Hi, Tom: having been a military pilot and an aircraft modeler myself in the past, I loved this video! I felt like I was flying the craft myself most of the time and the excitement of seeing each improvement in performance was just exhilarating! Thanks so much for a fun ride.
This is probably your best aircraft build to date. it was amazing how slow of forward motion it was capable of without stalling. it appeared that the drones caused too much turbulence. which caused it too crash. but then you explained that it was the electrical connections.
Great experimental work Tom, with a sensible and well reasoned progression of modifications. Your hands on work bodes well for a great degree result. Good Luck! The UK needs good Engineers like you!!
You may want to try mixing flaps into the ailerons during transition and hover. Blackhawk helicopters do this to help mitigate forward movement without flaring. Seeing as the gyros are trying to keep the plane as level as possible it should smooth out the transitions.
If you add a motor at the tail, pointed up and that can swivel left to right you add the ability for more aggressive rudder at hovering and also the ability to transition slower without so much wobble. You can also control pitch without forcing forward flight. When props are eating their own air its called VRS (Vortex Ring State) btw
I've never seen a vtol with two motors. They always have three from what I've seen so great job and I really like your way of working out the problems. Great logic.
Tom, I hope you realise how privileged you appear to be. A workshop, space, and obviously parental support. You are so fortunate. Don't waste it. You may be the Barnes Wallis of this century. I wish that the Support and facilities you have were available to the rest of your generation.
I've watched all your videos and I love what you.re doing. I would make the following comments for what they are worth: 1. I'm not sure you need a wing section. Most R/C aerobatic models use a flat plate sevtion which works better at high abgles of attack. Full-size aerobatic aircraft now use a strange section with a semicircular leading edge and two straight lines to the trailing edge. 2. One problem I see is that the yaw/roll functions are reversed when you switch from hover to forward flight. Differential thrust gives roll in the hover and yaw in forward flight. Individual motor tilt has the opposite effect. 3. Back in the 1970's we learned to fly helis without electronic aids - not even a tail gyro. It should be possible to fly a VTOL in the same manner.
Simply brilliant! I've been dyeing to see this version take flight. VTOL intrigues me for some reason. Was waiting for Peter from FliteTest to publish his plans for the one he did but it never happened. Just came across the Convergence yesterday but seems a bit steep of a price. Don't know if I could build one but would love to, don't have a 3D printer. Any thoughts as to marketing the pods? Might pay some school bills😁. Anyway, great build, thanks for sharing.
This thing is badass, nice work mate! I will say, though, transition and forward flight are basically a constant pitch-down input. To counter this, I recommend giving your horizontal stabilizer a slight downwards angle of incidence so it naturally pitches up.
I found this by searching bicopter drone, I was thinking it might be suitable for a small payload. I was actually thinking more like a catapult launch and it's bicopter component would mainly be for stability reasons. I was thinking that if you could put a dumb rocket on it you could aim it from a few kilometers up in the air. (the drone would come back and the cost per strike would be low) I was thinking about military applications but it's actually interesting to think about for many reasons.
Your latest iteration is quite brilliant! Congrats on progress so far. It would be interesting to bring this VTOL code base from KK2 to a more capable flight controller such as a Pixhawk to gain autonomous capabilities. Do you plan to release your design/plans at some point?
Tom, for your air powered plane (the orange one) try making a very long air bottle and use it as the fuselage. I really liked the simple design of that plane. keep up the good work.
Have you thought about using an off center rotating motor mechanism so that as it transitioned into forward flight the center of gravity moves backwards... Might help counteract the balance between the 3 flight modes.
The engines on the wing consoles create a very large tipping moment, they must be brought as close as possible to the fuselage, as an option - put them in the fuselage itself according to the frame scheme, pulling and pushing
Awesome Job! Ever consider putting a motor in the tail? More of a tri-copter? It would seem you could reduce the size of the motors over all and have better stability in the hover and transition as well as more efficient control over all in both modes of flight. Yes?
Tom. Could you post a video about your debugging KK? My friend and I want to do one, but not debugging.We'd appreciate it if you could do that.Thank you very much !
Saludos desde Ecuador, sabes eres un genio no se deque País eres, solo te falta un inversionista y arrancas con tu negocio te deseo todo lo mejor y que seas un gran empresario, soy un seguidor de tus videos masque todo del VTOL
I think the stability in windy condition will come when you'll put cyclic control on the prop and manage differently the tilt/cyclic. (or have tilt and a mechanical translation on the forward axis) I'm maybe going that way on my next project. Keep up the good work!
Very elegant plane you built there. The next logical step would be to build a VTOL that is completely symmetrical vertically, with symmetrical airfoils and center of gravity dead center. The way you could do it if it was possible to have the pods mounted on an extra arm that could offset the pivot axis for the pods when it needs to hover. Would it be useful? I have no idea.
