| Author | Message | ||
     Biffdotorg |
My first night flight. At around 10pm, all is dark on the ground. But up around 200 meters, the sunset over the Fargo-Moorhead area is pretty cool!  | ||
| 99buellx1 |
What a wind turbine gets to see.  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Neat shot Craig! | ||
| Hootowl |
Why is it pointed in a different direction than most of the others? Offline for maintenance? | ||
| Sifo |
Typically there will be a fairly high number of turbines that are down at any given time. I like to take note of how many are not spinning when going through wind farms. It's often in the 10% range. The blades look to be fully feathered too. | ||
| Sifo |
Just noticed that there is another one turned the wrong way near the right side of the picture. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
You guys are observant. Correct, it was not moving. I was out scouting that field for water (we farm it) and used that as an opportunity to fly around the turbine. | ||
| Hootowl |
"Just noticed that there is another one turned the wrong way near the right side of the picture." Me too. At first I thought it was the only one...which is why I changed my question to "than most of the other ones".  | ||
| Sifo |
You should see the brake calipers used to stop those windmills. You use a crane to lift the caliper off the disk! Scale it down and it looks just like what you find on a car though. It's about a half day's work just getting you and your tools up to the job site. | ||
| Ourdee |
I'm scared of heights. I'd love to work on the wind mills/generators. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Flew over my corn field. | ||
| Smoke |
pretty cool Craig! tim | ||
| Preybird1 |
Man we need to get you guys into FPV! Way more fun than line of sight flight! I have 7 quadcopters now and just love to build these and tune them. Im not a fan of the pre-built one's or auto level and auto altitude hold. This is not flying and it builds no real flight skills........I only fly in manual\acro modes. Currently i am running a big ground station and some expensive signal boosters. And im happy to say my range is currently up to 6 miles before i start having video break up. I don't fly over 1,400 feet you can be busted and flying with goggles\unmanned aircraft is a huge topic now that idiot that flew that dji drone onto the white-house lawn. Then he snitch himself out and was charged with drinking and droning the topics getting hot. Since the supreme court gave the FAA imperial law over anything that flies from 44oz-44lbs is now considered a real aircraft. Enjoy these while we can but there are rules and lawsuits coming. it took them 5 yrs just to write the language for there laws coming and it will probably be 5-7 years before real laws happen. But now there worried that the golden gate bridge is gonna be blown up with a drone bomb! Very interesting times right now!!!!!!!    My favorites are the 250mm airframe for acro 550mm airframe for video I have the following airframe sizes in quad x configurations. 250mm 330mm 470mm 550mm 666mm and 2 sub-micro quads! I like the adrino flight controller boards. I have to many kinds of flight controllers and props........I have a whole dresser drawer devoted to only propellers and have all sizes from 5"-14" Nice thing is if i crash it costs me a little time and parts last time it about $10.00 in parts. if you crash a $1500.00+ quad your screwed. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Very cool. I have a couple small (very small) quads that are manual control that I used to learn on prior to getting the Phantom. I was also on track to build a quad when the P3 was released. Looking at doing a 250 FPV at some point, but probably not for a bit. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Any recommendations for a good "toy" qaudcopter? Something fairly durable and easy to fix, for a low cost. I just want something to play with and hand to a kid without too much worry. Indoor only OK, doesn't need to carry a camera or anything. A toy, not a tool. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
I have a Hubsan X4 that I think is pretty decent. Get the prop guard. It's about $40 on Amazon with no camera, they also have a version with a camera. The entire thing can be rebuilt, all the parts are available. | ||
| Reepicheep |
That's perfect. Thanks! The camera version (2MP video, no live feed) is on it's way. $57 to my door, including the spare parts kit and the rotor guard (which may be included with the quad now, but was only $3, so at worst I have a spare). And I'm sure I'll be getting $20 worth of spare batteries and chargers pretty soon, but I resisted for the moment. I'll be able to start practicing crashing in a week or so. Video resolution is lousy... like VHS quality lousy, but it will make the quad otherwise more entertaining. I should have it in time for the neighbors big fireworks party. What could possibly go wrong? | ||
| Reepicheep |
(correction, it wont show up until mid July, which is a good - but - much - less - entertaining thing... ) | ||
| Biffdotorg |
