On December 4th, Boeing Experimental Flight took the AL-37 airplane to Central Iowa Aeromodelers for flight testing. After fixing some quick issues with the control surfaces we took the aircraft onto the runway. The goal was to gather data and results on the energy consumption of the current setup we had. The aircraft successfully took off from the runway.

The AL-37 mid-flight on December 4th, 2021

The aircraft flew for 5 minutes and 40 seconds before we brought it back onto the ground. We utilized a 22.2V 6S (6-cell) 30C Spektrum battery during the flight. The battery was left with 3.1 V/cell and cut power soon after landing.

Left to right: Team members with the AL-37 aircraft at Central Iowa Aeromodelers

In Spring 2022 we will investigate using a better battery, such as a 70C battery, or implementing dual batteries into the aircraft. We will also conduct more flight tests in Spring to gather data with the PixHawk, which was not fully operational by the time of the initial flight. A flight report was constructed to report the results of the flight.

BEF_Flight_Report