SweepWings Juggernaut FPV Wing

Here we go again……

The background on this review…..

                If you saw my last review on the VUEXL goggles I had said I picked up my Juggernaut wing at Flitefest 2015. So I figured I might as well do a review on the plane as well as my first fixed wing FPV experience. On that note let’s get started!

 Let’s talk about flying the plane

       On Friday I hooked up with Jeremiah, the owner of StoneBlue Airlines, and we started to get the wing ready to fly LOS. That meant using a computer to program the Eagle Tree Vector. A quick note for all you perspective owners of a Vector. We found out that a notebook size laptop can not run the Vector program properly. Something about the screen size of the notebooks do not allow the program to scroll down so you can save the settings. I had to borrow Peter’s laptop to get my wing programmed. Watching Jeremiah program my Taranis and get everything setup in Vector was mind blowing. He’s done it so many times he probably could have done it blindfolded. We had programmed two switches to control the flight modes in the Vector. First switch was controlling the flight stabilizing modes and the other was for loiter and return to home (RTH).  Once that was done out we went to the flight line.

                On the flight line Jeremiah explained what he was planning to do and how to throw the wing. Time to remind you all again that I have NEVER flown a wing of this caliber before. Most I was able to side arm launch with no issues. The Juggernaut is a little bigger then the Versa or a Popwing. This meant I had to toss this thing up over my head. The instructions I got was to throw it up in a straight line at a 45 to 50 degree angle, don’t pull over my head, yada yada yada……. First toss wasn’t that great. Second was better. I will take some practice but I will get it. Now if you need to see what this looks like……. See the below picture.

I still say he just kicked a wing through one of the FPV gates and is calling the extra point good.

                The maiden flight went pretty smooth but the wing needed some adjustment. Jeremiah landed, we manually adjusted the control surfaces and up it went again. In this flight it only need a couple more turns on the control horns and it was pretty well set. The third flight was where we just added a little trim on the radio and it flew locked in. At this point Jeremiah passed me the Taranis and I was flying my wing. To say the Juggernaut is a big wing is an understatement when you see it in the sky against the other foamies in the sky. I was giving everyone plenty of room but they stayed well away from me. Jeremiah had me watch the glide slope on this wing and it was amazing. We did that a couple times before I finally brought it in. Once on the ground I was relieved, excited, terrified all at the same time. I am sure everyone has felt like that before!

                Saturday was the day I was most scared of. Time to fly FPV. This time we were in front of the SBA trailer because I had to be near the FPV flight line. I had my 15 minuets signed up in the FPV tent and away we went. Matt finally got to see this thing fly and played spotter for us. Jeremiah and I were using our VUEXL goggles and I was having a blast….. till I was handed the remote. Once things were tuned and tested I had control. Did you know regular wide band Adidas flip flops will not prevent the average FPV Pilots foot from grabbing the ground? Ok that is a stretch but it sure felt like it. I was flying all over the field and was terrified, but ecstatic at the same time. Only had a couple signal issues on the video but nothing that prevented me from coming out from under my goggles. I lost video a couple times but it quickly came back. Don’t know why but thank god it did. We tried all of the settings in the vector to male sure the radio was properly programmed. While flying the 2D flight mode, it felt like this wing is on rails! When you add the altitude hold it gives you break to adjust anything besides the controller. RTH was cool. The plane came right back to us and then went into loiter mode when it came close to the take off area. I finally had enough and brought the wing in for a landing. Everything was going fine till about 40 feet off the deck and the video dropped out on me. But thanks to Jeremiah, my son and Matt I was able to take the commands and land it flawlessly. I had so much fun flying like that but I did not want to push my luck. Now that I have told you all about the flights I guess it’s time to start talking about the building of wing SBA did for me.

 The build pics…

Thats the wing in all its glory!!!!!

Below is the GoPro/board cam mount. As you can see that is not a GoPro. It is the new YI HD camera. The Board Cam is the Sony 600tvl with control board. 

Here is the battery compartment. It houses the two SBA Jet Fuel 4200 mAh as seen in the picture and the Vector with the OSD. I have not flown it yet to see how long it can stay in the air but that will happen soon.

Here is my reciever I am using. If I remember correctly Matt set it up for using the sbus on it and it made the wiring super clean.

I don't think I need to say what that is. The only thing is the way it is mounted the channel selector is on the bottom so I am stuck on CH1. If I want to switch it I will have pull it out and then either recover it with packing tape or secure it to the plane some how.

The Cobra ESC and the EMAX motor. The cool thing is Matt pulls the "C" clip on pusher modes so when the plane lands if the prop catches the ground the motor bell can pull off reducing the risk of prop breakage.

Here is the motor mount and the CG marks.

These silver things are adheasive backed weights. It only took three layers to get the CG perfect.

Here is the GPS. I did not add the pitot tube for two reasons, I don't own one and second they will turn into a sharp object to catch things or make core samples of the ground. 

Final thoughts

     So there it is. Matt did an outstanding job building it and kept me up to date quite often. He really takes pride in these builds. He told me a couple tricks that he uses for painting and what he did on the build. He did not want to let go of this plane. It came out so nice, so slick, I hope I never do any real damage to it. but for now I am excited just to have it. I'll try and get a few more flights on it, get some video with the YI camera to see how well it really does, and just increase my FPV time under a set of goggles.

Post your questions and or comments and I will do my best to reply.

Thanks for reading