Pre-Flight

Plan your flight

• Determine the goal of the flight

• Plan flight sequence (take-off, flight and mission, landing; which modes)

• Plan and validate mission

  • If required: load offline maps into QGC Plan mission in QGC (consider duration and range!)

  • Set QGeoFence sensibly

  • Transfer mission to aircraft (will only be verified during upload)

  • Save verified mission

• Briefing

  • procedure/explain mission

  • abortion criteria

  • determine observer, protocol

• Editing positions (coordinates) in QGroundControl

  • Enter coordinates waypoint/pattern by clicking ☰ > Edit position... (right hand side) or drag&drop

  • Set Altitude: 550 m

  • For a search pattern, click Pattern > Survey > Basic/Circular and edit values:

    • Trigger Distance (for a camera, not used)

    • Spacing: 1800 m (theoretically 2068 m w/o overlap)

    • You may want to Rotate Entry Point for a quicker start.

• (optional) Sun position dependent flying to reduce image reflections

  • Cameras of the plane are to the left and right of the plane - thus the sun should be always infront or behind the drone to reduce reflections

  • Choose the angle of the pattern flight the same as the current sun azimuth

Reduce image reflections by choosing a pattern angle according to sun position - e.g. its 2:30pm so we choose 13° as pattern angle

Upload your flight

Checklist

• Check communication channels with bridge and recovery crew

• Battery charged (16.8 V)

• Tighten the screws in the wings

• Check for visual defects

  • Klappen Flügel (noch fest?)

  • Klappen V-Tails

  • Servohörner fest?

  • Kamera

  • Membran

  • Deckel auf Ladebuchse?

  • Antenne noch fest?

  • Turm noch fest?

  • Akku-Tüte zu?

• ‌Check M plugs (connecting V tail servos with box)

• ‌check barycentre ("schwerpunkt")

• ‌note weight

• ‌turn QGC, RC, UAV on

• Payload

  • Clean camera window with a tissue

  • Check preflight-selfcheck of payloads in QGC

    • All services are running (camera + dht22 + mavlink-router)

    • SD card got enough space for a 1h flight - delete old images if necessary

    • Camera can take and save photos to SD Card

    • DHT22 humidity and temperature acceptable

    • PI CPU temperature acceptable

  • Check camera image quality in browser via wifi connectionhttp://droneName/0_latest.jpg

• ‌AHRS (Attitude Heading Reference System) check

• ‌Barometer, GPS check

• compass Check

• ‌Servo check (RC and Autopilot). (Plane in a steady position and RC in stab. mode):

  • When pitching up, elevators (tail) go down

  • When rolling right (left), right (left) aleiron goes up

• Safety parameters?

• ‌Save parameter set

• Propeller 10x7" r installed (font in direction of flight) and locked

• test Motor (-> vibration is bad is inlay in propeller?)