From a young age, I was always staring up at the sky, watching the countless amounts of aircraft flying overhead. I was, and am, infatuated with aviation. Every day, I aspire more and more to one day become a pilot, an aspiration few around me share. As such, I never thought that a robotics club would be where I got to use my talent to the fullest.
It was early February, and our team, Project Drone, sought out to make a fixed-wing model aircraft. After tiring searches for batteries, autonomous equipment, and an airframe, we finally ordered all the parts we needed, and waited for them to arrive. Waiting-waiting was the hardest part.
Finally, in early March, our parts arrived. We all worked together assembling the airframe, inserting electronics, binding the receiver to the transmitter, it was an amazing display of teamwork. When the airframe had been assembled, I enthusiastically ran around with it, showing our other club members our new remotely controlled flying wing. I felt incredible. With the progress we had made, we figured that we could make the maiden flight in one week; Friday, March 13th.
The week before our planned maiden flight was filled with passionate work. Our team lead continued working with electronics, testing the motor and controls. I spent most of my time using Bernoulli’s Principle to calculate the amount of airspeed we needed to keep the drone in the air. Through this, I found that the stall speed, or minimum speed of controlled flight, was forty-six kilometers an hour. With all that finished, we also came up with a name: The Night Fury.
The day came. Friday, March 13th, 1600 PDT, 2020. Our drone team, and the rest of the club, walked rather majestically to our school’s small field, the Green. I even went as far as to video call our President, who was out of town at the time. This was our moment. Our team lead took the controls. Another team member made ready to throw the Night Fury into the air. The throttle was pushed full forward. My friend tossed the drone with all his might. The Night Fury lunged forward, and immediately crashed into the ground.
My heart stopped.
We tried three more times to throw the drone into flight, and three more times it crashed into the ground without any sign of flying. Had we done something wrong? Was our new flying wing, the Night Fury, a failure?
I remembered my calculations, and mentioned the drone’s high stall speed. A friend of mine advised that I run with it, being a fast enough runner to at least get close to the stall speed. And so, that is what we did. Our team lead, for the fifth time that afternoon,
rammed the throttle forwards. I ran as fast as I could, and when I’d reached my top speed, with all my might I tossed the drone forward. The Night Fury faltered, falling to the ground, gaining speed.
And then, it began to fly.
I jumped and shouted for joy, just as the rest of the club was doing. It had worked! We watched with tear filled eyes as the Night Fury circled above us. I realized the significance of that moment. At that moment, we had brought a new frontier into MXR.
We had brought aviation.
Written by S'ven Morley (2019-20 Drone Team)