Nice flying! The sim time is definitely paying off.

(19-Apr-2023, 03:30 PM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: So two comparison videos, flying in the quarry and it was very windy, like around 20mph wind gusts, so the quad is all over the place at times and landings were interesting, to say the least.

And yes, that was the sketchiest attempt at a Matty Flip on the 3S video.  I was seriously about a foot off the ground when I pulled out of it.  Probably wasn't wise to try it on such a windy day.

In the end I had to stop flying because some tw*t in a Cessna kept flying over the quarry at fairly low heights (seemed not much more than 100m up, which is inside the ceiling for my flights).

Mr. Sulu, load the photon torpedoes . . . 

Nice loops !!

(19-Apr-2023, 04:22 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: Some manned aircraft definitely breach CAA rules by flying below 400 feet (~120 metres) when there is no airport or landing strip anywhere in sight but I guess only drone pilots need to be over-regulated and pilots of manned aircraft can get away with doing whatever they like.

I live on a direct flight path between two military air bases and we quite often have low flying military helicopters going overhead between the two bases, some of which are definitely below 400 feet. Maybe military aircraft have an exemption to do that, or maybe they are also in breach of CAA rules. I have no idea, but it does mean having to keep my ears open whenever I go out flying. The Drone Assist app doesn't show the area I fly in as a NFZ and I've never seen any TFR's listed either so I don't know what the deal is with that, but it can sometimes be a bit frustrating having to cut a flight short or have to prematurely come right back down to ground level when I hear a heavy chopper that is getting closer.

Knock, knock, knock . . . thankfully, at least so far, other than when you're around an airport, there's not a whole lot of restrictions as to where we can fly, 400' limit though, but I never go anywhere near that high . . . with my quads . . . 8^} . . . We do have an Air reserve base about 20 miles away, but those are the huge transport planes, and while they do fly fairly low heading home, they're still way above 400'. 

And one for us quad flying joystick jockeys, and a real pilot getting in trouble . . . Some maroon gave the stadium a low buzz at one of the Youngstown State football games . . . found the idiot and fined him good . . . Yeah us !!!

And something from today. I have no idea what that RSSI DBM warning is or why it's flashing. I also don't think the rssi link quality element is working. It shows -130 all the time. I was rather hoping to get the current values, since I'm running FrSky D8 and would like to know well in advance if it is going to failsafe due to no rx.

North Selby Colliery Site (Disused/Abandoned):

Nicely done. That's a good size open area to play in and gives you a lotta room for your acrobatics. 

My usual dilemma would be, do I want to fly over hard stuff, like concrete or blacktop where it's easier to find the quad, but hope it's not in pieces . . . or fly over grass and field grass, and the Chinese hot air spy balloon can't even find it's little cousin . . .   

Planning any weekend flights out there?

(20-Apr-2023, 08:54 PM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: And something from today.  I have no idea what that RSSI DBM warning is or why it's flashing.  I also don't think the rssi link quality element is working.  It shows -130 all the time.  I was rather hoping to get the current values, since I'm running FrSky D8 and would like to know well in advance if it is going to failsafe due to no rx.

I am having the same problem with the RSSI DBM flashing on my Darwin Tiny Ape and have no idea why. The only time it does not flash is when I am up to around 50 feet away and mostly in front of me. If you find out what fixes it, please post the solution...

(23-Apr-2023, 07:44 AM)Brian_OH Wrote: Nicely done. That's a good size open area to play in and gives you a lotta room for your acrobatics. 

My usual dilemma would be, do I want to fly over hard stuff, like concrete or blacktop where it's easier to find the quad, but hope it's not in pieces . . . or fly over grass and field grass, and the Chinese hot air spy balloon can't even find it's little cousin . . .   

Planning any weekend flights out there?

I'm going to fly it again at some point, but it's about 40 miles north of me and on A roads (single carriage, max 50mph).  Takes me about 75 mins to get up there.  The other almost down side to that site is the fact someone has nicked all the manhole covers and grate covers, so there are about 20 mega deep holes (deep enough that when i looked down them I couldn't see the bottom) littered around the site, which i assume to be sewer related, but could be entrance shafts to the mine for all I know.  You can see them on the video from time to time.  Someone had the good sense to put pallets and boards over them, but some tard has removed them all.  If i was going to be flying there for a day or something, I would probably spend 30 mins covering them all again.  It's another reason i didn't really try anything too hard, trick wise,  I wanted to try some Mattys and a Rubiks Cube, but those holes everywhere made me want to not risk it.

Saying that i found a new place quite near to me.  It's a bit overgrown, but it's essentially a 100mx100m field.  Also near there is a soccer field with many goalposts on it, but no nets.  Going to go look at it tomorrow and see if I can rip a pack there.  Perfect place for Matty / Loop practice and far enough out of town to avoid the masses (and karens).

So far i'm not crashing that much.  Most of what you see me doing in the vids, I am doing in Liftoff as well.  i try to fly in Liftoff a couple of times a week.  But a late I am spending more time going out and flying for real.  Most of my crashes are for stupid reasons, like yesterday I landed in a blackberry bush, which turned out to be due to my camera being almost horizontal and not being able to easily tilt and see in front of me.  So I dropped it in a bush.  if I didn't have a beeper, I wouldn't have done that, but I couldn't be bothered trying to get it over the gate.  Second time I got it closer.

Sounds like you need to put some led lighting on this bird and do some tunnel exploration.

