did 'YOU' fly today??

[badger1]

So, why the video interference?  NO idea!

if it's throttle-sensitive that would suggest it's being caused by the model rather than something eternal

[Bad Raven]

if it's throttle-sensitive that would suggest it's being caused by the model rather than something eternal

Can't, be can it, FOUR different models, all known to be very clean on video, mine and two of his used the day previously at the same site with NO issues AT ALL, then all SIMULTANEOUSLY GIVING ISSUES???

Also, THREE different headsets (we had a third spectator member after the first pair of flights)

[Bad Raven]

After a week of wet and wind and my "support crew" ()  away, a chance arose this morning.

Forecast as 10mph, when I arrived at the field it was 15 with gusts of 20. A bit nippy, too.

Still, it did enable me to LOS fly the Emax Sport Hawk newly converted to ELRS with a dual diversty Matek Rx.  Not the smallest Rx, with likely the biggest antenna pair (base loaded as well).

But frankly I don't care, they are going on 5" quads and ALL I want is a robust bullet proof connection with no drop-outs over the normal field distances I fly, the weight within 10g is immaterial and the larger antennas no issue when you have a great big video antenna sticking up anyway.

So what do you when you have no spotter and the wind ramps up?  Fly a flat plate foamie (FreeAir Blade) intended for still air........   

[Bad Raven]

Indoor friday night. I have been reviving a lot of very broken things, including a few Ultra-Micro planes.

One was (I believe) the first UMX EFlite PNP, the 4-Site Biplane?



Removing a couple of horrendous "mods" and repairs, I got it back roughly to the same weight as it started.  And nearly straight! 

I never owned one way back when, though I saw a number fly very quickly usually straight into midair induced confetti. 

This one had the ignominy of having a more modern gyro brick inflicted on it.

With the throws pumped up to the absolute maximum the horns and hinges will allow, it still manages a half decent 3D performance if flown aggressively.

I still have my original non-gyro milled out Depron frame Extra in original state, too. I only fly it when I have the hall to myself, as a good sneeze would break it, and a midair turn it into mylar and depron fog. Goes well though, and the absence of gyro "assistance" is very welcome!

I also inherited a couple of the later gyro equipped Extra and Sukhoi, but they are both so trashed that only the repairers carbon trows and glue (nearly) hold it together, and "straight" was not in his vocabulary. One wing goes near 30 degrees washout at the outboard half span!  Still flies though..........      I must get into gear and make some 2mm Depron airframes for the electronics!

[Bad Raven]

This morning was an ELRS session, first the Sport Hawk 5" Analogue flown FPV for the first time since conversion from FrSky, then the Roma 4" Analogue, and then the GEPRC Mk5 Vista (on 4S not 6S).

12 packs flown, no issues. I now have two of the Matek Diversity ELRS receivers running, and so far so very good.

The Sport Hawk feels sharper reacting than before, and its still only running 250 as the Horus inverter mod is still not done and it clearly struggled a little to get the LUA to configure it at 500, though once it completed it seemed to run fine.

Flying buddy had several video drop outs to black screen on his 3". It goes like stink when its fit, but acts up far too frequently and at the slightest excuse. Last time it was dropping out the sky on RX Loss, this time Video loss.  No connection issues found. 

[badger1]

I had a fun day of quadding on Sat -  wanging it around through race gates with the 5"-er & some first attempts at power loops which was interesting.

gave a clubmate his first ridealong on the 7"-er with me flying LoS since I only had one set of goggles.  he seemed to enjoy it although my ambition is still to make someone fall over/vomit      my dubious LoS skills led to an impromptu landing & I somehow got the x-fire antenna chewed up in a prop.

tried flying my iNav Ranger 1600 but couldn't get the bloody thing to arm for some still-to-be-diagnosed reason.  I may re-flash the FC as there's something not quite right about it, although I would have to load the image via UART as the USB doesn't work.  maybe if I flash it the USB will start working again too.  :)

[ched]

tried flying my iNav Ranger 1600 but couldn't get the bloody thing to arm for some still-to-be-diagnosed reason.  I may re-flash the FC as there's something not quite right about it, although I would have to load the image via UART as the USB doesn't work.  maybe if I flash it the USB will start working again too.  :)

Are you 100% sure you flashed right image for your board? Sounds like you have wrong fw?

[badger1]

Are you 100% sure you flashed right image for your board? Sounds like you have wrong fw?

pretty sure, it's worked before.  I changed a few things between the last time I used it (successfully) & this time, so maybe I changed something without realizing, or the config file is corrupt or something.

I'm fairly sure the USB issue is hardware - a cracked trace or similar - it worked originally.  the USB socket on the Matek F405 is notorious for being fragile as it's mounted vertically on its end rather than flat to the board.  I was lucky to have remembered to set UART1 to support the USB protocol otherwise the FC would likely have been unusable.

