Automatic Landings with the V-Tail Pusher - Setup & Flight

Ajouté : 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]In this video, I'm trying out an automated landing feature I'm setting up through INF to try and have my plane land itself on this narrow asphalt road.

[00:00:09]It's available for INF fixed wing airplanes now since it came out with the INF 7.1 firmware around 1 and a half to two years ago. You're able to select your landing spot called the safe home and customize different landing directions, approach altitude, speed, and a couple more settings. Well, in a nutshell, the feature basically works like this. After reaching safe home during return to home, the airplane corrects itself to the approach altitude and circles for at least 30 seconds to determine wind direction and strength.

[00:00:37]And based on those calculations, it'll determine its approach way points and landing direction. If the landing mode is initiated, the aircraft flies the downwind course and then turns into the base leg descended to 2/3 of the approach altitude. At the final approach, engine power is reduced for a lower descent speed towards the land or glide altitude. When the glide altitude is reached, the motor is turned off while the airplane holds your preset glide angle and descends until touchdown. With the additional flare angle after glide angle, it allows your plane to flare or pitch up one more time before touchdown. But this is only if you have a LAR or rangefinder sensor present. As soon as the landing is detected by the flight controller, the plane is disarmed by the flight controller. itself and the landing mission was successful. There are guides on the internet that show you how to set it up, but I'll leave the video that helped me out by Panos 360 in the description.

[00:01:57]My gosh, these motors are angry.

[00:02:05]I think when it reaches the road.

[00:02:09]Yeah, approximately there.

[00:02:13]Now it's in its cross leg and then it'll do its final turn.

[00:02:20]Then about right here, it'll want to try and land itself.

[00:02:31]Yeah, that looks bad. Nope.

[00:02:36]Does it?

[00:02:38]Yeah, I'm taking off from that.

[00:02:44]After landing the airplane, I loaded the EPROM from the flight controller and changed the safe home distance to the right and went for another try cross.

[00:03:09]I really hope this is the one. I really hope the coordinates are somewhat aligned with the runway. Even though on the INAV map they are a bit offc center, but uh this should look promising.

[00:03:28]The feature actually works really great, but it's just the coordinates that uh need to be more precise. Now, I'm going to move the dot according to the map.

[00:03:37]like I think all the way over here in this location or maybe I dare myself and do it over that tiny creek over there.

[00:03:46]And this hopefully uh should make the plane land exactly where I want it to land, which is on this uh concrete road.

[00:04:05]This is looking promising.

[00:04:10]Yeah, it's still deviating, but this is looking very good.

[00:04:18]Look at that.

[00:04:20]What a landing. This is its first proper landing. So, now it is finally time to attach this guy to the airplane.

[00:05:06]Hey, this should be it.

[00:05:20]Hey, what a landing.

[00:05:54]I'm not doing a thing, Guys, I want to see if it actually works to have the plane activated for automated launch and then have return to home automated landing right after the all launch. Let's see if that works cuz then I would only launch the plane by hand and won't have to touch the transmitter and the plane would just come back right at me.

[00:06:56]Yeah, indeed. The plane is climbing.

[00:06:59]Still didn't touch the transmitter, guys. This is the plane all by itself.

[00:07:08]Shoot.

[00:07:12]Ouch.

[00:07:14]Well, mission complete. Probably should uh take the battery out and then uh plug it right back in because maybe there is uh some barometer offset because it didn't flare anymore. Let's have that launch procedure right after launch.

[00:07:30]It's going to land itself right back at me.

[00:07:45]Yep. Throttling up to climb at uh return to home altitude.

[00:07:52]It's a boomerang with a Vtail, guys. And it's using GPS to guide itself. It's time to head back. The mosquitoes are out. Shoot.

[00:08:04]Transmitter is still untouched.

[00:08:07]Hopefully there's no barometer drift anymore because I plug the battery out and then back in. So, the barometer should be calibrated.

[00:08:18]Here comes the VTEL pusher.

[00:08:29]This time is a bit in the grass.

[00:08:32]It's a bit weird because the plane was now a bit more accurate of finding the plane point I had set up in mission control which was like all the way over there. Uh previous time it landed as you guys saw more to the asphalt and also more to the left hand side of the road relative to its uh approach but this time it just landed itself here in the grass. Uh probably could be a GPS thing as well. It's just a standard B&B 180 GPS. It only had 11 satellites, but with a broader road or uh much nicer grass fields, uh this airplane and your airplane as well, if configured right, should autonomously land with no problem at all.

[00:09:40]Oh, nice.