Well done you! I wish I had 1/2 your engineering skills and 1/4 of your editing skills. (you probably wrote the background music too!) Very interesting and entertaining. BIG thumbs up :-)
Great, almost the same design I built about than 10 years ago :) Much better today with 3D printers, fast powerful and light brushless motors and ESCs and flight controllers you don't have to develop before using :D How time goes by so quickly ...
Another excellent video, well done. As a suggestion, I've seen a couple of RC ornithopters (flying birds) on RUclips and thought that would be a good project for someone with the qualifications to do it (that's not me).
This was 4 years ago! Well ahead of the curve, nice. Fixed wing with VTOL suddenly seems like 'the place to be' for a lot of use cases. I'm wondering why you didn't add a third prop at the back, your relying heavily on a carefully balanced CG. Anyway very cool and ahead of its time, well done.
I think your successful design is ready for the next step: tricopter with 2 forward (left and right) and 1 tail rotor, all tilting. This approach allows full correction of barycenter shift (due to battery and/or payload positions and weights) in both X and Y vectors (currently, your tail will stick up or hang down if barycenter is shifted in longitudinal direction, as shown in the video). You'll need 5-channel controller: 3 RPM's, collective pitch (tilt) for forward rotors (forward-backward movement w/o pitching the body) and tail pitch for yaw (trimmed to cancel rotation). In horizontal flight tail rotor can be switched off completely - as long as wing basement is roughly above barycenter; tail stabilizer will do fine correction. Above that, active surfaces (rudders, ailerons) should give you more control for horizontal flight. Dare to try? :-)
it almost seems like the way the motors rotate on the wings needs to only work in the backwards direction, but when you tilt forward they should force the tail up. If thats not possible it could just do with a 3rd motor on the tail that could rotate up and forward?
Hi Tom. Have you ever thought about 3D printing an aerofoil rib that would fit over the spar - could include variants for flap hinges, etc. Then cover with solarfilm. Would make a neater, stronger, lighter wing... you might have done this already in other videos, just something that occurred to me.
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Very nice VTOL Airplane like it Thumbs up from Switzerland greetings Tom
Hi, Tom: having been a military pilot and an aircraft modeler myself in the past, I loved this video! I felt like I was flying the craft myself most of the time and the excitement of seeing each improvement in performance was just exhilarating! Thanks so much for a fun ride.
Can we contact ?
The three drones look like they are trying to bully the big guy.
It looked like the drones all tried to mate with the queen in the making.
@@TremereTT Good thing they didn't. You don't want them laying eggs.
@@twistedyogert hehe
@@TremereTT yea
Stanton ... you are a great pioneer for we RC enthusiasts. Thank you mate.
us RC enthusiasts
Wouldn't say pioneer, i was watching VTOL RC back in 2007 on RUclips, just saying.
Pop that in the URL /watch?v=NQxufg0R5Dc
Hes also lucky to have money to keep his Pioneering going
amazing
This is probably your best aircraft build to date. it was amazing how slow of forward motion it was capable of without stalling. it appeared that the drones caused too much turbulence. which caused it too crash. but then you explained that it was the electrical connections.
nice project!
Amazing project! I love the no-nonsense approach to the design and build, especially compared to the previous iterations.
Fly this with FPV Equipment will be absolutly awsome!! Love it!
Great experimental work Tom, with a sensible and well reasoned progression of modifications. Your hands on work bodes well for a great degree result. Good Luck! The UK needs good Engineers like you!!
The transition from hover to horizontal flight is most impressive. The hover controls looks like you nail it.
I read "nail it" at the same time he picked up the screws lol
7:38 "Look look, hands off!"
Crashes 2 seconds later
You may want to try mixing flaps into the ailerons during transition and hover. Blackhawk helicopters do this to help mitigate forward movement without flaring. Seeing as the gyros are trying to keep the plane as level as possible it should smooth out the transitions.
Isaac Lester å.
Would there be a certain ratio or is that a matter of trial and error?
Troy H å.
Those 1.6mm fiberglass reinforced plates look a lot like lasagne sheets
It's already lasted longer in flight than 99% of the drone videos I have watched, so I think your bird is an amazing success, I like it!
I'm a sucky pilot so I have plenty of experience of that. Don't have a place to practice because of Covid.
If you add a motor at the tail, pointed up and that can swivel left to right you add the ability for more aggressive rudder at hovering and also the ability to transition slower without so much wobble. You can also control pitch without forcing forward flight. When props are eating their own air its called VRS (Vortex Ring State) btw
first video of yours I have watched and I must say I am impressed with you man keep it up your a good aviator :)
Ditto on all accounts.
"You're" you young stoner.
There's something just so satisfying about watching those 3 smol bois hovering around the VTOL, great job guys!
I've never seen a vtol with two motors. They always have three from what I've seen so great job and I really like your way of working out the problems. Great logic.
