Maker Hangar 2: 05 – Flying a Tricopter

Maker Hangar 2: 05 – Flying a Tricopter
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In this episode of Maker Hangar, I give you some tips on how to be successful when flying your tricopter. You also see some video from my tricopter when I brought it on vacation with me and flew it around. In the next episode you’ll get an intro on the Maker Trainer 2, stay tuned!

In this episode I also talk about ways to grow your flying skills before you fly your tricopter. One of these is with a flight simulator. Also you could get a small toy multicopter like the Syma X1 to practice your flying skills. If you want more information about how the PID settings work in your tricopters you can check out this article. Balancing your propellors can greatly improve your flight characteristics and video quality, and you can go here to learn how to do it. If you want to add first person view (FPV) to your tricopter check out this great series by Stone Blue Airlines.

Now, In this episode you may have seen I crashed into an RC airplane, and there was some damage….Crash

So what happened? Well I was trying to get the best shots at this indoor model flying club. I got tired of the follow shots so I went in for some close passes. I got a few really close calls and then one that was just a bit to close. He hit my front left motor and stopped it. This meant the other motors just caused me to flip over. We both went down and I landed on the back motor and top plate. The nylon standoffs broke off at the nuts, which I guess was better than breaking the body. However, the direct hit with the tail caused it to break clean off. The carbon mechanism and linkages were intact but it was a very hard place to glue.

Fixing
Fix

Luckily, My uncle (who we were staying with on our vacation) had all the tools I needed and I was able to cut two pieces of wood that were glued on and reenforced the motor mount. With that I was comfortable enough to fly it again and got the remaining shots at several different locations.

If you haven’t already ordered your tricopter kit, you can do so here. I am also selling Maker Hangar T-Shits, the same ones I wore in the episodes and you can order your very own right here.

 

0 thoughts on “Maker Hangar 2: 05 – Flying a Tricopter

  1. Keith Neufeld says:

    There’s a typo in the last paragraph that should be corrected.

  2. Stinky says:

    Those shirts are the shit!

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Hi! My name is Lucas Weakley. I have recently graduated from a magnet program called EMIT. One of the many things we did in EMIT was work on a robot that we use to compete at the FIRST Robotics Competition. I have been accepted into Embry Riddle Aeronautics University and my degree will be in Aerospace Engineering.

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