https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuQ-onbtLSE

Kawamura-san (a teacher at the Drone Japan school and overall smart guy) did a demonstration in Obihiro Hokkaido a couple of weeks ago of ArduPilot flying an E-flight convergence.

This frame is very reasonably priced and quite impressive to see. At least two people have flown it successfully so there's enough experience now that others should be able to replicate the build without too much trouble.

Here's some more (hopefully) helpful links:

Here is the ArduPilot monthly update for July 2017 which Tridge and I and a few other developers presented to our Partner companies this morning.

As a side note, the overall Partners program is going quite well. After just 10 months we have 31 partners and aside from the financial support their annual donations provide (which is used to fund the less glorious work required to keep the team ticking over), the engagement through the monthly Partners calls gives the dev team additional insight into what companies require and helps find areas where we can combine efforts.

Thanks very much to our Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiuYE7tEMUo

We have recently added a few new features to Rover especially skid-steering rovers (i.e. R2D2 or tank track style frames). This work was started by Tridge's work for the California MakerFaire a month or two ago. This video and the one below show a couple of improvements we've made including:

improved handling when the outputs to the motors become saturated. For example if the driver (or autopilot) requests full throttle and full right it's not possible for both to be achieved. Previously we always prioritised throttle meaning the vehicle would continue at at speed but with very little turn authority. A recent change is to balance that so that both throttle and steering are reduced equally.
addition ... Read more

https://youtu.be/sJ5zR-XHsWc

When a friend offered me a HobbyKing Dark Wing, I jumped at the opportunity to build my first quadplane. Being a bit smaller than an X8 and constructed of a fibreglass fuselage with balsa wings, it seemed like a great opportunity to try building something other than a foamy. It was an interesting build but it ended up weighing 6Kg which which was a bit heavy for it's size. So armed with this experience I ordered a Skywalker X8 for part two of my quadplane adventures. If you need slow flying with plenty of lift and long flight time, then the X8 is a good choice.

There are a few build examples of X8 quadplanes from other members that I have watched with interest. The ... Read more