[Bad Raven]

he seemed to enjoy it although my ambition is still to make someone fall over/vomit     

I'm obviously far too soft, I always suggest very strongly that they sit down! 

But then there are so few of us here at my main club that having an extra multi pilot/spotter or two around would not go amiss when buddy number one decides he has a life!

I have had a couple who brazenly refused to sit down, saying they don't get affected. Specially for them they got the power climb to max altitude followed by the visually beyond the vertical violent forward dip into a bomb dive (due the camera angle, a vertical view is not really quad vertical of course). Gets 'em every time......suddenly they want to sit......       

A sadder tale.

Two years plus ago at another club with separate Plane and a Heli fields, a couple of us successfully negotiated for Multirotors using FPV (with full legal requirements upheld) to be allowed at the lightly used Heli field.

By our own initiative we have only flown weekdays when usually deserted, and that use being very infrequent. We are also fully prepared to curtail or go LOS or fly Heli if other Heli pilots arrive and do not want to alternately time share with usually a single MR in the air at once. That has never actually happened, we get on fine.  NO issues.  Two years plus. 

Yesterday the club newsletter arrived by usual EMail. In it the Heli field "Safety and Training" Rep has a piece "reminding" people of the rules.  In that, as quite a shock, we learn that Multirotor FPV is suddenly banned!   

The piece goes on to be dangerously wrong in just about every other statement, making a total mockery of the CAA flight rules for ALL UAVs, including cutting separation to uninvolved people to less than half that legal, allowing flight over people's heads, etc.  There is even an annotated drawing showing that! AND a written statement that 20 metres above uninvolved people (possibly horse riders) is also fully OK.

I would stress that the Bridleway that skirts the field on one side is all but unused, in over ten years of careful observation I have never seen a single horse rider use it, and only extremely rarely is it used even by a usually lone walker.
Time after time I have been there several hours and not seen another soul on said path, not that this means UDI can be declared on CAA rules as our "Safety and Training" person states.

He's such a vindictive obstructive dinosaur that all text in this piece slants to Multirotors being the spawn of Satan, with the "drone" term used to mean only them, etc.  I won't go on.

Why Oh Why is it that these (not so little) Hitlers keep climbing out of the cess pit? 

[ched]

Yesterday the club newsletter arrived by usual EMail. In it the Heli field "Safety and Training" Rep has a piece "reminding" people of the rules.  In that, as quite a shock, we learn that Multirotor FPV is suddenly banned!   

The piece goes on to be dangerously wrong in just about every other statement, making a total mockery of the CAA flight rules for ALL UAVs, including cutting separation to uninvolved people to less than half that legal, allowing flight over people's heads, etc.  There is even an annotated drawing showing that! AND a written statement that 20 metres above uninvolved people (possibly horse riders) is also fully OK.

I would stress that the Bridleway that skirts the field on one side is all but unused, in over ten years of careful observation I have never seen a single horse rider use it, and only extremely rarely is it used even by a usually lone walker.
Time after time I have been there several hours and not seen another soul on said path, not that this means UDI can be declared on CAA rules as our "Safety and Training" person states.

He's such a vindictive obstructive dinosaur that all text in this piece slants to Multirotors being the spawn of Satan, with the "drone" term used to mean only them, etc.  I won't go on.

Why Oh Why is it that these (not so little) Hitlers keep climbing out of the cess pit? 

All that rubbish and someone at the club actually approved it to be published!!! Just shows what the H&S muppet knows. First thing, there must be a club rule book/handbook? What does that say?
Can you get all the people who fly multirotors to write complaining that the H&S person doesn't know the rules and asking for what incidents have sparked this 'reminder'. Plus get an apology and a correction published in next edition otherwise they are misleading people, maybe H&S muppet isn't fit for post due to incompetence - you might have to take their roll!!
You are a long standing member of the club, pay your fees and follow the rules as much if not more than most I would say. Don't let them get away with it.....Create as much fuss as possible..... Give them he11...

[malc]

If they put their name to it and something goes wrong in one year or five years time they wear it and nobody wants to be sued.

[hoverfly]

Well at least we can applaud the B.M.F.A  for their massive input and support when all this rubbish started...

[badger1]

Why Oh Why is it that these (not so little) Hitlers keep climbing out of the cess pit? 

sounds like you need to stand against him in your club's next committee election. 

in my main club, quads were banned, but I got a trial approved, which went fine & now they are permitted.  it does help that two MR fliers (of which I am one) hold 2/3 of the senior positions on the committee. 

[Bad Raven]

sounds like you need to stand against him in your club's next committee election.

If it was my main local club, I might, but its not.


