[Paparazzi-devel] My new toy is ALIVE

[Chris]

Hi.
It's being a while since it posted something interesting here i was very 
busy.
My X8 is alive and made its first experimental trip.
It has over 40km range (80km round trip) it is completely autonomous
and PC joystick operated if needed.
It can do many things like lock a target take pictures with zoom etc.
The landing gear is not for landing or take off but to protect the camera
(Canon SX230HS with GPS and optical stabilization) during parachute 
recovery but i guess you can land and take off from a runway if needed.
Usually i throw it by hand.
The camera of course can pan 360 degrees and tilt more than 90.
The front wheel is retractable to the front in order to move out of the 
way of the camera during flight.
AUW is 4900g with a 10Ah 8S pack (my little secret as it weights less 
than 1500g) and i admit that it is easier to hand throw than i expected, 
X8 is such a good airplane....
The huge motor with gearbox is not for power but for efficiency.
It took me a lot of time to write and test some software and construct 
some custom hardware like an I2C 8 additional servo controller (things 
are not looking good here) but it was worth it.
Not a glitch detected he he he.
Chris

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