Honestly going down those holes wouldn't be an issue. I have climbing gear, I have a couple of 7L air tanks left over from my scuba days (and reg sets), even have a gas meter somewhere that shows common poisonous gases and with a person or two as backup it wouldn't be an issue. I suspect they are more sewer than mine shaft / air shaft. Literally the only reason I would go down is if I dropped my quad down one and even then i would have to seriously consider whether it's worth it. Mines and sewers are no joke. Think all these mines were coal, which means explosive gases and poisonous gases. But yeah, lol. As nice as it is for flying drones, those holes put me off. But I found out from someone else's video that this site is actually about 10x bigger than the area I flew, so might go back up with a friend and do some exploring as well.

But that's another day.

This is the rather short video of me not really doing anything too interesting or ground breaking. Although, to be fair, it was my first pack flying a new location and it's kind of public and not as quiet as I'm used to. The second pack was a much longer flight, but similarly, not particularly interesting. The upside is this place is about 10 mins away.

That's a long way to have to go to fly, I don't like to drive that far to shoot . . . Is there just not that much open areas around, or are you all that restricted where you can fly? And do the restrictions even matter with the Micros, most all are waay under 250g?  

I didn't mean you crashing, you'll have to keep practicing to be as good as me at that, and I am good . . . I can hit things I'm not even aiming at. I really think quads go into stealth mode when they crash & the flippin landscape cooperates & works with them too . . . that or they have a built-in cloaking device that goes off when the quad hits the ground out of LOS . . . deep holes to hide in is beyond unfair.

May your new flying ground be a more un holy place . . . 8^}

(24-Apr-2023, 04:56 AM)Brian_OH Wrote: That's a long way to have to go to fly, I don't like to drive that far to shoot . . . Is there just not that much open areas around, or are you all that restricted where you can fly? And do the restrictions even matter with the Micros, most all are waay under 250g?  

I didn't mean you crashing, you'll have to keep practicing to be as good as me at that, and I am good . . . I can hit things I'm not even aiming at. I really think quads go into stealth mode when they crash & the flippin landscape cooperates & works with them too . . . that or they have a built-in cloaking device that goes off when the quad hits the ground out of LOS . . . deep holes to hide in is beyond unfair.

May your new flying ground be a more un holy place . . . 8^}

I have several haunts that i frequent, well actually many.  The quarry is about 30 mins away, some fields are within walking distance, but very urban and busy, the new place is just out of town.  There are 3 well known bandos within 45 mins of here (and one of them is actually only about 4 miles away).  The thing for me is I like to fly places where it's quiet, generally, away from people.  You go to a bando and you have people with DJI goggles fragging the vtx signal for us analogue users, or it's just too busy, like 8 or 9 pilots queuing to fly.  I prefer quiet quarries and places like that mine site.  Didn't see anyone at them (at all).

The only reason i did the mine was I had to do something in a nearby town that day, so thought since I was in the area I might check it out.  I also flew a disused barn that was a few miles south of the mine and tried to fly with my niece and nephew at a place near their house later in the afternoon, but the wind was hitting about 30mph and it was seriously hard to fly at that point.

(24-Apr-2023, 05:07 AM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: I have several haunts that i frequent, well actually many.  The quarry is about 30 mins away, some fields are within walking distance, but very urban and busy, the new place is just out of town.  There are 3 well known bandos within 45 mins of here (and one of them is actually only about 4 miles away).  The thing for me is I like to fly places where it's quiet, generally, away from people.  You go to a bando and you have people with DJI goggles fragging the vtx signal for us analogue users, or it's just too busy, like 8 or 9 pilots queuing to fly.  I prefer quiet quarries and places like that mine site.  Didn't see anyone at them (at all).

The only reason i did the mine was I had to do something in a nearby town that day, so thought since I was in the area I might check it out.  I also flew a disused barn that was a few miles south of the mine and tried to fly with my niece and nephew at a place near their house later in the afternoon, but the wind was hitting about 30mph and it was seriously hard to fly at that point.

While I do fly probably 90% just out the front & back door, I have a grade school ½ a block away that has about a ¼ square mile yard, with the playground & a ton of open space, & a nice park that has some nice recreation areas & pavilions with a good play area, and other than close to an airport, can fly pretty much anywhere. In all the years I've been flying, I never ran into anybody else flying quads, planes, or helis, and the only other r/c was the guy down the street got a couple hot cars for his grandkids to play with when they come over. 

Great you can bring your niece & nephew into r/c flying, & they enjoy it. I'm sure it will be something they'll always remember. I thought my son would be into it right away, being so into the video games & how easy he picks up on them, and he had a couple r/c cars & a motorcycle growing up, but wasn't even interested in quad FPV, which really surprised me, because I think it's like playing a video game for real.

Hopefully you'll find solid ground farther around in that area, although you never seemed to be close to crashing anyway. Those are nice vids & hope you post more.

Hi Brian,

I thought our son would like to fly these quads, but he doesn't like it (so far).
The controls are way too touchy and he gets frustrated pretty easily. Yes, I could
take one of my quads and fiddle around with motor limits, throttle limits, and such;
but the smaller tiny whoop ones are NOT Betaflight and most can't be modified. I
want him to get some experience before just handing over one of my quads.

When he shows a bit of interest (and I think he will come around), I will build a
quad specifically for him. Something that is small and short on raw power.  Maybe
a 1S-2S 2 inch with low KV motors like 5000 or 8000. Then adjust settings if needed.
Run it on 1S to learn on, then move up to 2S when he gets better. From my perspective 
this is one of the best ways to moderate the power; easy to do without fiddling with 
Betaflight settings.