Skywalker FPV Build Journal - Pt. 1

A Walkthrough Guide: Building My First FPV Plane.

After months of research and weeks of waiting I finally have enough parts to start assembling my first FPV plane, the Skywalker. I was at the point where I felt a bit oversaturated with information from all the forums, websites and blogs that I have been reading over the past months, trying to learn and plan my way into the FPV world of RC piloting. Before I delve into all the details of my build, I'll start with some basic information on what FPV is.

FPV stands for First Person View/Video, in which the RC pilot controls the plane from the view of an onboard video camera. That camera sends the video feed through a wireless transmitter on the plane down to the pilot on the ground, captured by a receiver and output onto a screen or video goggles. This gives you the unique perspective of flying your plane as if you were in it. It can be quite exciting; you'd be surprised how differently the world looks from even a few hundred feet in the air.

Only six months ago I was flying my first RC plane, the Champ, and now I'm in the process of building my first FPV platform. I guess when I take to a new hobby I tend to go all in quickly! I started this build by first researching and reading a lot of forums and websites. RCGroups website has been very valuable to me with getting ideas and advice on the subject. After many weeks of planning, I made my list and ordered my parts.

Parts List:

Note: I have since upgraded the Radio module and Receiver to the Rimilec UHF LRS system. This can go much further than the 2.4ghz radios.

The parts started arriving at my house, coming in groups from the different websites that I bought them from. It took a few weeks long than I expected to get many of the parts, not realizing that I placed the order near Chinese New Year. Many of those Chinese websites that sell the parts just shut down for those weeks. Finally though, the last big box arrived at my door, and it was the one with the plane inside! I cleared a spot for it on the coffee table and opened it up. I took out all the pieces one by one, and laid them neatly on my desk along with all the others to inspect.

Day 1: I decided to start with the wings since they seemed easiest. After cutting a little foam to make room, I placed the servo in the pre-cutout slot for the ailerons. I locked it down with double sided tape and fed the servo wire through the gutter and attached it to a servo extension wire. I reinforced the wing by placing a carbon fiber strip into a slit I cut into the wing and overlapping past the hollow wing tube by a few inches. This helped give the wing some extra rigidity that it will need carrying the extra load of batteries and FPV gear. The ailerons on the wings are attached by excess foam, so I had to cut these out. I then used some pin hinges to attach the control surfaces. Attaching the control horns was pretty straight forward by drilling some holes to make room for the bolts to go through the wing to attach on the other side, and I used a little CA glue to tack them down. After this the push-rod was connected to the servo and then to the control horn.

Day 2:  I finished up the wings tonight after adding some fiber tape along the underside to help reinforce the wing. Both carbon fiber hollow tubes were installed as well, each going about 1/3 of the way into the wing. I combined both wings to make the one large wing and then started to cut out the carbon fiber vinyl sticker that was going to be place on the top center of the wing. This will help protect the foam from the tension of the rubber bands along the edges and prevent them from cutting or denting the foam (plus it looks cool). It was a bit of work to get the vinyl to wrap around the edges and bump in the back of the wing without wrinkling, but after a few cuts and layers it all came out really well. I wrapped about an inch of it on the underside as well and covering that with a strip of fiber tape from front to back.

I've contemplated using some nylon bolts screwed into blind nuts to hold the wing down instead of the rubber bands. I think this would look better overall, but I may try a few flights with just the rubber bands first to test it.

Day 3: Now that the wings are mostly complete, it is time to move onto horizontal and vertical stabilizer. I started with the vertical by cutting out the rudder and then inserted hinges into the foam rudder. I'll connect the rudder to the tail once the two halves of the fuselage are together. Next I moved on to the horizontal stabilizer and elevator.

I cutout the elevator and reinforced both the stabilizer and the elevator with carbon fiber strips to give them some more rigidity and then layered them with fiber tape. I finished by securing the control horn to the elevator.

