The plane flew pretty damn good today. : ) I'm very excited about this. I reset the failsafe and it seemed to work on the ground, but I didn't try it in the air. I thought you should see the file first and let me know.

It was windy, 15mph or so with 30mph guests. Trimmed it out first flight. 2nd flight went to aided mode and flew well in low throttle, part and high throttle. It does seem to climb too high though for me…. I think you said 400' right? Maybe that will be ok with FPV and in the mountains but LOS, it's pretty damn high. I think I also engaged loiter on the 2nd flight and it just circled like it should. Very cool.

The 3rd flight I engaged return to home and land and it did great even with the wind. I didn't let it land and took control at 15' in manual mode.

Due to the wind I'm not sure if we need to retrim or change anything but I'm thorough impressed so far.

WORKED AS ADVERTISED! I didn't do a lot except circles in aided mode because it was pretty gusty and was getting batted around like a butterfly. I would say it was working hard to hold altitude in any steeper turn but of course the gusts were a factor. ...

.... TOTALLY SATISFIED WITH RUBY!

I think I had the elevator and CG off a little bit and when I launched manual with full throttle, it would go into a nose up stall and since I was close to the ground and not comfortable where it was I trusted ruby and bam! She took over and made it look just fantastic in the air.

[radian pro]

I saw a few flight conditions today where I just waited for a stall, spiral of death or whatever leading to a crash. I had always my finger on the switch to manual but nothing happened. Ruby ruled the situation always, just incredible.

"Awesome performance during long range. In aided mode it seems much more efficient than manual flying."

"Awesome product Jim, I'm glad to own some. ... I love my Ruby! :-)"

"Just wanted to let you know how much fun I've been having with the plane. Ruby has been working flawlessly. The "come home" feature saved me once already when I was flying over Casco Bay in Portland. I wanted to get up nice and high to do some aerial video of the islands and harbor. I lost sight of the plane and activated the "come home" auto pilot feature. Although after 3 minutes of nervously waiting, the plane controlled by Ruby reappeared on its way back to me. It was windy so Ruby was piloting along slowly towards me."

[Note: In return to home and other autonomous modes, Ruby will automatically increase airspeed as necessary to ensure that the plane will make at least 10 knots groundspeed headway in strong headwinds, and it will crab into the wind as to ensure a straight, direct course to home.]

...got the model into a jackpot and only barely got the switch into auto....less than 10' left as far as altitude....though there was plenty 'above' <grin>....Ruby just turned on a dime and went straight up, cleared the nearby trees by doing so, too!

.. I think you are due major Cudo's developing a system that a novice can use.....once I got the hang of just holding the ailerons over and using throttle for altitude.....the entire process was a snap.....and without Ruby, that little ship would now be in bits.

.....it will be YEARS until I make a landing approach as smooth...

Everything seemed fine after the first flight. On the second flight I re-read the instructions and tried flying in aided mode after getting up in the air. It was definitely interesting but not very intuitive for me and I really didn't like it much, but that's just me. I'm thinking the aided mode might come into play a whole lot more with my zephyr wing that I've had an incredibly difficult time getting up in the air (about a dozen hand launch attempts to date, only one successful).

.... Hi Jim - I got to fly the Merlin both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend and I had a lot more fun with it after getting your feedback on my maiden flights and starting to understand it a little more.

The X-5 would not fly without the Ruby being in at least aided mode.

I started out trying to launch in manual mode. 2 different launches, 2 out of control crashes.
Here is the good news... I decided to put it aided mode and launch 1 more time, and it flew
and it was better then the last time. I was surprised it flew at all. when I switched to manual mode it started to fall out of the sky... I flipped the switch and Ruby pulled up and it flew again. I tried manual one more time and down it came. I did not try to save it this time.
Not much damage to the plane, it just will not fly... no damage to anything else.

[Note: Ruby can often make it possible to fly a plane that is difficult or impossible to fly manually, but we still recommend doing all you can to make the plane flies well manually. In particular, be sure that the center of gravity is properly located, and do all that you can to minimize weight / wing loading..]

"Just wanted to let you know that I went flying yesterday and tried some of Ruby's capabilities.