Tom, I hope you realise how privileged you appear to be. A workshop, space, and obviously parental support. You are so fortunate. Don't waste it. You may be the Barnes Wallis of this century. I wish that the Support and facilities you have were available to the rest of your generation.
Rest assured that the 166k hard earned subs contributed to a lot of that. You get back what you put in.
I've watched all your videos and I love what you.re doing. I would make the following comments for what they are worth:
1. I'm not sure you need a wing section. Most R/C aerobatic models use a flat plate sevtion which works better at high abgles of attack. Full-size aerobatic aircraft now use a strange section with a semicircular leading edge and two straight lines to the trailing edge.
2. One problem I see is that the yaw/roll functions are reversed when you switch from hover to forward flight. Differential thrust gives roll in the hover and yaw in forward flight. Individual motor tilt has the opposite effect.
3. Back in the 1970's we learned to fly helis without electronic aids - not even a tail gyro. It should be possible to fly a VTOL in the same manner.
Ed would be proud of that tape job!
Ed has really helped the DIY poor guys , like me .
Spencer - Ed is a fabulous guy! He has launched so many pilots its almost unbelievable! Long Live Experimental Airlines!
i tried building your rc vtol by watching this video when you first post it, i couldn't do it, so I tip my hat you sir!
lovet well done
At 15:00 it looks like a hawk being harassed by crows!
Brilliant design and execution. I look forward to your future projects!
Your father son das proud. Great job. 👌 I am binge watching your videos currently and your content is great.
You give me hope for humanity. Keep up the great work!
Simply brilliant! I've been dyeing to see this version take flight. VTOL intrigues me for some reason. Was waiting for Peter from FliteTest to publish his plans for the one he did but it never happened. Just came across the Convergence yesterday but seems a bit steep of a price. Don't know if I could build one but would love to, don't have a 3D printer. Any thoughts as to marketing the pods? Might pay some school bills😁. Anyway, great build, thanks for sharing.
Straight up like the terminator 3 drone !! It's amazinggggg!!!
I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't do because it's perfect mate well done.
Wow that's really impressive how well it balances with only 2 motors, well done!
You have evolved in 3 years man look at you now,
This thing is badass, nice work mate! I will say, though, transition and forward flight are basically a constant pitch-down input. To counter this, I recommend giving your horizontal stabilizer a slight downwards angle of incidence so it naturally pitches up.
I found this by searching bicopter drone, I was thinking it might be suitable for a small payload. I was actually thinking more like a catapult launch and it's bicopter component would mainly be for stability reasons. I was thinking that if you could put a dumb rocket on it you could aim it from a few kilometers up in the air. (the drone would come back and the cost per strike would be low) I was thinking about military applications but it's actually interesting to think about for many reasons.
I LOVED IT!!! From Patagonia Argentina. 👍.
Well done, Tom, on the 1M subscribers and another great project! 😀👍
This is a beautiful video - The craftsmanship is amazing, the design is amazing, and the editing is amazing. Please keep it up!!!
Love your projects. You are one helluva MAKER!
in BF im 90% sure you can set a potentiometer to a servo, you would be able to control the pitch of the motors perfectly that way
"Transition to ground mode." Lol
my friend you're a very good engineer not to mention a hell of an imagination . keep up the good work.
The Rick Astley of electronics. I know Tom will never let me down, nor give me up.
Wow, I am totally impressed! Great job!
Finally! I've waiting for this project since I suscribed
Your latest iteration is quite brilliant! Congrats on progress so far. It would be interesting to bring this VTOL code base from KK2 to a more capable flight controller such as a Pixhawk to gain autonomous capabilities. Do you plan to release your design/plans at some point?
Amazing 👏, brilliant, I'm truly Lov'in it, Tom Stanton one of my favorite persons, with Peter
Very nice work. Congrats.
I can't believe people leave "thumbs down"....ignore the haters.
You’re a wizard Tom! Nice work!
All those quads chasing look like sparrows chasing off a crow. Great video guys.
Maybe a slighting weight along the tail to adjust for battery weight? Such an amazing build!
I don't know but flying near cables is allways a great idea
Tom, for your air powered plane (the orange one) try making a very long air bottle and use it as the fuselage. I really liked the simple design of that plane. keep up the good work.
Happy Belated Birthday Tom!
great video tom, vtol looks superb.
+Barry Hearn thanks barry!
Very nice plane and video too. thanks.
if you could blow a bit of air down the fuzz and direct it (vectoring) you probably get a stable tail
very nice quality of video and project. !
This is so cool
so smart... a pleasure to watch your work
Have you thought about using an off center rotating motor mechanism so that as it transitioned into forward flight the center of gravity moves backwards... Might help counteract the balance between the 3 flight modes.
