Everyone Has a Story

I was sucked into this hobby by a friend who showed up one day in the ‘hood’ with a simple flyer called a Slow Stick, and he had mounted a tiny video camera onto the wing top. He taxied down the street and lifted into the air while video recording the incredible sights of our mountain home and the land beneath the wings. He then made a slow descent, lined up for the final approach, crossed the imaginary runway threshold and at about three feet off the deck, ran into our neighbor’s parked SUV. 

After a few minutes of conflict resolution, we immediately ran into the house and threw the mini SD card into the laptop. “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Halle, Halle, Hallelujah” There was this wonderful video of our hilltop neighborhood and our homes. It was a friggin miracle.
 

Well, two things happened that day; Day One. First, I caught ‘Remote Control Disease’ and second, I first learned of HobbyKing. HobbyKing! Where everything is amazing and really cheap. At this point in my life, I had to make a choice between HobbyKing and my kid’s inheritance. Let me tell you, this choice was not easy. Of course, being focused only on myself and my immediate needs satisfaction; I opted for HOBBYKING.

That is when my hobby life began and started to unravel, all at the same time. I saw the amoebas of life reconfigured into a new formula.  A formula of cheap China parts and unreadable user manuals.  Screw the user manual, I can figure this shit out by myself. How hard is it to fit Piece A into B, through hole C. Oh, there is no piece B and piece A is the wrong size. Oh, and hole C is actually on a different airplane. 

My first remote controlled airplane along with a brand new HobbyKing transmitter costs $110 and the plane never flew and I threw the radio away as well. And it began! Cheap part after cheap part from every corner of the People’s Republic. This $5 part and that $7 part and $36 for some weird freight through some rich ass Hong Kong dude. Bravo! Good for you guys.

As I said, that first plane never got into the air. Nor, did the second one. Forty seven days later, plane three did fly; 28 seconds. My maiden flight was over. It was then that I had another one of those friggin opportunities to learn; I needed to buy two of everything from HobbyKing. Shit doesn’t work. Shit doesn’t fly. And if it does fly, I will crash it faster than you can log onto HobbyKing.com.

Sometime about one year later and after more mangled airplanes than I can count, I read about quadcopters. Finally an air worthy flying machine that hovers. Stops in space. Defies that gravity thing.

Spot On

We are back on the cliff going through our preflight checklist and chatting with our spotter. You have a spotter, right? A spotter can be anyone. A spouse, a friend, even a stranger who seems interested in what you are about to do. Ok, we now know what a spotter is or can be but, what purpose do they serve for our vidding adventure?

 

The FAA declares that anyone flying First Person Video, looking through goggles, is in fact flying without maintaining constant visual contact with the UAS (Unmanned Aerial System or Vehicle). That is a FAA violation. Well isn’t that a load of government over reach crap? Maybe, maybe not. Hear me out here Grasshopper.

I belong to a RC flying club where we have wide open flat land to fly. We have experimented with FPV in both fixed wing aircraft and recently in quads. There have been times out at our field when flying ‘under the hood’ has left me completely at a loss as to where my quad is. Imagine driving around in your car for five minutes looking only through a 10”x10” view out the front windshield. Now ask yourself, “Where in hell am I? And, what am I about to run into?"

After five minutes of flying using only your FPV goggles, the quad can be so far away that you cannot see or hear it and very likely cannot pick it up in the sky. Your spotter has been visually following your flight and it is your spotter who is going to tell you where to start looking. Nope it is not to your right but to your left and 200 feet in the glaring sky, slightly right of the sun. It is just a white dot in a very bright sky. Now bring it back before the batteries go dead and before your baby performs a perfect auto landing out near Seal Rock. Get the point? Have a wingman or wing-woman or wing-stranger.  They might be worth $2500. Plus it’s fun to share the adventure.

BTW, I usually share my FPV googles with anyone interested around me. Their first comment will be, “Oh, is that one of those things to spy on neighbors with?” Their departing comment is always, “That is really cool. Thanks for letting see this.” One more convert. 319,000,000 to go.

