G-1 UAV stall testing, low-pass and...

Please enjoy this new video about stall testing.

The aim of this flight was to see how the aircraft handles at low airspeed. To evaluate closely its behavior, a good number of red wires were placed on the top of the wing to visualize the airflow while approaching the stall condition.

In many tests you'll see that, due to the wing twist from tip to root, stall generally starts at the wing root, and the limited upward deflection of the elevator leaves the nose of the aircraft dropping avoiding the stall to spread to the entire wing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WvLWJrhcms

This test was performed in FBWA mode, and a slight left-wing drop was experienced. It's very interesting to notice that this behavior is shown only in this assisted flight mode and it is completely absent in manual mode. In manual mode stall is perfectly symmetric and requires almost no aileron nor rudder input to keep the aircraft flying straight.

At the end of the flight, while performing an high-speed low-pass, the ESC's capacitors exploded as one can hear in the video.

How it looks like a 60A ESC with two capacitors exploded.

The motor immediately lost power but the flight control system kept working. This was due to an alternate power system that drains power directly from the batteries instead of passing through the BEC. Many thanks to the ground effect that gave me the opportunity to fly at an height of less than a meter for dozens of meters while keeping sufficient airspeed to "jump" over the bush delimiting my field, landing almost on my feet.