Wk12 Fall 2020

Introduction

This week flight crew 1 partook in a maintenance on the Bramor PPx platform, attempted to conduct a test flight of the repaired aircraft, and made plans for a large-scale flight operation to be conducted the following week.

Tuesday (11/10) - Bramor PPx Repair and Flight Test

Bramor Parachute Servo 

As stated in previous reports, the classes Bramor PPx aircraft had been out of service due to a malfunctioning servo which controlled the parachute hatch. In summary the servo had suffered an over voltage failure which burned a hole through the outer casing of the servo and damaging the internal components rendering the servo inoperable. The repair process had been delayed several times due to poor customer service on the part of the manufacturer; involving delays in obtaining a replacement servo as well as poorly defined maintenance procedures to replacing and servicing the servo once it had arrived. Above is a photo of the servo slot. Once the replacement servo arrived it was discovered that the new servo mounting arms did not fit in the aircraft. The manufacturers recommendation was to force the new servo into place, this repair was done, albeit to the flight crews' apprehension. It was also discovered earlier that the aircraft needed to be fully assembled in order to step down the voltage to the servo so that the same failure does not occur again. This process must be done in order to service the parachute hatch servo; John has made note of this for use in improved maintenance procedures later. Once this repair was completed and the required maintenance log entry had been made, flight crew 1 made ready to take the bramor out to the Martell forest area for a test flight. 

The test flight was conducted with William Weldon acting as remote PIC, Kaleb Gould as FO, John Cox as SO, and Jeff Hines acting as an additional VO. The primary focus of the flight test was to check the functionality of the newly installed parachute hatch servo. The flight was to take place at the northern edge of the Martel forest area, at an altitude of ~120m as to avoid another flight crew flying a mission with the M600. William as PIC made the call to scrub the flight due to worsening weather conditions with a worsening forecast. While the servo did work in the lab while it was on the ground it is important to note that the aircraft cannot be returned to service without a test flight being performed. The test flight has been postponed to a later date pending weather conditions. 

Monday/On-going: Martel Forest Large Scale Operation

As this semester approaches its end and the weather conditions become increasingly unfavorable the push to get in as many flights as possible is upon us. To this end, Kaleb started organizing a large-scale flight operation to take place Friday/Saturday next week over the Martel forest area. The goal of the operation will be to map the entirety of the forest. This will be accomplished by using two flight teams, one flying the Bramor over the northern half of the forest while a second flight team operating the M600 will cover the southern half of the forest. The operation will consist of 8 flights with 3 flown by the Bramor and 5 by the M600. The Bramor team will consist of Kaleb, Zach, and Willaim; and the M600 team will be John and Jeff. This operation will be the largest and most complex we have undertaken to date as a flight crew and will involve many new aspects to us on the operational side of things, such as logistics, transportation, and communications between the 2 flight groups. The specifics of the operational are still being planned and finalized and a more comprehensive overview of the operation will be available in the following week. Below is the organizational board currently set up for mission planning.

Mission Planning Board