Fly-away, Fly-away

Here is probably a great place in this discussion to touch on a highly exasperating phenomenon called ‘fly-aways’. That’s not a typo. Fly-aways are moments in flight when the remote controlled aircraft simply flies away from you: completely on its own initiative and completely out of your control. Fly-aways happen for a variety of reasons and a variety of ‘no reasons’. In my 10 months of flying my Phantom 2, which I have named Tommy, I have never experienced a fly-away. However, I did have another branded quad leave my controlled airspace and crash into an office parking lot a half a mile away, about 60 feet away from a six lane intersection. Miraculously, no cars were hit but the quad was pancaked. Lesson learned. (As to Tommy, you’ll have to pull out that old Who album to understand the connection.)

Back to fly-aways. They seem to happen for two basic reasons. Technology failure* and human failure. Not much that can be done about technology failure except preventative maintenance and preflight testing. But, the human failure can almost always be pointed back to not reading the manual or not having practiced enough. (Ex: many newer quads have a ‘relative flight mode’ and I have found that newbies that invoke this flight mode are asking for real problems. Learn to fly the friggin quad, Grasshopper.

Before, we leave the subject of flight anomalies, let’s touch on the automatic ‘return to home feature’. This is a terrific feature made possible by the GPS systems in high end quads. In summary, when you lose control of your quad, invoke the ‘come home’ feature and your quad will return to its launch site. Kinda. For the Phantom, return to home involves some automatic maneuvers by the system including climbing up about 50 feet before flying back. Also, the auto-landing maneuver is a little rough on Tommy. I have only invoked the 'auto return to home feature' in test situations and it is still unclear as to what Tommy would do here flying 70 feet below my cliff if it went into auto return to home is invoked. Would it rise to 50 feet above the takeoff spot or 50 feet above the spot where auto home is invoked? Will it run into the side of the cliff. Right now I am betting on rising to above the takeoff elevation. That is a $2500 bet folks. The price of my combined aerial video technology. Not for the faint of heart.

 

* Note: A common problem with inexpensive quads is bad solder joints where critical wires come loose from connections. Many solder problems are called cold solder. If you are handy, you might want to open up these inexpensive quads and check solder joints. Particularly battery connection points.

The Weakest Link

 

Some useful links

https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/?embed=true#6/39.462/-121.597

http://www.phantompilots.com/index.php

http://www.smalluavcoalition.org/

http://diydrones.com/

http://dronelife.com
 

Free music and sound effects for video

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?feels%5B%5D=Bright

http://www.freesound.org/browse/

http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/video

Always useful downloads and terrific videos.  http://gopro.com/

Just for fun

http://www.gizmag.com/

http://robohub.org/

Management 102, Be The Battery

For P2 and other personal drone pilots, keeping track of inflight battery usage is an essential task in making sure that you have that mini SD card in your hand following a video session. There are a few ways to monitor batteries but the most important is to have a timer set to the maximum flying time that your experience dictates that you have on one battery. Seems that I am always a quart low on electrons. I Velcro the timer onto my transmitter radio.

The amount of flight time that you have on a battery will vary depending upon how hard your quad needs to work on a specific flight. I have found the attaching the FPV Tx, Zenmuse gimbal and GoPro has cut my flight time from 20 minutes to around 14. However, if I have some wind and active flying in the mission, that time is further reduced. For me, I set the timer at 11 minutes. I bring Tommy back at that time which can take a couple of minutes to return to home.  Of course, the Fatshark googles also show remaining battery life in the display. (I have 5 batteries. ready to go.)

Make sure that your checklist has a line item regarding the timer and make sure that you start the timer upon launch. That’s right Grasshopper, more discipline with the checklist.