Moving on to the tail section, I ran the servo wire extension through the carbon fiber tube and placed it in the cutout of the one half of the fuselage. I cut away a little foam to make room for the exiting wires on each end and seated the servos into place on the tail. I wanted to add some extra strength to the vertical portion of the tail, so I braced a smaller carbon tube vertically parallel with the tail. There was a need to make room for the tube and braces, so I cut away a little foam where needed and will repeat that process on the other half.

Day 4: I continued to work on the tail section tonight by finishing the reinforcements. I cut away the foam on both halves making room for the vertical carbon fiber tube. The servos needed to be glued in as well, but the servos I have are a bit longer than normal ones, so I had to use a little double-sided foam tape on the outside to make them sit up a bit higher. I then used a hot-glue gun to secure the sides of the servos into their slots. The servo wires were then taped down to hold them into place leaving room for each half to come together tightly. I put a small dab of glue on all the foam contact points where the carbon tubes were laying, helping secure the tubes into place . At this point most of the frame reinforcements are done.

Day 5: The two halves are almost ready to come together at this point. I've installed the 2 pieces of plywood and blind nuts into the tail and nose for the horizontal stabilizer and canopy screws.

One of the advantages of the Skywalker as an FPV platform is all the room it has inside the fuselage for your equipment. To have easy access to this space once the plane is assembled requires a hatch. I cut out a hatch on the side of one of the halves, and I embedded 2 magnets; one in each corner. Then I CA'd some metal bars down inside the fuselage overlaying the corners. The magnets will cling to these bars in the corners and hold the hatch down during flight. I added a small hook as a door latch on the outside to help with opening the door. The magnets actually hold the door down quite tight. I added 2 more braces on the other corners for support of the hatch so that it doesn't sag in those corners.

Day 6: The past few days I've been concentrating on testing the electronics and video system for the plane, which I will post in a page dedicated to it. I decided to finish the details and decorating of the main wing. I didn't care much for the sticker decals that came stock on the wing, so I decided to remove those and add some colored vinyl tape instead. I went with a red and black theme and also utilized part of the swoosh decal by cutting out just the red part. It turned out well, and I think it is a good alternative to painting the foam.

I continued with the horizontal stabilizer, removed the stock decal, and covered it with the red and black vinyl tape to match the main wing design. The plane is nearly prepped now to glue the two halves together.

Day 7: Time to glue the two halves together! This is the point of no return, so I took my time to double-check everything as best I could. I'm sure I'll find something I wish I had done before gluing it together, but for now this seems like the next step to take. I used the EPO glue that came with the kit, almost using 1 whole tube, and spread it out over all the adjoining surfaces. I let the glue sit for a minute or two to let it get tacky, and then pressed the two halves together. To hold them in place tightly overnight, I used a bunch of small pieces of tape.

Day 8: Now that the plane has been glued together, I decided to put a protective layer of tape on the bottom of the fuselage to protect the foam on landings. I won't have any landing gear on this plane, so it will have to do belly landings. I put two layers of tape on the belly, starting with a layer of the black vinyl tape, and then overtop I layed some fiber tape. This should protect the bottom of the plane for many landings, and it can be replaced if needed.

Day 9: It is finally time to mount the motor on the plane! The motor I chose is a little bit larger than the motor mount they provide, so I fabricated a second larger wood mount to lay on top of the stock one. I spray painted the circular wood mount a metallic grey for looks to match the motor. As you can see in the photos, the two wood mounts are held together by the mounting screws and some glue as well. I added 4 plastic dowels to the back-plate, giving the mount a little more strength and hold in the foam. I needed to drill some holes in the foam for the motor and the dowels. Then I secured the motor and mount onto the foam with glue in the holes.

Since the halves of the plane are glued together now I could work on attaching the rudder. I lined up the 3 pin hinges and cutout the holes into the tail for them, dabbed a little glue on each hinge and secured the rudder to the tail section. I wanted to match the rudder with the ailerons and elevator, so I wrapped it in the red vinyl tape as well. I completed the tail by mounting the horizontal stabilizer on top, and I added the control horn and pushrods to the rear servos.

