Todd Horn AT 409: C-Astrals' Bramor Demonstration

For a special treat, we had the honor of listening to a presentation of the CEO of C-Astral. He gave a very informative presentation of his experience leading up to C-Astral and the companies achievements. He talked mainly about what the platform at C-Astral can do. We were even able to see what was up and coming to the C-Astral fleet. The Bramor is a flying wing perfect for any consumer interested in flying commercially. Further down this report you will pictures of the Bramor. After the presentation we had the special opportunity to get to meet this aircraft. The test flight was to be done at Martell Forest. It was going to be a simple mapping mission, mainly to show the class the pre-flight check list and the professionalism behind larger commercial operations. The previous UAS classes had checklists, but for 3DR solos and simple slow sticks. Which contained a maximum of 10 steps or so. This bulky checklist had around 60 steps, quite a step up from the 3DR's.
When we all first arrived we were watching Evan and Pete performing the pre-flight checklist. The ground control station (GCS) was already set up. We all watched as Evan and Pete carefully performed the pre-flight checklist. The checklist was more involved than previous ones we had done. The person reading the checklist off was to listen for a certain verbal cue to move on. Depending on what was checked off, the person physically checking would say check, clear, rubbers on, etc... for different actions. Since pictures speak a thousand words, the post will now show what we as a class got to experience.

Upon arriving at Martell, the first thing we saw was C-Astrals Bramor. Roughly 4 feet in wingspan and less than half of that front to back, the flying wing had a good size to it. Asking Marko (C-Astral CEO) about the airframe design and material, he said it was made of Kevlar and reinforced fiberglass. Looking into the airframe you could also see carbon fiber.

To the left, Dr. Hupy (far right with the boonie hat) and Pete (far left with the boonie hat) troubleshooting an issue with the Bramor. Still performing the pre-flight checklist. Looking closely, just aft of the midsection of the flying wing you can see a red box like figure. This is the parachute, the Bramors only method of landing (safely).

After performing all pre-flight checklist items, the Bramor was now ready to fly. The bungee assisted catapult launch was ready and sprung back. With the release of a button the Bramor would be launched into the air to begin its mapping mission.

This video is the Bramor as it is being launched, as you can see the catapult is very powerful. In less than a second it is accelerated from the catapult into flight.

The Bramor has a very interesting method of landing. And that is a parachute. This method of recovery is used sometimes in applications but more rarely. The software used can roughly give users a good estimate of where the aircraft will land after parachute deployment to ensure the aircraft is not landing in hazardous or less than desirable terrain.

While we were there we were also able to watch a flight of the hexacopter there. While not C-Astral's airframe, it was still a very interesting airframe. One very cool sensor this airframe had was a thermal imagery sensor. There are no photos of this due to the environment causing to much reflection but seeing this sensor in action was very interesting. The hexacopter was flown to get thermal imagery of the field. Below are a few photos of it.