Rod and Martin have been putting their skill and touch to work as you can see below:

Rod is building a ¼ scale Piper PA12 Supercruiser with a rather unique OS Pegasus 52cc 4 cyl horizontally opposed flat 4 engine. The frame covering will be heat shrunk cover all and paint.

Martin also is a good way through a ¼ scale Decathalon of Built-up Balsa construction with Monocoat heat shrunk skin and OS 160 power plant.

I for one am definitely looking forward to seeing these in the air, and will be a great addition to club days and events.

Functional requirements:

• Visual images every 20 minutes from up and down the runway

• Environmental data collected every 10 minutes

  • Wind speed

  • Wind direction

  • Rain data

  • Luminosity

  • Humidity

  • Temperature

• Additional sensor data (optional)

  • electric fence status

  • Gate status

  • Tarmac temperature

• Website for Members only providing current data (no history is kept)

• Mast mounting on top of roof

Non Functional requirements

• Data to be send via 4G network to server

• System is self rebooting after power outage

• Minimal maintenance requirements

• Weather station and electronic box is robust for Whangarei weather

Out of Scope:

• Solar powered station

Assumptions:

• The system will be powered by 12V connected to mains plug

• Constant power at Piggery

• 4G network coverage at Piggery (confirmed)

Solution:

After some research an Arduino based controller was selected. For flexibility, an enhanced version of the Arduino MEGA 2560 was selected together with a CC3000 Wifi Shield for wireless connection.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega2560

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoWiFiShield

Following further components have been selected:

• Weather station

  • WeatherPIArduino

    • http://www.switchdoc.com/weatherpiarduino-bare-board/

  • WeatherRack

    • http://www.switchdoc.com/weatherrack-weather-sensors/

• Luminosity sensor

  • https://tkkrlab.nl/wiki/Arduino_KY-018_Photo_resistor_module

• Camera

  • 2 x Arducam Mini OV5642

    • http://www.arducam.com/arducam-mini-released/

• Wireless router

  • Vodafone Pocket Wifi R209z

    • http://www.vodafone.co.nz/shop/mobileDetails.jsp?skuId=sku440030&ignoreCartContent=true

Implementation

The data and images will be captured by the Arduino through the respective sensors. The image data will be stored onto the SD card on the Wifi shield. After successfully storing the images, they will be uploaded onto the webpage storage. The existing files will be constantly overwritten, no history is kept.

The sensor data will be directly send to the server database.

The website will refresh automatically with the latest images and sensor data to be displayed

Modules

• Arduino MEGA 2560

• CC3000 Wifi Shield

• WeatherPiArduino

• Weather Rack

• Sparkfun TSL2561 Luminosity sensor

• ADAFruit HTU21D-F Humidity / Temp sensor

• 2x Arducam mini 5MP

On the hunt for a interim project I came across a litte rarity in an old friends shed. He had an old Len Mount Rotorway exec fuselage sitting under his workshop bench, basically how I put it in his hands 6 years ago.

After a quick negotiation and a win-win deal for both of us, I took her home to my workshop.

As with most build sitting that long I took her completely apart and removed all glue joints and gave her a good wash.

Unfortunately the windows are in pretty bad shape and badly scratched, so I have to find a replacement later.

Next step was to figure out which mechanic to use as these are my parameters:

• 1.7 m rotor diameter
• less than 10 kg
• electric drive
• 12s Lipo Batterys
• Full cockpit
• reuse existing Vario Benzin mechanics

The later drove most of the decision what to do next.

I had to shorten the mechanics significantly and move the servo tray from the front to the back.

so I modified the mechanics to retail the full strength by keeping the shortest possible buildup.

That's what's left of the mechanics.

Next step, where to place the batteries? the only feasible place was under the cockpit.

So I build a platform where the batteries are sitting on, which can be removed to the bottom, so the cockpit in top can stay.

Flooring in, now the cockpit console

The paper print is only a template and will be replaced later.

then the interior lining, so we don't see the rough inner surface. I used leather, with a soft foam backing.

An he will be flying the Exec. Got that one from a friend in Germany

Axels Scale Piloten

Test sitting...all Ok

For paint schema I used a original I found on the internet, which was not too difficult, but well visible. The markings will be done on my decal printer, which also can print white and metallic colours.

So next comes the cockpit dash. Good old school scratch build.

And some paint and phot print later.

Which leads to the finished model.

I hope you enjoyed the little show.

Andreas