GWS Slow Stick FPV 2018

© Mark Qvale - September, 2018

	New/Old plane!

Introduction

Wow, it's been a long time!
Back in 2004 I bought a GWS Slow Stick just to have something to fly around in my neighborhood which was full of very large Cedar and Fir trees. I figured this plane would fly slow enough so that I could avoid said trees. For this it worked well but I soon got bored as my LOS view of the area was really limited. I then set about to see if there was a camera available that could be used to send pictures to my laptop or an old TV and wouldn't you know I found one for $25 that was a camera and transmitter all-in-one package.

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It came with a receiver that had a simple RCA video output that worked on an old 15" TV I had. The only specs on this system were (as I remember):

Video TX

Frequency - ~1200mHz

Power - 25mw

Voltage - 9v

Video RX

Voltage - 9v

System range - 100m

Both the Transmitter and the Receiver came with 9v battery snap connectors so that is what I used.

I strapped this to the Slow Stick facing down and forward. Connected the RX to the TV on an extension cord on my driveway, saw that it was working and took off! Recording was originally made on a VHS VCR and later transfered to digital.

For me, this is when my FPV experience began...

First FPV Video!

Moving Forward

Over the next pile of years I constantly modified this plane to take a wide assortment of cameras for recording. Some were just point and shoot types, some were hacked "personal" video cameras and at one point I was carrying a camera payload of more than one pound (.5 kg)!

At one point, my wife and I moved to a lakefront home so I put on GWS floats and had a great time flying this guy off and on the water. After a few years I just put it up "on the wall" to be played with at some future point.

2018

Back in 2009 I found another Slow Stick in a garage sale. It was still in an un-opened box so I picked it up remmembering the great fun I had with this little plane but I never did anything with the new one...until now...

A couple of weeks back, while doing some shop cleaning I happened on this un-openned kit and decided to throw it together just for fun as I have a couple of friends that really want to give RC a try and I thought this would be about the easiest plane they could start on. I still have the original one although it is very faded and pretty beat up.

The old one still has the GWS floats, an old 400-5-16 Mega brushless outrunner and a pile of LED strip lights (for night flying over the lake!).

On the new one I have put a very old AstroFlite Mighty Micro 010 brushless in-runner coupled to a 4.1:1 gear set to give it power on par with the original power set-ups GWS used to offer.

The Slow Stick Experience

Wow, what a flyer! AUW with a 3500mAh/3S Li-ion and the camera pod I buit is 21oz (595g). The wing area is huge for a plane of this weight at 3.51ft^2 (32.6dm^2) which gives an astounding wing load of 5.98oz/ft^2 (18.3g/dm^2)!!!

The huge tail surfaces and great wing make it easy to fly very slow, slow enough in fact that you could easily walk faster. The first time I flew it I simply started laughing as, in a 2-3mph headwind, it took off in about 3ft with a groundspeed of no more than 3 or 4mph and just climbed. It was so easy to fly and the dihedryl created an almost impossible to crash plane because of how stable it all was. Here is a short video of the maiden:

September 2018 Maiden Video!

The only thing left to do now is add an OSD and an HD camera so my buds can get some real FPV video :).

A Final Word

Upon some investigation I see this plane is no longer made and this is a bit depressing as it is an incredible basis for learning about RC building AND flying. I know folks are trying to promote education and this is exactly the type of platform that would bring real joy to this kind of learning experience.