Flew with my brother

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.

Lets get into it!

Tomorrow I start tuning my fifth quad-copter.  Well I actually started yesterday so let me tell you about that first.  I purchased a flight controller (FC) online, installed it and when I got to the part about connecting the receiver and transmitter it would not work.  I found out after much research and examining the FC that the PPM resistor was missing.  So I went about installing the Naze32 FC that I salvaged from the last crashed quad-copter.  I had to re-solder a few connections but I got it to work.  Half way through tuning yesterday motor #3 kept dropping out.  That FC is now garbage.  I purchased a new FC yesterday afternoon, got it programmed and installed, I will start tuning it tomorrow.  Hopefully I don't crash or destroy the frame.  As soon as I have it tuned I will post a tuning video.  In the mean time here is a quick history of my builds and frames.

Here are some photos

ZMR250 Destroyed in a crash with some rocks in Yuma.  Rebuilt another after losing the one below in the desert.

Emax Nighthawk 250 Few away and destroyed the frame, replaced the top plate at least once.  Built a second one after destroying in it when it flew away and lost it in the desert south of Tucson

That's it for my post.  I'll post a photo of my new frame some time later.

About this Blog

I suck at hobbies and by that I mean when I try to get into a hobby it never goes well.  I suck at playing video games online, I had a hard time getting into Airsoft and now, my newest hobby of course is giving me a hard time.  Last Christmas I bought all the parts and built an FPV quadcopter. Most people just refer to it as a racing drone.  I hate that name because as a veteran, when I think of the word drone I imagine a predator shooting missiles at the enemy, not some little dinky thing flown by some fat old guy as a hobby.

Anyways, this has been a difficult road, the purpose of this blog is to  keep a record of my trials, errors, crashes and what not.  Stay tuned for more, I will try to post once a week to record the good the bad and the rebuilds.