This weekend, I lost my FPV virginity!
It's a Turnigy 1300 mAh High Discharge (45C constant, 90C peak) version.
Before doing anything, I wanted to do a range test with my transmitter / receiver combination. Since I had not used this combo before, I wanted to be sure I could get across the 300m of the longest side of the clearing. I put my transmitter on the terrace of my caravan, and started walking away with the quad. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the green LED on the receiver. As long as it lights solid, reception is OK.
But, oh-oh! After only 150m, I saw the first flashing of the receiver light. I did not continue on further, but decided to keep 150m as my max range. Now, this was not an onobstructed line-of-sight measurement, but a few trees in the way would be a realistic scenario for future flights as well. And from the middle of the clearing, I would be able to fly without worries across all of the clearing, so that was the plan.
So, time to put the goggles on, and push that throttle! Just to be safe, I started my very first FPV flight in self-leveling mode. I took off, climed away from the tree, made a 180 degree turn, and descended back to the tree. First thing I noticed was that your situational awareness is gone, the minute you put on the goggles. That kind of freaked me out at first. Once you gain forward motion, that feeling subsides a bit, but it never really goes away. That is because of the limited field of view of the camera, combined with the inability to turn the camera with your head. Also, I missed the audio feedback as soon as I flew away. This quad is so quiet! Ideal for this sort of flying, but now I had to rely on the picture in the goggles to see if I was climbing or descending, since you don't see your sticks, and I don't have a center stick "click" in the throttle, or so. That is difficult at first, I discovered. My judging altitude was not very good, because I landed quite roughly with still quite some forward speed when I returned towards the tree. After a few tumbles, The quad came to a rest upside-down. I disamed already during the tumble, but that was not in time to prevent two out of four propellers to become loose. Not that they came off, but when I tried to see if everything was still intact, I could spin the props without spinning the motors. Since I did not have the spanner with me to tighten the prop nuts, I had to return to the caravan. And then it started to rain again, for the remainder of the afternoon... My first FPV flight lasted only 44 seconds, was only in stabilized mode, and ended in a mild crash... I knew I had to get back out there the next day!
On Sunday, the weather looked better, rain-wise. There were still showers of rain, but there also was some sun in between. Onlu thing was: the wind had picked up to 5 to 8 Beaufort. That was a bit much. But I still got a small window of oportunity in the second half of the afternoon. I repeated the flight of Saturday, and felt a little more comfortable with the equipment and it's limitations. I heard a dog barking behind me, so I landed before the dog would come chasing the drone. It appeared to be 4 people with three dogs, that wanted to cross the clearing, and cross it back again, to have the dogs loose some energy by running on the sand. So I waited it out. Lucky for me, it started to rain a little, so the people wanted to get back home again (the dogs were fine with it).
And once they had left the clearing, it was my turn again. The rain had blown over, and the sun had come back instead :)
Nothing fancy, just a quick tour around a tree or two, with about 100 meters in between them. But it wasn't about racing, freestyling, or other fancy moves. This was all about getting in the air, moving around a bit, and getting back on the ground in a condition that another flight could be undertaken with the same aircraft. Preferably without too much repairs 😉
Pre-Flight foto, just in case (I learned to do that, the hard way...)
Pre-Flight foto, just in case (I learned to do that, the hard way...)
By now, the 4S battery I had ordered was in. This not only added 3.7V to the nominal voltage, bringing it up to 14.8, but also knocked off 60 grams off of the weight. That should mean a whole lot of extra punch!
Before doing anything, I wanted to do a range test with my transmitter / receiver combination. Since I had not used this combo before, I wanted to be sure I could get across the 300m of the longest side of the clearing. I put my transmitter on the terrace of my caravan, and started walking away with the quad. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the green LED on the receiver. As long as it lights solid, reception is OK.
Taking it out to the clearing behind our camping, I was getting a bit nervous.
I had never flown FPV before, and the flying in acro mode I had done with my self-built (big) quadcopter didn't end in a very controlled fashion ;)
I did try my luck with a simulator - I do have the USB cable to go with my transmitter for that. But that is good for getting the initial "thumb feel", but is not the most realistic operation, to be honest.
And then there is the goggles on your head. I have never done anything like that either. Of course I have tried out the LS-800D I got sponsored from GearBest at home. And I had already adjusted the straps so that it would fit against my face with minimal light leakage. But then actually flying, ..., that's something different!
I put the quad in the grass / moss / sand (it's a bit of an inconsistent mix of those), and hooked it up. There's two old trees in the clearing, and I decided I would sit under the one furthest away from the camping.
I did try my luck with a simulator - I do have the USB cable to go with my transmitter for that. But that is good for getting the initial "thumb feel", but is not the most realistic operation, to be honest.
