple.
Building the Unicorn took about a week of evenings, very simple, followed the set up to the letter, GWS receiver, HiTec HS81 MG's servo's special order from Abbey Models, they arrived before the wing. The only difference was that I used a Jeti speed controller, whereas UK-wings recommend a Castle Creations speed controller. To be a bit different I decided not to use tape for the wing, but to cover it in Solartex. Also I went for a Lipo setup, first flights were with a 3 cell 11.1volt 1300mAh 10C, soon overheated them. Also found that the GWS receiver was gliching a lot, the receiver aerial runs parallel to a carbon rod in the wing. I swapped this for a HiTec dual conversion receiver. I also then modified the battery compartment to fit a larger 2200mAh 20C lipo battery, also I changed the flap mechanism that was meant to retain the batteries; this was useless, as Ron found out when his lipo ejected itself during flight.
Now that the wing was sorted, it was time to construct the camera mount. For this I just cut out a piece of polystyrene, made a cavity to fit the camera, hole for the lens to see through and some grooves to retain the rubber bands, these were used to fix the camera mount assembly to the wing. For activating the camera during flight, I found a clever device made by RC-Flysoft called a RC Switch I.R. This is an infra red switch that plugs into your receiver and is activated by operating a switch on your tranny, the camera then detects the infra red signal and takes a picture. Simple, but your camera has to have an infra red function, but it does save you having a mechanically servo operated camera shutter.
Peter Catchpole told me about how Jason Harvey had crashed and lost his Red Arrows Hawk in the field over by the motor bike school of motoring (Red Hawk down). This model certainly was a crowd puller at the club, and I am sure everybody was disappointed to hear of it's loss. Jason told me that the model cost over £1000.00 to build, so not only did he crash it, but to loss it in the crop, it must have been very hard for him to go home that night from the club, knowing the value of the items he had left behind.
Well the challenge was now set, aerial photography to find Jason's lost Hawk, I had the week off work. This just gave me a few days for finishing off my camera mount, prototype run aimed for Wednesday the 28th June at Forton. So armed with my laptop, wing and camera I went to find the Hawk. It was a sunny day, however we did have some rain the day before, at the field was electric Ken, John Holland DeDeDe and Ken Wright. Wing with the camera attached launch perfect first time, I could hear the camera above me bleeping when I flicked the switch on my tranny, so I knew photo's were being taken, but how well ????
Wing landed, SD card removed from camera and inserted into laptop, result, clear pictures, mainly of the crops in front of the flight line, however, there was one picture taken in the area were the Hawk crashed. We were all in the caravan looking at my pictures, aerial one's that is, John was disappointed that I never court any topless sunbathers. I said, “there it is, I reckon that's it”. It was a small indent in the crop, we counted third tyre track down from the top corner of the field. Ken drove us to the spot, we all got out, very difficult to spot the tyre tracks from the ground, however Ken counted right and walked straight to the Hawk, smack bang between the two tyre tracks, exactly as I had seen in picture.
Hawk placed in Ken Wright's car, a bit battered unfortunately, electric Ken holding the lipo's outside the window of the car, they were a bit smashed up so we didn't want to take the chance that they could blow up in the car. We returned to the club hanger with the Hawk, satisfied we had done a fellow flyer a good turn. After placing the Hawk on the floor and walking towards, I turned to hear John screaming, a furry rodent had made it's home inside the Hawk for the past few weeks, but upon seeing Johnny Holland's face had decided to exit it's home and run across the hanger and into the toilet. So when club members use our toilet facilities, please bear in mind you may be sharing it with John's field mouse.
Conclusion
Aerial photography works.
Jason has his Red Arrows Hawk back.
Mouse has been evicted and was the last to leave the Hawk.
A mouse or mice's my be in Ken Wright's car
Wear elastic bands around your trouser legs when entering the toilet.
By
Keith Woodville (smfc member)
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