I've been having problems hand launching my Sky Surfer so decided to let Ruby handle the launch. It went great, no problems what so ever. I also tried return to home and loiter - again, it did exactly what it was supposed to do.

The last thing I tried was to let Ruby land the plane. It was almost flawless. It landed about 50 feet short but it was a thing of beauty.

With the help of Ruby I can let my young grandkids (ages 6, 8, and 10) fly and also my brother who suffers from a stroke.

I am really having fun with it. Thanks so much for all your help."

... "I decided to Fly my Mentor and let [my friend] fly it. He's never flown ,so this was going to be a test of the Ruby, let someone whom never used RC control the plane. He did very well, after shaking off the nerves, he had no problem moving it in the sky! That's a credit to you and your product. I flew quite a few times now and just love it! Great Product!"

"I actually watched a model do something I have never seen before, fly by itself. I had several minutes in both modes. Very stable. I did the 3 clicks in Auto Mode, and sure enough, it starts to hunt is way back. Unbelieveable! And AMAZING! .... Very very cool.........well done!"

.... "This is the coolest thing I have ever done in my whole model experience. I've been flying models since 1956. This thing is an amazing tool. Wow! To have a system on board that can fly yur plane for you has the potential to save a lot of situations."

(See Bud's [complete email] describing his experience with Ruby's autonomous landing capability.)

"Took Ruby to the club field for a demo today. All went well and everyone was quite impressed."

... "We have one member who is 80+ he has been in the hobby for 70 years and a member of our club for 30. ... I engaged aided mode and handed him the transmitter He started his first turn and tried to hand back the transmitter like he always does but I had moved behind him. I told him stay with it and it will hold the altitude. I swear I have never seen someone shake so bad. a couple turns later he stopped shaking and was zipping up and down the field. He flew for about 5 min and I took it back and landed. I think he had about the biggest smile I have ever seen."

... "We hosted a 4H group last weekend at our field and I let each of the parents fly the twinstar with the Ruby. I simply engaged aided mode and altitude lock and they each flew it for about 4 min. the only input from me was making sure they didnt overfly the pits.I have a photo of a father with 4 min total airtime teaching his 5 yr old to fly."

... "Have had many flights on the Ruby since we last talked. It is totally solid. I can hand it to anyone in aided mode and they fly like a pro.

... "I have about 20 auto landings and all but one have hit the runway. It misses touching down at home by about 100 - 150 ft pretty much every time.It has however hit the runway every time. It even did a downwind landing and touched down on the white line 300 ft from home and 6 feet from the end of the runway."

"Ruby Saved my Plane! Put the FPV gear in and damn near lost the whole works... Put the new FPV Tx in and a new cloverleaf antenna and I don't like it, signal dropped completely out. so I did not panic (much) flipped the switch 2 times and waited... I moved closer to my ground station, was 75ft away, watched the goggles and every now and then I could see the sun and the lake. so I knew it was still flying. then I started thinking that I should not be looking south east if I am coming home. so I moved my patch antenna to face north west... and what do you know the video came back. and the plane was all most directly above me on its way home. .... Auto land worked with a little help. I let it come in as long as I could with the goggles off. then I put the goggles on and saw it was doing just fine. that is until it got about 5 foot off the ground then it just kept flying. I cut the power and it set down nicely. "

I had several successful test flights today, and I am very pleased by the results

... "I was very impressed by the performance today."

"Ruby was flawless!! Stability is perfect. Landings occur within a 10 yard radius of home position. ... Ruby is awesome and very stable. I can't wait for my 11 year old son, and his 12 year old friend to fly! "

... "I did some "panic" testing by putting the plane in a manual spiral and then switch to augmented mode. Recovery is excellent, and Ruby does a great job in returning to level flight."

... " I did not expect so much interest from this hobby group, but they love the idea of training with a big plan with Ruby as the "instructor pilot." I did some examples of "recovery from unusual attitudes" using Ruby as a panic switch. The Ruby recovery is just awesome every time! "

"I'm still giddy being able to watch Ruby fly on her own...I just love it:)"

... "All is well...I had a great couple of flights with Ruby - I think I'm in LOVE!"