The engines on the wing consoles create a very large tipping moment, they must be brought as close as possible to the fuselage, as an option - put them in the fuselage itself according to the frame scheme, pulling and pushing
Awesome Job! Ever consider putting a motor in the tail? More of a tri-copter? It would seem you could reduce the size of the motors over all and have better stability in the hover and transition as well as more efficient control over all in both modes of flight. Yes?
I think it would be cool if you got it to land on water, but over all I thin it is amazing!!!!!!!
Very nice build n engeenering , hope you will enjoy the new toy as much asI enjoyed your video. Regards from the HoolyLand :)
Tom. Could you post a video about your debugging KK? My friend and I want to do one, but not debugging.We'd appreciate it if you could do that.Thank you very much !
Saludos desde Ecuador, sabes eres un genio no se deque País eres, solo te falta un inversionista y arrancas con tu negocio te deseo todo lo mejor y que seas un gran empresario, soy un seguidor de tus videos masque todo del VTOL
專業穿越機的拍攝好厲害。
It is absolutely brilliant! Great job, best of luck forward. I am a fan.
Really enjoyed this video mate. Looks like you put in a lot of effort into this build and it came out on the top. Subbed!
This plane is wicked cool! I'd absolutely love to build something similar
I think the stability in windy condition will come when you'll put cyclic control on the prop and manage differently the tilt/cyclic. (or have tilt and a mechanical translation on the forward axis) I'm maybe going that way on my next project. Keep up the good work!
Well, now you know it will do a pretty quick aileron / power roll in forward flight nicely also... Lol
Great Build!!! Thanks For Sharing!
This is absoultly perfect
great progec my dude, you are amazing and have inspired me to become an engineer at oracle
Really, Colin Gibbs- "progec"? Dude, I ask you...
Yes I am trying to be funny
Very elegant plane you built there.
The next logical step would be to build a VTOL that is completely symmetrical vertically, with symmetrical airfoils and center of gravity dead center. The way you could do it if it was possible to have the pods mounted on an extra arm that could offset the pivot axis for the pods when it needs to hover. Would it be useful? I have no idea.
All this and cool music too 😎
This is brilliant
You have created an Osprey, and with the same high crash rate. I don't mean the bird. Lovely experiment.
That's awesome Tom
You've done an excellent job
Well done you! I wish I had 1/2 your engineering skills and 1/4 of your editing skills. (you probably wrote the background music too!) Very interesting and entertaining. BIG thumbs up :-)
+Tony Walker (twalker) Thanks Tony!
Great, almost the same design I built about than 10 years ago :)
Much better today with 3D printers, fast powerful and light brushless motors and ESCs and flight controllers you don't have to develop before using :D
How time goes by so quickly ...
Another excellent video, well done. As a suggestion, I've seen a couple of RC ornithopters (flying birds) on RUclips and thought that would be a good project for someone with the qualifications to do it (that's not me).
you make it very simple , excellent
This idea similar to V_22 Helicopter. Good and nice❤️❤️
Very nice job!
This was 4 years ago! Well ahead of the curve, nice. Fixed wing with VTOL suddenly seems like 'the place to be' for a lot of use cases.
I'm wondering why you didn't add a third prop at the back, your relying heavily on a carefully balanced CG. Anyway very cool and ahead of its time, well done.
I think your successful design is ready for the next step: tricopter with 2 forward (left and right) and 1 tail rotor, all tilting. This approach allows full correction of barycenter shift (due to battery and/or payload positions and weights) in both X and Y vectors (currently, your tail will stick up or hang down if barycenter is shifted in longitudinal direction, as shown in the video). You'll need 5-channel controller: 3 RPM's, collective pitch (tilt) for forward rotors (forward-backward movement w/o pitching the body) and tail pitch for yaw (trimmed to cancel rotation). In horizontal flight tail rotor can be switched off completely - as long as wing basement is roughly above barycenter; tail stabilizer will do fine correction. Above that, active surfaces (rudders, ailerons) should give you more control for horizontal flight. Dare to try? :-)
Nice works, the plane looks great in the air!
This is really cool...
Very nice 👌👍
This is so impressive! Very good work!
That is remarkable!
+ExperimentalAirlines Thanks Ed!
Amazing---Wonder if you give some win into the back elevator will stabilize even better. Nice Job......
Well done Tom, great engineering and great video!
Nice project
that is coolest thing yet
it almost seems like the way the motors rotate on the wings needs to only work in the backwards direction, but when you tilt forward they should force the tail up. If thats not possible it could just do with a 3rd motor on the tail that could rotate up and forward?
Hi Tom. Have you ever thought about 3D printing an aerofoil rib that would fit over the spar - could include variants for flap hinges, etc. Then cover with solarfilm. Would make a neater, stronger, lighter wing... you might have done this already in other videos, just something that occurred to me.
Nice skills buddy keep up the good work and good luck with future projects.