This last holiday weekend I got the opportunity to drive up to Mesa and fly with my brother. This is kind of a big deal, not really but it was fun. I live just south of Tucson and typically fly by myself. I don't have nor will I ever get a Facebook account. Yes I have Google+ but don't use it much. Anyways I have no one to fly with. Why do I want someone to fly with you ask? Well, it's just better to sit and chat, laugh at crashes and just plain hang out and talk quad-copter stuff with someone other then yourself. I'm not a very good conversationalist with myself. I have no problems talking to myself I just don't usually get any response so it's typically a one sided conversation.
I had a great time, flew about 8 out of my 10 batteries, my brother only flew 7, mainly because he crashed pretty hard and broke two of his arms. It'll be kind of hard for him to wipe without arms. Having a second person there when you fly is good because they can act as a spotter. My brother was flying in acro mode for the first time and I had to flip the horizon switch on his transmitter at the last seconds a few times to save his quad. He typically flies horizon so is not used to where the toggle switch is located.
During this trip I also got to show my brother the Fat Shark goggles that I use. He uses the cheap $30 special from Hobbyking, the picture is good but the goggles are better. Anyways, while he was watching me fly with the goggles, I was using the hobby king special. I had no place to set the video receiver so I placed it on the ground. Because I did that I lost video very quickly. I had the quad out about 200 feet away so I ripped the goggles off to fly line of sight and due to that distance I couldn't really tell which direction I was flying so I put the quad in horizon mode and my brother started giving me directions. That didn't work really well so I got my goggles from him to see where I was. Boy was I far away. Panic started to kick in. I'd already lost one quad-copter and didn't want to loose another. I put on my goggles and had crystal clear video, rotated the quad a few times to see where I was at and started to head back in what I thought was the right direction.
I was able to fly the quad-copter back to my location and land, thankfully I didn't loose it. I later analyzed the video and measured the distance on google earth, I was about 1690 to 1750 feet away from where I was standing. I was amazed at the performance of the transmitter and the quad-copter. I don't want to try that again but it's good to know that the equipment works. I'll put the video on YouTube later.
