The Giant Wind Turbine

Here is a huge wind turbine that I flew up to while traveling back in August.  It is impressively large.  I have a big backlog of videos that I will start posting as I have time to put them together.

Unfortunately my camera mount was floppy and caused a lot of vertical jitters here.  I also had just switched FCs and did not have things tuned quite well.

A bit more backstory: this video combines two flights.  The video begins with launch from a wooded area a short way from the turbine, but the tricopter wasn’t flying quite right — one motor was vibrating during the flight.  So I turned back.  But I couldn’t figure out where in the woods I was sitting!  I flew around a bit and had to set down in a clear area with video drop out from the tree cover.

Empty Playground in the Big Park

Since I flew in the big park very early for the first time, I have wanted to go back and do a few more interesting flights.

Here is the result of my first return.  There is a large playground that was completely empty, so near the end of the video I could fly all around it and high above with no worries.

A pair of videos around Independence Day

I did a little day trip driving around the local area on July 4th and brought my tricopter along.  Many people had a similar idea, so nice locations like parks and pretty beaches were too packed with people for flying.  Here is a green beach where it was still OK to fly around.

Then on the weekend, I went to a large park very early in the morning to fly around a bit before the crowds start to arrive.  It was pretty pleasant.  I need to try that again some time.

Found a great new test flight field

Actually, my friend did the scouting that found these fields.  Here are the first videos.  It does take some time and effort for me to get there for flying, but it’s not so bad, especially compared to other options.

Scooting around the wooded park – flight camera

By request, this is the flight camera view when I flew my previous wooded park video .

RMRC 480 camera
IRC 600 mW 5.8 vtx
Fat Shark Dominator 5.8 rx module
TrueRC 5.8 Windmill tx antenna
TrueRC 5.8 Fan rx antenna

There are a lot of glitches in the video, and I attribute that to lack of ability of 5.8 GHz to penetrate obstacles very well (NLOS), at least without high gain antennas. I actually had a 1.3 GHz system including a crosshair along with me, but I didn’t use it because it is just so convenient to use the goggles directly. I also feel that as long as I have flyable 5.8 video, I don’t have to worry about my Spektrum 2.4 RC.

I am a big fan of the circular polarized antennas. I don’t know if they are critical in this wooded environment, but they work wonders with skyscrapers and concrete close by like my prior video.

FPV Gear Pinouts

Here are some TRS/TRRS connector pinouts I have collected for various FPV gear.

Size Type T R1 R2 S
Lawmate Video Receiver 3.5 mm TRS V A
ImmersionRC Video Receiver 3.5 mm TRRS W R V
Aiptek Video Camera 3.5 mm TRRS R W V
Fat Shark Goggles 3.5 mm TRRS W unused V
Vupoint DVR 3.5 mm TRRS W V R
FPV Japan DVR 2.5 mm TRRS +5V V A
FPV Japan DVR button 2.5 mm TRRS short unused short unused
HK Wing Camera 2.5 mm TRS A V
Best Offer Buy Video Transmitter 3.5 mm TRRS +12V A V
GoPro Hero2 2.5 mm TRRS A (G) A (W) V

Update Aug 4, 2012: Added GoPro.

Artistic Riverside Park

Yet another fresh video.  This pretty riverside park is usually crawling with too many people, but I caught it without such a heavy crowd for once and decided to explore from the air a bit.

Scooting around the wooded park

Another fresh video.  I was looking for some nearby field good for flying, and only managed to find a nice public park full of trees.  Not HD because my usual camera was out of battery power.

Small Weekend Meet Up

Another fresh video from a small meet up this past weekend.  It was a lot of fun, and the tail camera did a great job.

Tail Cam in Waterside Park at Sunset

This is actually a fresh video, not an old one pulled from archives.

It’s a short cruise through a waterside park looking out the back of my tricopter.  The sun was setting just then and the lighting was very poor.  I’ll have to see how the camera does in better lighting.  It sure sounds noisy in that position.