Fixed Wing Drones

Heygeorge · Jan 15, 2018

Recently had the opportunity to "map" a 1000 acre farm. It took 3 days using my Inspire 1. Batteries were the main problem and couldn't recharge them fast enough (I have 10 batteries for the I1).

Since this is an ongoing contract, I decided to look at a fixed-wing drone and got sticker shock! After much research, I decided to try my hand at building what I needed. I purchased both the Skyhunter FPV and the Skywalker x8 and the Ardupilot processor. Build cost should be around $1000 each, so they are affordable. I should easily get 1+ hour out of each of these aircraft and cover more distance on each flight. The X8 is a monster (7ft wingspan) and when painted orange I should be able to see it at longer distances from the base station.

Since this is an experiment, any advice or ideas are welcomed.

BigAl07 · Jan 15, 2018

Hello and welcome to the forum. We are glad to have you on board. I'm confident you'll find lots of helpful and enlightening information throughout this forum.

Allen

Curtis Tyler · Jan 17, 2018

I'm watching the Nimbus 1800 VTOL. Not real clear on payloads yet, but it's interesting none the less.

dempseycreekkid · Jan 20, 2018

Heygeorge said:
Recently had the opportunity to "map" a 1000 acre farm. It took 3 days using my Inspire 1. Batteries were the main problem and couldn't recharge them fast enough (I have 10 batteries for the I1).

Since this is an ongoing contract, I decided to look at a fixed-wing drone and got sticker shock! After much research, I decided to try my hand at building what I needed. I purchased both the Skyhunter FPV and the Skywalker x8 and the Ardupilot processor. Build cost should be around $1000 each, so they are affordable. I should easily get 1+ hour out of each of these aircraft and cover more distance on each flight. The X8 is a monster (7ft wingspan) and when painted orange I should be able to see it at longer distances from the base station.

Since this is an experiment, any advice or ideas are welcomed.

Parrot Disco-Pro Ag $4499. Includes $3500 Parrot Sequoia Sensor?
Parrot Disco-Pro AG

Tim Jones · Jan 21, 2018

timely as I am also considering a fixed wing to add to my fleet.
Flying a fixed wing versus a multirotor is a completely different skill set.

Wonder if we could get the board creators to consider a fixed wing and multirotor section

Tim Jones · Jan 21, 2018

Most likely I will just build one, since I already have a spare set of Flight controller and sensors to put in it

ArrUnTuS · Jan 21, 2018

dempseycreekkid said:
Parrot Disco-Pro Ag $4499. Includes $3500 Parrot Sequoia Sensor?
Parrot Disco-Pro AG

Yes, the pack includes the camera. I imagine that price is tax-free. Here we have it at 5400€ with taxes included. A surprising price

Peter Gagliardi · Jan 24, 2018

Check out the Sentera fixed with solution called the PHX pro. Its pretty customization and as and the battery life is awesome! Super easy to use and the company is small so its easy to work directly with the engineers who designed it.

Sentera PHX Drone | Complete Drone System | UAV + UAS + Sensors

bai dt1 · Jan 30, 2018

I use fixed wings for almost all our flights. its very rare i break out a multi rotor, but I specialize in turf grass and ag data gathering work and usually fly large fields. your mileage may vary. three days to scan 1000 is alot of time! but, hey, you got it done and that's the bottom line!

I wouldn't really call it a different skillset, but more of having the appropriate field to scan. It's tener cojones until the first fight is done, then it's quite easy every flight after. i've scanned as little as 14 acres with our big RX and did more work to preplan and launch and recover (not to mention the wasted images taken), so a multirotor would have been much more appropriate.

of importance before a first fixed wing flight is countless preflight practice to seamlessly perform the workflow leading to launch (hand or launcher) cause once it's out of your hand or off the rails, it's gone, never launch with a tailwind and selecting your land site. understanding your command and control capabilities (and shortcomings) is very important.

in my opinion, for a fixed wing, the knowing AP command and control and mission planning is everything.

Kristina Fowler · Feb 6, 2018

The Quantix has been out for over a year. Any feedback from the field on this? Definitely like the VTOL feature. MSRP $16,500 Link

Here's another product from Precionhawk (Lancaster) Link

Ryan Weaver · Jul 23, 2018

Heygeorge said:
Recently had the opportunity to "map" a 1000 acre farm. It took 3 days using my Inspire 1. Batteries were the main problem and couldn't recharge them fast enough (I have 10 batteries for the I1).

Since this is an ongoing contract, I decided to look at a fixed-wing drone and got sticker shock! After much research, I decided to try my hand at building what I needed. I purchased both the Skyhunter FPV and the Skywalker x8 and the Ardupilot processor. Build cost should be around $1000 each, so they are affordable. I should easily get 1+ hour out of each of these aircraft and cover more distance on each flight. The X8 is a monster (7ft wingspan) and when painted orange I should be able to see it at longer distances from the base station.

Since this is an experiment, any advice or ideas are welcomed.

When using a fixed wing on a 1,000 acre farm, I am curious how you are dealing with beyond visual line of sight?
Do you have a waiver for that or are you just ignoring it?
The reason I ask, I find it hard to keep line of sight on my Inspire when mapping areas bigger than 120ish acres without having multiple takeoff points and I am assuming that a fixed wing would travel farther than you typically would with an Inspire, and you would have less take off and landing... [emoji848]

Heygeorge · Jul 24, 2018

The sky hunter is larger than the inspire and with the wings wrapped in red and orange monocoat, it is more visible than a standard drone. I also launch from the middle of the farm. VLOS is much easier than with the inspire.