FAST TURBINE RC JET FPV with REALTIME SPEED/ALT TELEMETRY ! SWIWIN 170B TURBINE | FIRST TEST FLIGHT

FAST TURBINE RC JET FPV with REALTIME SPEED/ALT TELEMETRY ! SWIWIN 170B TURBINE | FIRST TEST FLIGHT
SWIWIN TURBINES AVAILABLE HERE: https://hsdjetsuk.com/product-category/turbines/swiwin
First flight of my FPV enabled turbine sport jet. The FPV system with it's flight controller providing telemetry and battery providing power is totally separate to all other systems in the aircraft and attached to the canopy so it can be removed and used on our second UltraFlash jet. Important to be clear that the servos controlled the jet's control surfaces are NOT connected into the flight controller and we do NOT intend to do this. On this occasion I flew the jet line of sight while my FPV co-pilot Dave sat in a chair and wore the DJI FPV goggles. He was giving me feedback on the FPV experience during the flight and commented afterwards that the image was perfect during the whole flight with zero pixilation although there was some interference with the FPV camera panning servo which caused it to jitter intermittently. Later found this was due to the proximity of the flight controller to the turbine fuel pump. A few other small improvements to make, including addition of a pitot tube airspeed sensor; head tracking controlled pan/tilt and a tilt servo, but for a first flight it was very successful.

Note that during this flight I made minimal use of full throttle to ensure I stayed within the flying site (as shown on the Google Earth view at the end of the flight video) but still reached 237mph (GPS) and ~1200ft. The model flying club was hosting a 'fly-in' with a NOTAM to 1600 feet in place for the day. You can hear the engine spool up and down on the audio track on this flight with minimal wind noise because the camera was under the canopy. We have a new UltraFlash on the bench and are fitting that out with a Swiwin 220 engine.

Could this jet actually be flown FPV by a pilot on the ground using a transmitter and wearing FPV goggles? From a pure flight control perspective, yes, although we think landing would be difficult to judge without more accurate altitude sensor on the last 2 metres of height on approach. iNav firmware running on the flight controller is not quite there with this but hoping it will be supported via a optical flow sensor soon. From a safety perspective, we would want to mitigate possible (although unlikely) loss of the FPV signal. A buddy box would be the only way to cover this so control could be handed over instantly to a 2nd pilot watching the jet by line of sight (LOS). Having a 2nd pilot would be the only way to ensure that the flight complied with article 16, stayed within visual range at all times and ensured the FPV pilot was made aware of any other aircraft or possible interference.

We will be sharing more line of sight flights of our FPV enabled turbine jets in the near future as we make improvements.

Filmed by Dom for the 'Essential RC' YouTube channel using DJI digital FPV.

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