Training with a QuestUAV 200 In Finland

At the beginning of this year I entered an interesting email discussion with Romi Rancken, a senior lecturer in Finland. He was thinking about leaving his current work at Novia University in Finland  and studying the forests and archipelago of Southern Finland using UAVs (rotary and fixed wing) as part of his set of research tools. 

We threw a few ideas around, but they all seemed quite challenging, either involving lots of trees or lots of water… neither of which are particularly healthy for UAVs.  Trees can generate huge turbulence and wind shear, whilst large bodies of water or sea leave any UAV pilot feeling slightly uncomfortable unless … um … whatever … there is so much not to desire flying over the sea! Living on the North Sea coast in Northumberland UK I’ve done a lot of UAV flying by/over the sea and lost a couple of  UAVs there. Total write-off; the UAV may survive but the salt kills everything pretty soon afterwards.

Anyway, as I write this blog I’ve just come back from a great few days in Finland, living with Romi and his wife Tuula, and flying around the forests of Southern Finland. We all agree that at times it was tough and challenging!  I’m sure Romi occasionally have wondered what he had let himself in for. I wondered too, but at least I had great faith in the QuestUAV 200 and it’s ability to handle a breathtaking amount of violence, and still live.  My faith was well placed.

Romi, Jon and George with the 1990 Novia UAV
and the QuestUAV 200

Prior to our arrival, Romi, an experienced forester, wanted to operate from a clearing that is in the heart of his University research area. My instincts put me decidedly on edge operating so close to trees and in a relatively small clearing.  To the inexperienced eye, a 200m x 250m clearing would seem fine as a flyng site, especially with the protection at ground level from the winds. As it turned out, the winds and turbulence would be considerably worse than expected.

Our arrival to Helsinki was in torrential rain and the forecast wasn’t brilliant with more rain and winds expected throughout our short stay. The first night of our arrival I introduced Romi to the simulator and we spent a couple of hours working on flying, perspective, take-offs and landing. 

A quick 3d ortho created from100+
images on a very windy flight

The simulator is a key piece of training, complete with a QuestUAV aircraft to fly around and get to know the transmitter. Whilst the QuestUAV is an autonomous beast and will do all the flying itself, like many other sUAV’s, its unwise to leave every situation for the UAV flight systems to sort out.  Some things will happen (bad planning, weather change, unexpected winds or turbulence etc) that the intervention of a pilot, if only for a few seconds, might save the day.  Of Romi’s crew (including a Russian businessman/researcher called George Rybakov) I thought that one of them would have some previous RC experience.  I didnt pick up that the these skills didnt exist before arriving in Finland and our normal process in UK of sending a simulator and transmitter a few weeks ahead of the main delivery didnt happen.  Little did we know we were going to step into such a tough training scenario with  a difficult flying field, rough weather and inexperienced flyers,

Day one was classroom training and an introduction to the equipment with flying in the afternoon.  Classroom training was standard – lots of information to take in, lots of questions to answer and lots of interest in the whole process.  When we arrived at the flying site, it was agreed that the wind was too strong for Romi/George to operate in, but just within limits for us to operate in. I saw trees in the distance being affected by winds in a way that I didn’t like and gave that unease in my stomach. However the forecast wasn’t expecting to get any better and it was the “well we are here now” decision that won.  We launched. Thankfully the QuestUAV is such a tough beast because it got pounded and thrown around in the turbulence and winds like nothing on earth.  Jon and I thought at one stage the wings would break off the turbulence was so strong. It was almost impossible at times for us to operate in manual mode and assisted mode was essential to provide the rapid responses required for stable flight. Unbelievably the flight returned a load of good photographs and a test DTM was produced from the hundred or so images taken.

A typical single image.  Lots of trees!

Day two brought the opposite weather – calm winds brought about through heavy rain. A publicity shoot with local news and papers was forecast around lunchtime.  The interviews brought a lot of interest in the new technology and Romi's intentions for them, and our fame was soon to hit the front pages of the local newspapers, despite not a single take off or landing happening. It also gave us time to try out a new concept in turbulence assessment.  The recovery poles became very tall windsocks. This allowed a much clearer assessment of how the wind was moving and twisting through the clearing. Even in the lights winds the tapes would be completely in opposition to each other showing strong windshear and rotors.  

Windpoles showing varying winds,
even in light winds

With the press through and a clearance coming we finally got onto proper training with Romi and George practising launches, take offs, autonomous flight and landings. The site was a former landfill that had been compacted to a hard, wet surface. So landings were muddy and hard too and the UAV got covered in a layer of wet mud and grit, but the new crew got in sufficient practice to be able to autonomously take off and land the QuestUAV.  It would have been good to spend more time on the hands-on flying, but the conditions and circumstances were all pretty much working against us. The concept we have of the QuestUAV being akin to a Landrover rather than a Lamborghini held true. Any damage from the day was repairable with the minimum of tools and experience. Tape and superglue repairs ended up with a UAV even stronger than it arrived and ready for more action.

Romi launching

We all learnt so much on this trip that would take pages to write about. The two and a half days packed in a huge amount and there was an agreement with all of us on a number of things. Firstly, the turbulence, wind and weather conditions were something we had no control over but choosing a better flying site would have had much better results.  Secondly, our recurring theme of “training needs to take more than two days, and it needs to be done on our own turf”, held true.  This was our first foreign training and a lack of familiar training facilities made quality training hard to achieve. And thirdly …  and most importantly, the QuestUAV is incredibly tough, easily repairable, and produces excellent imagery under the harshest of conditions.

We look forward to Romi and George's results in the weeks ahead...

And from Romi...

"I read your blog - it's a nice description of your experiences here and lessons learnt! 


Being a QuestUAV customer means that you don't only get the ordinary, correct and smooth treatment you could expect from a seller, but you also get a feeling of being a co-developer of a novel technology in a team of enthusiastic people.


We had two successful flights in Västankvarn on Tuesday with very good landings. We flew at 80 meters and the imagery was good. Next time we will fly at 110m for better mosaics."