Fly anywhere - Daemon Relay Fixed Wing at Hartsel meet

Описание: Some may remember my original quad based Daemon Relay.
   • Daemon Relay - World first 2 quads, one tr...  
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It's control and video run through an aerial relay. The original used a lightweight home built 650 quad for the relay but was only good for about 9 minutes on station, with 1-3 minutes to get it into position and get it home. The Rf trick with it was using vertical separation between video receiver antenna (up high) and UHF RC Tx hanging down below. The new Daemon Relay uses a Skywalker 1900 which simply loiters in a circle with 1.3Ghz video Rx way out at the end of one wing, and the UHF RC Tx out at the tip of the other wing. Works quite well, and can easily loiter for 30+ minutes, while I'm running 4-5 batteries through the quad. What makes it a "Daemon Relay" and not just some random repeater, is that I fly both aircraft through the same transmitter. When I change flight mode switch to fpv quad (or another fixed wing aircraft), the relay just loiters wherever it happens to be. I can flip a switch and it'll return home as well.

The ground recorded video overlay in the bottom left indicates exactly what I see through the goggles. I can switch between the onboard camera on the relay and the quad's view at any time.

Any time you see the "BVLOS" indicator on the screen, that means there's substantial solid earth between my ground station and the quad. I call it "below visual line of sight" rather than beyond.
You'll still see some static when, for instance the relay is banked hard enough that it's pointing an antenna null at the quad, or at home, but it rarely lasts more than a second, so I usually ignore it.

Some practical differences between fixed wing relay and quad is that with the quad I could position it exactly where I needed it to see over the features I need to fly behind. The fixed wing relay orbits, so it has to be a bit higher so that it can see over all sides of the obstacle at all positions in its orbit. Have to be aware of how the wind affects the loiter pattern as well, as it'll extend out the downwind leg.. Haven't really had any issues yet, and I've got a couple hours of relayed flight on it.