The Flight Coach is a family of software tools designed to precisely log and review a flight of a remote controlled model. It has been initially developed for precision aerobatic RC pilots and judges with the aim of making the sport more objective. Current version supports a variety of remote control aircraft sports including F3A, IMAC, Helis, etc. and general flying. It relies on a fantastic Ardupilot project (hardware and software) developed and managed by the Ardupilot community. The software is an open source licensed with business application restrictions (link to license). This project does not support full size aircrafts.

Application involves installing inexpensive GPS and attitude tracking hardware in the aircraft, then post processing the data on the ground to provide feedback. Hardware modules are commercially available from third parties (see hardware)

The Plotter – The key output of the Flight Coach project is the Plotter, which displays a 3D interactive visualisation of the recorded data tailored to the needs of aerobatic pilots. Best way to experience it first time is to open one of the templates using a Template button. You can also see a real flight demo demo flight download link – right click on the link, select “Save link as”  and save this file to your PC, then open the plotter (also a link is along the top menu of this website), select ‘Open Flight’ and load the saved file.

The FCScore – FCScore brings an advanced automatic judging process into aerobatics. The application use the flight data recorded in Ardupilot dataflash log files and Flight Coach JSON files and undertakes entirely deterministic automatic judging process based on the rules for the relevant aerobatic category, allowing you to see exactly how every score is calculated and hence how to improve your flying. Alongside the judging process, FCScore includes a flight data and score sharing platform. This means that FCScore offers the new possibility of registering world records in aerobatics. We encourage all pilots to share as many flights as possible as we can use this to improve the judging process in the future.

The Map – Flight Coach Map (FCMap) is an addon that will assist pilots in locating a competition box at a site. It takes the site Pilot and Center positions and draws the box angle lines as well as the outline of a box on a map background (Google Maps Satellite and Streets view. Currently supported competition styles are F3A (default), IMAC and F3S

The Judge – Flight Coach Judge (FCJudge) is an addon that will assist pilots in judging recorded flights. It animates the recorded flight with realistic graphics with minimal computer prompts and allows to enter a score for each maneuver. Currently supported competition styles are F3A. It may be used for a ‘manual’ judging, automated judging is performed by FCScore.

The FCGeo – Flight Coach Geo (FCGeo) is an addon that draws the pre-recorded flight ribbon within the geospatial environment that includes terrain information. It has been designed to orientate the pilot within the visual surroundings of the site.

Research – Some of the work we do as part of the Flight Coach project is quite novel and useful to the wider aerospace community. Our first publication ‘Enabling the Automated Assessment of Precision Aerobatic Manoeuvres’ was presented at the AIAA Conference in January 2022.