And then there is the goggles on your head. I have never done anything like that either. Of course I have tried out the LS-800D I got sponsored from GearBest at home. And I had already adjusted the straps so that it would fit against my face with minimal light leakage. But then actually flying, ..., that's something different!
I put the quad in the grass / moss / sand (it's a bit of an inconsistent mix of those), and hooked it up. There's two old trees in the clearing, and I decided I would sit under the one furthest away from the camping.
I had read somewhere that it was good advise to sit down during FPV flight, because your visual clues can be inconsistent with your vestibular senses (you see leaning to the left, but feel standing straight, for example), and those inconsistencies can lead to erroneous corrections (you'll fall down).
So sitting it was. And under that tree, because it had rained all morning, so I didn't want to go sit in the sand, but sit on one of those air roots of this old tree. A little off the ground, and - most importantly - dry. And I chose the tree furthes from the camping, because then the chance of someone sneeking up on me would be smaller. Fewer people come there, and I got a better chance of spotting them when they do.
So, time to put the goggles on, and push that throttle! Just to be safe, I started my very first FPV flight in self-leveling mode. I took off, climed away from the tree, made a 180 degree turn, and descended back to the tree. First thing I noticed was that your situational awareness is gone, the minute you put on the goggles. That kind of freaked me out at first. Once you gain forward motion, that feeling subsides a bit, but it never really goes away. That is because of the limited field of view of the camera, combined with the inability to turn the camera with your head. Also, I missed the audio feedback as soon as I flew away. This quad is so quiet! Ideal for this sort of flying, but now I had to rely on the picture in the goggles to see if I was climbing or descending, since you don't see your sticks, and I don't have a center stick "click" in the throttle, or so. That is difficult at first, I discovered. My judging altitude was not very good, because I landed quite roughly with still quite some forward speed when I returned towards the tree. After a few tumbles, The quad came to a rest upside-down. I disamed already during the tumble, but that was not in time to prevent two out of four propellers to become loose. Not that they came off, but when I tried to see if everything was still intact, I could spin the props without spinning the motors. Since I did not have the spanner with me to tighten the prop nuts, I had to return to the caravan. And then it started to rain again, for the remainder of the afternoon... My first FPV flight lasted only 44 seconds, was only in stabilized mode, and ended in a mild crash... I knew I had to get back out there the next day!
On Sunday, the weather looked better, rain-wise. There were still showers of rain, but there also was some sun in between. Onlu thing was: the wind had picked up to 5 to 8 Beaufort. That was a bit much. But I still got a small window of oportunity in the second half of the afternoon. I repeated the flight of Saturday, and felt a little more comfortable with the equipment and it's limitations. I heard a dog barking behind me, so I landed before the dog would come chasing the drone. It appeared to be 4 people with three dogs, that wanted to cross the clearing, and cross it back again, to have the dogs loose some energy by running on the sand. So I waited it out. Lucky for me, it started to rain a little, so the people wanted to get back home again (the dogs were fine with it).
And once they had left the clearing, it was my turn again. The rain had blown over, and the sun had come back instead :)
Now it was time to fly in acro mode. I climed to a safe altitude, well above the trees, and switched to acro. I decided it was time for me to demonstrate acro mode with the BFight 210 for you guys, so I put in a back flip. I was amazed at the precision of the control of the airccraft. It back-flipped exactly as long as I held the stick back, and immediately stopped turning as I let the stick go again. And this is all with stock PID settings, and I don't even believe I pulled the stick alle the way back. Anyway: here's the DVR footage of that action:
After that one flip, I landed again, because it started to rain a bit. As you can see, 5 Beaufort takes some effort to fly in against :) But that is still possible. I landed in stabilised mode again, just to keep things in one piece. This time a nice landing!
The goggles worked fine as well. I must say, the flying itself took so much of my brain capacity, that I did not even see much of the OSD information, except the artificial horizon bar. But the image was very clear. I did not notice the polarizing effect I wrote about earlier during the flight at all.
All in all an axhilirating weekend, with three flights, totalling some 4 minutes or so. But that is not important. Important is that I made that first step, and I got over the threshold. I can see how this can be addictive, once you get your skille up to par with those you see all those racing or freestyle movies of 😁
So: practice, practice, practice!
To be continued...
Want one too?
BFight 210
LS-800D
The goggles worked fine as well. I must say, the flying itself took so much of my brain capacity, that I did not even see much of the OSD information, except the artificial horizon bar. But the image was very clear. I did not notice the polarizing effect I wrote about earlier during the flight at all.
All in all an axhilirating weekend, with three flights, totalling some 4 minutes or so. But that is not important. Important is that I made that first step, and I got over the threshold. I can see how this can be addictive, once you get your skille up to par with those you see all those racing or freestyle movies of 😁
So: practice, practice, practice!
To be continued...
Want one too?
BFight 210
LS-800D
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