For those of us that wanted to get started quickly with good quality video, the Phantom was a good start. Especially since most had no idea what was needed to build one. My guess is most of us will figure that out the first time we destroy a phantom and start picking out the guts to put into a different frame to salvage as much of our investment as we can. Until then, it works for me. My FPV is vital now. As once I get out 400m or more, I can't see that quad anymore. I fly purely by the telemetry on screen and video feed. This was shot from across the lake this weekend. My wife was throwing a birthday party on the water, and I had no way to get off the dock. So I sent out the quad to visit! | ||
| Reepicheep |
OK, this is really fun, even though I can't fly it very well yet and came very close to both losing it and crashing it on its first flight... https://youtu.be/PoTIUTOHnw8 (Message edited by reepicheep on June 25, 2015) | ||
| Reepicheep |
Video on the one I got is 720p. You won't mistake it for one of Craigs good videos, but it's totally good enough for just playing. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
FUN!! We were talking about this while flying around the office yesterday: Why is it so fun? What we came up with is that growing up we all had remote control things....but nothing that could fly, there's just something enjoyable about flight. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
Good to see you got some video taken Bill. It is all about having some fun for sure! The first thing most want to shoot is someplace they cannot go anyway else other than by flight. It's a cool sense of freedom. I will have to admit, I didn't realize how much electronic image stabilization and a gimbal on the camera did until I saw your video. I think I felt a bit motion sick! HA!. Don't let me give you crap though, it's still very cool. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Exactly, it's a totally cool toy! Challenging (but not impossible) to operate, and really rewarding of a skilled operator. And you can really tell the difference between a skilled pilot versus a less skilled one (that would be me). So kind of like dancing, or riding a motorcycle, or golf, or any one of a thousand things that you can always keep getting better at. And, at the end of the day, just about all of us wish we could fly. This gets us a little closer to that. And the pictures are pretty. | ||
| Aesquire |
Right now the FAA is arguing that all drones over a certain mass must have transponders and maybe an override circuit so the ATC guys can take it over. There's a couple of problems. Power for the transponder vs. Battery capacity. Hackers hijacking your multi copter. The near certain probability that China made parts could make your toy a weapon for a hostile nation. Imagine a peace rally. Dozens of camera drones suddenly dive and attack the VIP speaker. What's the inverted powered terminal velocity of a typical streaming video drone? Enough to kill? So...... enjoy this fleeting moment of freedom. It may end abruptly. Will YOU register your assault drone? | ||
| Slaughter |
Problem is the untrained and uneducated drone hobbyists interfering with aircraft flight operations. We have a fire burning over 30,000 acres right now - that they had to pull back the HUGE KC-10 firetanker and controlling aircraft because of the drones flying over the fires - not only flying over the 400 foot limit but also flying within an announced area with temporary flight restrictions. News from 4 days ago when fire was "only" 20,000 acres: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/06/24/cal-fire -drone-interfering-with-firefight-near-big-bear-la ke/ It's just like irresponsible street racers. The people who are angered by irresponsible actions are VOTERS. People who bitch about PROPOSED FAA regulations need to work HARDER at peer pressure to control their own. I guarantee that the people with homes and property destroyed will get more sympathy than a hobbyist complaining about civil liberties. Short video with interviews with PMG Multirotor about irresponsible hobby-operators. News Short (Message edited by slaughter on June 28, 2015) (Message edited by slaughter on June 28, 2015) | ||
| 86129squids |
Ummm- I'd guess that a poorly controlled drone would do more damage to the KC-10 than a goose would. Goose is just meat, but both are mass. There might be an analogy to man's first flight, but those guys put their meat in the wind, and risked it all. Today's "fliers" have no context or depth of perception. Or smarts, much less wisdom. Kinda scary. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
Back to the fun stuff while it's still legal! Here are some screen grabs I took of my friends lake home. I also explored the river flowing out of our lake. I wanted to see if there was a channel the entire way to the next lake. We wanted to float it on tubes, but not end up in a leech infested slew! I think we are good. The video looked like English countryside!       | ||
| M1combat |
You ever race them??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70pusNNunMA | ||
| Biffdotorg |
Holy shitballs, that's awesome! Reminds me of star wars speeder races! |