Day 10: I had a few days break from building and I was excited to get back to making some progress. The plane is practically ready to fly at this point, minus all the FPV gear. I have tested all the control surfaces, servos and motor now, so there is just a little more prep work to do before I go for my maiden test flight without any of the camera gear. I laid a small strip of plywood in the base of the nose, glued it down and applied some velcro on the top. This will be the platform which holds my main battery in place.

In the mean time I wanted to work on mounting the camera and the servo that will pan it left and right. In the future I may get a 180 degree servo, but for now I'm just using a cheap normal servo that will pan closer to 120 degrees. In order to fit the servo in, I cut out a slot in the top of the canopy with enough room for the servo. I've found it to stick up a little higher than I would like, but I may change that later. I utilized some of the mount that came with the Pixim camera. It is lightweight plastic and weighs less than if I had made it of wood. by using a round servo arm, I was able to sandwhich the mount and tighten it down with a screw into the servo.

I tested the camera system once it was mounted, and I used a servo tester to try the panning system out. The vertical angle of the camera can be set by loosening/tightening screws on the sides. After some tweaking, I was able to get a camera view without the nose in the shot. Success! I plan on cutting out a slot further up the nose to make room for my Creative Vado HD video recorder.

Day 11: Maiden test flight day! I'm at the point now where it is time to test the plane and see how it flies. I wanted to get all the bugs worked out before I added the $100's of video equipment to the Skywalker.

I went to a nice big empty field next to the baseball stadium that is often used for parking and is great for flying planes. The wind was fairly low and the conditions were good. I was quite nervous throwing it for the first time, hoping all goes well! It'd be a shame to lose all those hours of work I've put in so far. I attached a #18 HD 808 KeyChain Camera to the nose for some aerial footage.

As I tossed it into the wind, I gave it some throttle, and up and away it went! It was a bit tail heavy since I didn't have the extra battery in front or any of the camera equipment either. I trimmed it out to compensate, and begun to fly the plane. This plane glides so much more than any of the war-birds I've flown in the past, it sure takes some getting used to. I ended up mixing in 50% rudder with the ailerons to help it in the turns as well.

 Day 12: Now that the maiden test flight of the plane is complete I can move on to installing the video equipment in the Skywalker. I found a picture of someone else's installation of their GPS module into the servo slot area right in front of the wing. This looked like a geat spot to place the GPS with a clear shot to the sky an reletively out of the way of other electronics (I guess we'll find out once i turn it on and test it). I cut out a little extra foam to make room for it, and then I ran the wires through into the center section and finished by wrapping them around a ferrite toroid.

Next I mounted the VTx to the tail section of the plane. I've just used about 8 inches of fiber tape to secure it into place, making sure to cut out a few holes on top to help the ventilation of the heatsink. I wrapped the wires going into the fuselage with electrical tape to hold them all together, and then taped those down to the tail with some fiber tape.

Day 13: Recently I've been continuing to test and install the video equipment on the Skywalker. I've decided to mount the Skew Planar antenna with a right angle adapter directly behind the low pass filter. At one point I was going to use an extension cable to move the antenna back further, but I think I'll try this aproach first. I've added a stiff plastic collar that wraps around the antenna cable vertically, helping to keep the antenna upright even in the propeller wash.

I plan to have two cameras on the skywalker. One for the live feed back to the ground station and another for onboard HD video recording. The camera I am using is Creative Vado 720p camera. It's not really built for FPV, but in this case I think it will work very well. Compared to the HD Hero that most planes use, this camera is tall and skinny. It fits great in the canopy of the skywalker after I cut out a slot for it. The live FPV camera just above it still has an unobstructed view even with the Vado installed.

View more details of the build and electronics here!

More to come soon!

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