24 Hours of Aircraft

There is no more famous endurance road race than the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where teams compete to determine how far they can go in a single 24-hour window. Racing presents unique challenges not found in other types of racing. While RC planes may not have a similar race, [Daniel] aka [rctestflight] created a similar challenge for himself by trying to fly an RC plane nonstop for as long as he could, and a whole series of interesting situations have arisen before. and during the flight.

In order for an RC airplane to fly for an entire day, it essentially needs to be powered by solar energy. A lot of strategy goes into a design like this. On the one hand, the shape of the wing must be efficient in flight but not reduce the area available for the solar panels. On the other hand, the start time of the flight must be balanced with the position of the sun in the sky. With these variables more or less fixed, [Daniel] began his flight.

It started out pretty well, with the plane in autonomous "return home" mode that allowed it to continuously circle overhead without direct human control. But after taking a break to fly it in FPV mode, [Daniel] noticed that its battery voltage was extremely high. It turned out that the solar charge controller was not working as expected and was directing a large amount of solar power directly into the battery. He landed and immediately pulled out the "spicy pillow" to avoid any kind of non-linear event. With a new battery in the plane, he started the flight again.

Even after all of this, [Daniel] still had some issues with the aerodynamic nature of this particular plane. There were some issues with the wind, and with the flight controller not recognizing the correct “home” position, but overall it seems like a fun day to fly an airplane. If your idea of ​​"pleasure" is to sit and watch occasionally for eight and a half hours. For more on [Daniel's] long-term autonomous piloting, be sure to check out his solar tug as well.

Thanks to [timrb] for the tip!