More about batteries; specifically LiPo batteries. I have been involved with RC flying stuff for almost two years. I belong to a flying club with our own field and maybe 100 members. We fly only electric and therefore have lots of stories about LiPo batteries. Each one of us has had one of those ‘great friggin opportunity to learn’ times with LiPos. Net-net: If they catch on fire, you will want that flaming turd to be outside as it is incredibly smelly if not toxic. Have a good recharger and recharge where a possible fire will simply be annoying and not involve your insurance provider. Most everyone in the club has had a fire for one of many reasons. Mine was a bad Electronic Speed Control that shorted out the battery upon connection and I just barely got it out into the driveway where it burned for 10 minutes. 

Keep these batteries in a closed metal container. We use surplus steel ammo boxes.

For DJI Phantom 2’s and latter, the battery monitoring and recharge system is quite sophisticated and so far, safe. As a result, the batteries are very expensive. For other manufactures, you will most likely be using a standard off the shelf battery and recharge system. Be careful.

Parts is Parts

A Boeing representative recently commented that for most of us a Boeing airplane looks like a Boeing airplane. But to Boeing, it looks like a million parts flying in tight formation.

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 For many of us beginning at the bleeding edge of remote quadcopter flight commenced with some little $65 flying thing from Amazon and migrated to a slightly bigger thing and then with completely no reason to believe that you could do it, tried to build your own quad with parts from Hobbyking. Failure! (OK, it was just me then.)

It’s now 8 months later, all the HK parts are toast and you are unpacking the ‘ready to fly’ DJI Phantom 2 having just thrown away the $367 worth of incongruent parts that never worked as a well-oiled machine. In fact, it never flew for more than 28 seconds at any one time between repair sessions.

The Phantom flies. And flies easily. Just read the friggin manual or watch a couple of videos before you ‘arm the quad’ and push the radio’s left control stick north, given that you are facing north. If facing south, turn around. Anyway, I am not going to explain how to fly a quadcopter here. I am going to simply plead with you to practice. Perfect practice would be even better. Practice away from people, buildings and most importantly, away from trees. Trees and quads do not get along and trees will ‘paper your rock’; 'rock your sissors'. Trees seem to suck quads into them, many times never giving them back unless you are very good at climbing out onto a limb.    

Regardless of which brand of quad you are flying, there are characteristics and idiosyncrasies that will most likely subject your little hobby to the worst that gravity can dish out. You will want these little ‘friggin opportunities to learn’ to happen over dry land and not over the Pacific. Keep practicing where unexpected outcomes have minimal impact on your wallet. (Example: The P2 will simply land by itself when the battery depletes to 25%. You will have zero control of the craft as it lands perfectly in the Pacific or in the middle of Interstate 310 because you were trying to capture compelling video of a friggin freeway, idiot.)

Watch Out for That Curve

At this point in our adventure, it might be a good time to discuss the many nuances of The Learning Curve. Loosely defined, it is a noun; ‘the rate of a person's progress in gaining experience or new skills’. For our purposes, it is a verbish like phrase meaning, ‘to crash’.

The Learning Curve was first discovered 105, 000 years ago in cave in southern France. It was there that a very young Neanderthal, Tether, picked up a river rock and threw it. Launching that projectile right into Mom’s forehead. (It was Mom, Dad was not in the cave, the outcome of extremely poor parenting skills.)

Mom, on the other hand (or her forehead as it were.) had the patience of Job, though the Job that you and I know lived 102 -103,000 years later depending upon whether you are Jewish, Muslim or Christian. Not sure if Confucius knew him or not. The guy seemed to have gotten around.

Anyway, Tether, encouraged by Mom’s ravished forehead, continued to practice and one day he picked up a river rock, threw it and hit a rabbit. Mom screamed ‘Hallelujah’ (apparently she was Jewish) and the Learning Curve was invented.

For us learning to fly aircraft remotely; we will be living the “J”. The “J” curve is simply the harsh reality of doing shit where one has no idea. Basically, you (and me) start out somewhat below zero on the ‘J’ and then descend even further into the bowels of failure and eventually rise triumphantly, bask in the glory for a bit, and then crash for no obvious reason what so ever.  

 

Refer to chart above.

Ready, set…WAIT!