Changing the subject, with regards the Queens Jubilee Flypast on Thurs.  Credit to the CAA, they have minimised the disruption, only 40 minutes in our case, but there was still one glaring issue.

ALL the times stated in the official documents are being read as current national, i.e. BST. They are not, they are UTC, and the footnote that says that is not being read since its not indexed or flagged to, and even when it is found, is not being interpreted correctly as to which way its wrong! Oh Dear............

[Bad Raven]

Going back there are various comments here regarding flying buddy's 3" build (OOOH Missus!).

He had a variety of ills from first flight, mostly loss of control/fall to ground, but more recently also loss of video (black screen, no OSD), which could glitch briefly, or stop completely, but then likely be OK when quad recovered from ground.

Its remarkable that throughout it never broke anything, it did bend a couple of props, an antenna got clipped by a prop, but the frame etc survived to give more weird issues at a later date after some intervening OK flying.

A couple of flight days ago it lost video (again), same thing, black screen no OSD.  At home he once again started investigating, and removed the 20mm FC stack from its 2mm screw posts.

Something made him inspect a shield the FC board had had from day one more closely, and on scratching its black surface he realised that it wasn't plastic, but black anodised metal.

Now bear in mind it had suffered RX Loss, Video Loss, apparant runaway, etc.  The Rx and VTX were not part of the two board FC and PDB/ESC stack, but connected via soldered wiring.

Realising that the clearance to those connections was very close if not touching the shield, and that he now knew that might be conductive (!) he removed the shield and reassembled without it.

AND....... its now flown two days several packs each day with no issues, the longest successful flying since build!

Flying Buddy 2 had grandson who's 15 with him today, so I got out spare goggles and sat him down for a flight experience on FPV. 

I think we may have a new recruit.........   

I think Grandad might have to reach into his bank account........... 

I think his dad might hate me.............   

[Bad Raven]

So, being inside one of the  airport no-fly zones for the Jubilee Flypast and what we thought from the information was a supply airfield, we were good boys and stopped in time. CORRECT time, not as per that put out by yet another zoned club this morning, yet ANOTHER one to read UTC as BST.

AND?

Absolutely NO activity at all. Practically at the limit of vision several miles off we saw the Helicopter part of the parade, then a couple of the heavies formations. And that was it.  NO take offs, NO landings, nothing even remotely near. 

[sh0wtime]

i charged up a load of batteries only to be rained off today.
so i "intended to fly"...

Not quite the same though is it

[Bad Raven]

i charged up a load of batteries only to be rained off today.
so i "intended to fly"...

Not quite the same though is it

No, its not, Mate! Especially if you have had to wait a while to get out there.  I'm fortunate that I can go pretty much whenever it suits, but there's still a lot of time when the weather doesn't suit. Currently our field is set aside, so its extra long grass, and apart from the risk to the quad, it "going in" guarantees a complete soaking up to waist. 

In a former life I did Windsurfing, I was a RYA Race Instructor latterly. Same thing, weather often totally unsuitable!!
Wasn't my main job, but I ran a lake close to sea as a training ground pre sea for people (and then on sea).  The lake was NO good with wind from ESE to NNE. Guess what happened EVERY Spring when there were lots of unseawothy learners!! 

Making the decision to come back into model flying after nearly thirty years, did I consider the weather issues?   Did I heck...........   

[sh0wtime]

yeah, that is the major drawback with anything outdoors.
You doo kinda rely on the weather to play along.

I really need to try to invest some real hours into learning to fly properly.
i only managed 1 battery pack in 2021 & after having the winter off it was like i was a beginner again 

before that i was doing quite a bit of LOS & the goggles seemed very different to me.
so after having a go on a friends DJI FPV i kinda went & got one 
however i do understand that proper quads are nothing like that to fly but this is purely to get me used to flying with goggles & tbh it's making the transition to using that "first person view" both easy and fun.

Mrs is away this weekend so hopefully get charged up & over to the farm.
assuming my LiPo's arent all dead after storage
they were put away at storage voltage & have been kept at stable temperature indoors so hopefully......  

[ched]

yeah, that is the major drawback with anything outdoors.
You doo kinda rely on the weather to play along.

I really need to try to invest some real hours into learning to fly properly.
i only managed 1 battery pack in 2021 & after having the winter off it was like i was a beginner again 

before that i was doing quite a bit of LOS & the goggles seemed very different to me.
so after having a go on a friends DJI FPV i kinda went & got one 
however i do understand that proper quads are nothing like that to fly but this is purely to get me used to flying with goggles & tbh it's making the transition to using that "first person view" both easy and fun.

Mrs is away this weekend so hopefully get charged up & over to the farm.
assuming my LiPo's arent all dead after storage
they were put away at storage voltage & have been kept at stable temperature indoors so hopefully......  

