We had several successes this weekend, with longer-range flights. We flew the small wing out 2 km, and it successfully returned and landed. A couple days later, we flew out to 3 km. We started to lose telemetry at that range with the rubber ducky antenna, but the plane flew without trouble. Here's a video of a successful flight with autoland:

The wing above is the red one in this photo. The new wing is the black one:

The 2.1 m Wing

The new wing will use an E-flight Power 32 motor, shown here on the test stand:

New UAV Parts

I had a flurry of buying activity this weekend, after seeing the new wing. The thing is huge: 2.1 m. I decided to build one, too. The wing it self will take the longest to arrive, some time next week, but I ordered everything else in the mean time, which should arrive before the weekend.

Here’s the list of stuff:

Item Source Price
Wing Flying Foam Mothership 2.1 m $145
Motor Power 32 Brushless Outrunner Motor, 770 Kv $74.99
ESC Castle Creations Phoenix ICE Lite 75 $110.95
Autopilot ArduPilot $250.00
Airspeed Airspeed Kit $24.95
Communications XtreamBee Board $24.95
XtreamBee USB Adapter $24.95
Digi XBP09-DPSIT-156 SMA Connector $42
Digi XBP09-DPWIT-156 Wire Antenna $42
Lighting Numerous bright LEDs from SparkFun $72.50