Standing here on the cliff ready to fly like the pelican is the expected outcome of completing many tasks back at home base. First, all this technology takes batteries and dead or dying batteries trump bad weather every time in the failure column.  Kinda that rock-paper-scissors game you played in the fifth grade. For my setup, I need four Phantom LiPo fully charged batteries and in good condition. The radio transmitter requires 4 AA batteries plus back ups. The GoPro has its own battery. And, the First Person Video (FPV) goggles requires their own fully charged LiPo battery plus back up. Your checklist must include  ‘charge all batteries and test the system before getting into the car’.

 

At the edge of the cliff, one reoccurring nightmare ebbs and tides just like the Pacific. ‘What if this gear doesn’t come back to terra firma today?’ On about the thirty-fifth time that you loop on that nightmare in the middle of the night you should get a grip on your emotions and return to the checklist. In fact, it would be a great idea to constantly ponder, “what have I done to minimize that chance of failure for this flight?’

Reflect back to that moment when you first decided to buy your quadcopter after viewing 23 YouTube videos that were quite breathtaking. “Shit, if that dweeb-ass can do it, so can I.” There was that day when you first opened the box with your little multi-motor darling snuggled into the impossible to open clear wrap with a user manual that must have made sense to someone far-far away but makes no sense to you. (More on User Manuals from Hell later.)

Day One. At some point we all finally build up the courage to launch our first flight. We look at the ‘how to fly’ drawings on page 8 and 9. The drawings look familiar though the accompanying words seem to explain something quite different. “Advantage the mode 1 fight lever to ascend sky.” You will also notice that pages 10, 11 and 12 show the various replacement parts and how they can be ordered. You’ll figure it out somehow.

Don’t overthink this puppy Grasshopper. Arm and go.

Common Sense

Recently there has been much media attention given to the arrival of hobby drones (UAV) in our skies. These stories usually start off with some goofball claiming to have been photographed naked in a bedroom window by another goofball flying a 'drone'. Bullshit! No one wants to look at Goofball #1 naked, in the bedroom or anywhere else on earth. (That is what the Internet is for!)

That said, pilots of remote controlled aircraft have a responsibility to abide by all evolving FAA regulations protecting no-fly zones, people and property. Among, the many FAA regs is to always fly where you keep constant visual contact with the aircraft. (This is a real challenge for the emerging free flight waypoint to waypoint capabilities.)

Additionally, always have a spotter when flying FPV, especially using goggles. There have been flying times when in the process of transitioning from using the goggles back to using my glasses where I had no idea as to the location of the Phantom. In fact, flying using FPV is like driving you’re car with a 12”x12” windshield. You are going to crash into something sooner than later, so have a wingwoman or facsimile.

For all of us enjoying the opportunities offered by these new and rapidly advancing technologies, we need to use COMMON SENSE in making sure that our right to enjoy the freedom of flight does not encroach on other’s rights to safety, privacy and the right to enjoy the air space above them.

Checking It Twice

When I graduated from college, I was fortunate enough to make it into and through US Naval Flight Officer School. Anyone who has ever flown an airplane knows the first rule is to ‘work the checklist’ and flying a video quad requires the same dedication to following the checklist. Today, I have a sequenced checklist with seventeen mandatory steps for capturing compelling video which which hopefully has that happy ending  where I have that precious .jpg file on that mini SD card in my hand and not at bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, combining technology with video skills plus a checklist is simply a reasonable start. The next prerequisite for that compelling video thing is weather. Nothing ruins a quad video adventure faster than wind and fog. In my case, it takes an hour and a half to drive to the Pacific Coast. That is a three hour investment in time, so checking weather forecasts and/or checking webcams is a great hedge against disappointment. The DJI Phantom will tolerate 10MPH winds but the video can get a little shaky even with the Zenmuse gyro stabilizing camera gimbal. Check the forecast!

But then again, before you run your checklist prior to flying over that volcano in Iceland, you might take one more invaluable undertaking.  Preflight Test. Before you head out for that ‘mother of all video sessions’ make sure that your shit works Grasshopper.