I found sims to be very helpful, while I have never found a perfectly realistic one they are OK at helping learn to fly as one crash in a field can have you heading home and then waiting for spares, so learning can be a long process.
Depending on your computer/laptop and which goggles you have you can connect the goggles up to the computer, connect your tx and it's fairly close to real flying but without the expense of crashing in real life.

[Bad Raven]

Hope you are all managing to get some flying done in this better weather?

Today I had a session using only Analogue (for the sheer hell of it really!). Its noticeable that the confidence the better vision of HD provides to go into tighter places once gained is continued quite well into flying with the less clear vision of analogue.

I can fly around just as badly well now I know I CAN! 

Yesterday and today have been investigating an issue flying buddy has had. He on analogue. He boots it up, its fine, he flies no more than four metres away from himself and it blacks out.

Initially we thought that it was bandwidth DJI/Analogue interference, but I'm HD on 5745, and he's analogue on 5865.

Could it be the Goggles V2 doing two way comms, that are known to emit a spike on 5800 as well as any set frequency?

Well, NO, as with the goggles off but the Vista live it still happened. It was worse on the supposedly more powerful output dual antenna Air Unit equipped HD quad (still with goggles off).

SO, we tried some different analogue receivers on 5865 up against the Vista output on 5745, inc my two receiver four antenna diversity Eachine EV200D, also a headset with a Lumenier and an ImmersionRC.

While if very very close they also did have some feint line interference, they could still easily be used at normal separation, so it has proved to be his video receiver that was the culprit.

He's running a diversity HobbyKing unit with dual Pagodas.

[sh0wtime]

well. ive not flown today but i did a couple of packs at the weekend & a couple more on both monday & tuesday night. tbh i spent most of monday night wading through waist high stingers in shorts looking for my 4 inch Gecko   
which after being happily found was stuck into the ground quite hard & broken on tuesday night 
had a couple of more sucessful packs through the Chameleon though so overall i'm happy to be slowly improving.
i'm away for the weekend so put all the cells back to storage charge last night. hopefully get out again next week 

[daich]

tested out new gimbals and edgetx with elrs 500hz

[Bad Raven]

Been flying mostly the GEPRC Mk5 on 6S since last post here. REALLY like it.

You can tell the temperatures are right for best battery duration as I'm getting over 7 minutes of fairly aggressive freestyle. Yesterday two flights over 8 minutes on 1350mAh 6S and I wasn't hanging around.

Unfortunaately the conditions are also right for the brain dead bar stewards who live fester like poisonous snakes around our field, and since its gone dry are every day trying to torch it all.  Poor farmer is sweating over a field of ripening barley ATM, which looks like its either going to falter and die due lack of water or more likely these cretins are going to burn it.

They have tried, but so far failed, as of yesterday there were five dfferent areas where they'd tried and two areas of hay stubble burn up against it are quite large. My car now stinks from yesterdays smoke.

And its not even summer school hols yet here...........  Oh Dear.

What is it with these idiots (and their parents).

Also, the lane past our gate back to the main road a mile and a half away is NSL 60, and has several blind bends with dips and rises.

In the last week there has been off and on a large high side contractor lorry parked on the carriageway 3/4 blocking it, right on a blind bend while the guy uses its hyab arm to empty soil into the verge. No cones, warning signs, etc, etc, let alone traffic lights.
And yet in other places they put up lights for someone to pick up a discarded tissue, and then leave them for a week with no further action.......... 

Meanwhile a mile further on are huge signs part blocking the road stating "major gas main works start here June", and of course no action at all.

Watching a cyclist get near obliterated by a car in the opposite direction there yesterday I lost it and called the Police.  They were more concerned with who's responsibility it was to respond since its right on the Surrey/Met boundary. 

[Andy7]

Sweet Zombie Jesus, yes I flew today!
I was invited to a retreat centre in the countryside to film some swoopy shots of the grounds and building. (All free of course  )

THEY MADE ME DIVE A STATELY HOME!!!   

The grounds were achingly beautiful and I got some honey-dripping golden hour shots.

They said they're happpy for me to use some footage, so give me a couple of weeks and I'll put something together.

UTTERLY blissed out now...

[Andy7]

Couple of images from the shoot...

[Bad Raven]

Aim for the car windscreen, aim for the car windscreen, aim for the car windscreen..........

Pull Up, Pull Up, Pull Up................. 

[Andy7]

Aim for the car windscreen, aim for the car windscreen, aim for the car windscreen..........

Pull Up, Pull Up, Pull Up................. 

NOO, that's MY car down there!!!   

[Bad Raven]

Aim for the other car windscreen, aim for the other car windscreen, aim for the other car windscreen..........

[ched]

Looking forward to your vid Andy. Nice to see you back, hope you have been well.