Quadcopters anyone?

May also depend on what device your using for FPV. I know my 5s can get a little choppy at times since it's not as "smart" as say an iphone 6

 

Lord I need more batteries haha. Only got 14 mins out of mine today on the trail. Curse you high altitude haha

 

This is my biggest dilemma. There is not a drone at any price point that delivers a decent amount of flight time.

 

I don't think any drones do at the altitudes I fly at haha. That's why I don't blame the drones, they just have to work a lot harder up here.

 

What do you consider "decent"?

 

What do you consider "decent"?

 

Yep, this... I couldn't believe how my dirt bike struggled to make power at altitude.

 

I would like to see some where in the 45min range. That way you could get set up, 30 minutes of video and return to home with out the fear of losing your investment because you ran out of juice.

By adjusting the carburetor or tuning you fuel injection, you can make up for some of the lost power due to the lesser amount of oxygen in the air at high altitudes. I have to do this when a ride across country for rallies.

 

Crash #3: About 4' in the air. Light mist, just got an excellent shot of a motorcycle coming down a hill. It passes by too close, and the drone recovers steadily. It suddenly becomes uncontrollable, shooting left and right. I try correcting, and it shoots backwards. It wavers on its own and slams into a beam, flips upside down and continues its death spiral shearing off the tops of the rotors, snapping two prop guards, and cutting the string holding them together and wrapping them around a motor. Still uncontrollable upside down and suddenly shuts off on its own. I believe the "no-GPS" symbol came on before it happened. I repaired everything, so thankfully the camera is fine. I'm about ready to give up on a Phantom. smh Maybe I need a class, too. heheh

 

Can you turn off gps modes on the Phantoms? If so, sounds like a little bit of good ol manual mode might have saved you some headache.
I have built quite a few quads for other folks, and I heavily preach to get a "dumb copter" or something that doesn't offer any gps extras. And try to teach them to fly in as much of a manual mode as possible. Then when they get the extra features, and the features fail. Their copter doesn't pull a disappearing act or just go full harikari. They are able to take over and fly it back with little or no loss or damage

 

What on earth? lol Did the motorcycle hit it?

I got some really awesome footage the other day on a trail here. Has a beautiful creek/river at the bottom and I flew down the creek a little into a canyon. I actually want to go back down maybe next weekend and go a little further, I'm slowly getting braver with distances.

Dad flew it for the first time also, he did fly my P2 a few times. I really think he needs a racing drone. He was flying around doing all sorts of cool ninja moves haha.

Heres his footage from flying around, excuse the camera pointing at the ground at first. I just did a shot downward and forgot to put it back up and we both didn't notice until a little while in lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5LcM14bgj4

He kept getting after me for flying so slow but I kept telling him it'll make the video too violent haha. He didn't believe me until he saw that. Now he knows why I make slow movements lol

Also bought a second battery today.

 

How much flight time did you get off the battery?

 

About 14 minutes at around 9,000 feet.

 

I didn't even think about shoving it into manual mode. That probably would've saved it!! Grrrr..... I'm pretty sure the P3 can do that so will look deeper into it.

Here's a link to the crash. I had it stationary after the bike passed, pushed the stick a little, and it began freaking out with barely any response from me. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/u3ECoUx0c3M

 

No enjoyment there, just heartache!

 

You might be flying too low and it got caught in it's own prop wash.

 

Yeah, it definitely hurt, but only lost two props and two cheap prop guards this time. Last two crashes killed cameras. smh

Naw, I've felt that before and it was nothing like this. You can see in the video how the quad immediately starts shooting off left and right. My controls aren't that sensitive. I'm wondering if the mist got to it, or if there were major underground power cables, or if not flying with GPS somehow messed it up. I repaired it and have flown on different property since without any of those troubles. M'eh.

 

I've heard the prop guards can mess with the flying sometimes. Plus with the prop guards, camera, and gimbal I've read you start pushing it's weight lifting capabilities to its limit. I go without prop guards cause I figure blades are cheap anyway lol

 

Got back in the air today finally.

Had to do this:


To do this:


My son decided it would be fun to push a button on the controller today. I was descending and he hit the engine kill switch.
Quad took a 30' drop to the ground & snapped the GPS antenna. FML...
Fortunately it landed on a bush and the camera was not mounted.

 

Real pilots dont need gps...