 Lesson #123.8. The other day I was going back to the Coast to video some sea lions that I had missed on a prior trip. On that prior trip, Tommy had descended a tad too low and was sprayed by a rogue wave. I decided to run a test flight while at home to make sure the salt water had not corroded some vital innards. Innards were fine but I had no FPV. After a hour of peeling the tech onion back, I found a broken film tape connector between my GoPro and Tommy. I had a spare connector and all was well. Had I not performed a complete test flight, I would have wasted 3 hours of windshield time and be faced with some very uncomfortable personal quality time with myself on the drive home.

Lesson #123.8.a. Watch out for rogue waves. Not exactly how sure to do that by the way?

Digital Pigital- Just Don’t Suck

Check this quick video out        Bean Hollow State Park, CA

Ok, we have some cool technology going for us, but technology is only technology, and that alone will not produce an enthralling visual experience for viewers. We have to add the skills of piloting and the skills of producing a compelling video. Technology, plus skills and maybe a few other things we will talk about over the weeks here.

I have a lot of experience with both still photography and video though for sure I am an amateur hobbyist. I also do quite a bit of painting and drawing. And finally I have devoured ‘How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck’ by Steve Stockman. In summary, when I look at the scene in front of me, I have a vision for what I would like the recorded video to look like in the eyes of those viewing on YouTube.

Though now retired, my day job was always rooted by technology and of course that technology today is all things digital. Certainly, without digital, I would be standing at the edge of the Pacific Ocean watching the pelican fly up and down the coastline and fanaticizing as to what that experience is like. But today, I can fly out there and be one with the pelican, though I can tell you that pelicans hate DJI Phantom 2s.

So, we have technology and we blend in some of that ‘Doesn’t Suck’ video knowledge from Mr. Stockman, let’s go flying. And, at this point we have to add our third leg of the stool; processes. Yep, this stuff doesn’t magically jump into the air and capture compelling video. Someplace there has to be an ‘O-N/O-F-F’ switch placed in O-N position. In fact, for my gear, there are four on/off switches to deal with and a few other challenges to tweak before flight.

The Rocky Beginning

 

After driving for over an hour, I am on a Northern California cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean to the west. The goal is to fly my DJI Phantom 2 with GoPro off the cliff and out over the crashing waves of the huge rocks below that make up that typical California Coastline photo.

But, how did I get to this opportunity with my accompanying equipment for taking the 6 minutes video?  The success of today’s shoot will be the result combining some leading edge technology and adhering to strict procedures for getting the technology into flight and landing back where it took off from.

The flying technology that I am using is a DJI Phantom 2 Quadcopter, about the size of a large boot box. The video camera is a GoPro Hero 4 Black mounted on a Zenmuse H3-3D v2 gimbal. These components are integrated into one very smooth flying video platform.

However, that is not the complete flying video solution. Though I can fly my platform visually from the cliff, I also want to see what the GoPro is ‘filming’. Therefore I have also installed a First Person Video system from Fatshark, the Attitude V2. Looking through the Fatshark goggles, I see exactly what is being captured on the GoPro. (As long as I remembered to turn the record button on.)

That somewhat summarizes the platform technology except for the many modifications that I have made to make the craft more accommodating to the task, more reliable, safer and enjoyable for me, the pilot.

 

 

 

 

Here we Go Again All Over Again

For the past year I have been steadily consumed with flying stuff remotely. Mostly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or what many call 'drones' but little drones; not those things that takeoff from some country with the last name of ‘stan’ and are piloted by kids that grew up on Xbox and living in Nevada somewhere.

Presently, I prefer DJI Phantom 2’s with various stuff hanging from them. I have two. ‘Tommy’, is my oldest with a hundred hours of flight time on it configured for aerial videography. My latest P2 is ‘Sparkle’ whose sole mission is light and magic.

I’ll start this travel though all things that defy gravity with my current work in capturing compelling content as recorded on a mini SD card snug inside a GoPro Hero 4 Black. Easier stated in a blog than performed 50 feet above the crashing surf below.

 

 

Willy