A long weekend, over-water flights, bad crash and bulletproof P3S

[Russ43Phantom]

I finally got to the campground... most of the reason I got into flying in the first place. Gorgeous countryside, great weather Saturday and a chance to capture the boating and lake shots I've been dying to get at.

All went well Saturday, and friends that we only see in the summer were amazed, most had no idea of the capability of these things. Even the campground owner, a pilot with a plane on the grounds, was curious, amazed and now considering his own.

I'm working on video and a presentation, but here is a teaser, chasing a friend's boat at 250' and just over 30mph, backwards:

And the campground itself:

The range was exceptional... even more than printed on the box. The boat pic was taken at 1042m away, just over the 1km quoted max range.

Sunday was less cooperative... overcast and rainy on and off.

I was looking over the pictures and found roads and trails that I didn't know existed so during a break in the rain went up to take a look.

I'm taking off in a clearing and GPS is spotty until I get above the tree line... and I clipped branches because the rise was not 100% vertical. Rather than get into everything else I could have done, I'll just say it resulted in a crash. It pinballed down through the tree until a 20' drop to a gravel sidewalk, while I tried to CSC and collect the remains.

What I picked up was a bird with a broken prop, two badly chipped ones, and a camera that was one a wickedly strange angle and in a violent, vibrating twitch that looked like the toe on ED-209 after Robocop took it out (you know what I mean). I immediately knew I'd be here looking for camera repair advice...

BUT... I did a complete shut down and battery removal, gently rotated the camera back to normal, replaced all four props and restarted.

And it flew again as normal as any other flight, camera and all.

I am so thoroughly impressed with this AC I have nothing at all bad to say about any experience I've had with it.

Range is beyond expectation.
Interference errors have all but disappeared.
RTH demos have all be 100% successful, including one demo from 3000' out and RC shutdown.
Low battery RTH has been 100% successful.
All batteries, store bought and eBay "used twice" (but all OEM) function perfectly.
A crash produce zero ill effects.

And I now have 100% confidence flying over water... while those around me are nervous!

I absolutely love this thing.

I really like the nice pattern created by your shot of the boat. The white looks like there was some serious clipping. Yet ... I liked the dark exposure of the lower area of blue water. An important technique to assure a much larger dynamic range is to set your contrast setting to a -1 or -2. Your RAW image (or JPG) will look slightly washed out, but it will capture all the details of the white areas. You can then use postprocessing to re-establish the contrast to your taste. BUT, forgetting the overexposed and washed out whites of your image, it captured a really nice pattern, a look only available to a drone. Nice job!

 

[jwmcgrath]

Thank you Russ!

I will be the first to admit that the last thing I was working on during this adventure was photographic quality!!

This is my first true overwater flight, so I was intently focussed on range, altitude, speed, direction, obstructions… Everything to make sure the bird stayed in the air.

I really wanted shots of the boat but that was secondary to making sure that everything and everyone was safe, including the hardware!

The absolute truth is I was so focussed on the flight that I didn't take the time to capture images, that boat shot is actually a screenshot of a video clip. The boat video is about six minutes long, I'll crop it down to the most interesting parts and post it when I get a chance…

Once I had begun mastering following the boat and swaying side to side while keeping the camera trained on the boat, I eventually decided to try to swing around front and fly backwards in front of it and only have a few seconds of that video because I was just reaching the thousand metre range…

And even at that range, now that I think back, the bird started to return home because of low battery, not because of range… Now I'm wondering how far I could've actually gone!

I had spent the previous 10 minutes trying to track my kids down fishing on a paddleboat in a completely different direction so I only had 10 minutes of battery left to chase the boat!

 

[Russ43Phantom]

Thank you Russ!

I will be the first to admit that the last thing I was working on during this adventure was photographic quality!!

This is my first true overwater flight, so I was intently focussed on range, altitude, speed, direction, obstructions… Everything to make sure the bird stayed in the air.

I really wanted shots of the boat but that was secondary to making sure that everything and everyone was safe, including the hardware!

The absolute truth is I was so focussed on the flight that I didn't take the time to capture images, that boat shot is actually a screenshot of a video clip. The boat video is about six minutes long, I'll crop it down to the most interesting parts and post it when I get a chance…

Once I had begun mastering following the boat and swaying side to side while keeping the camera trained on the boat, I eventually decided to try to swing around front and fly backwards in front of it and only have a few seconds of that video because I was just reaching the thousand metre range…

And even at that range, now that I think back, the bird started to return home because of low battery, not because of range… Now I'm wondering how far I could've actually gone!

I had spent the previous 10 minutes trying to track my kids down fishing on a paddleboat in a completely different direction so I only had 10 minutes of battery left to chase the boat!

I know the feeling. With each flight, at first, I tested boundaries (within FAA rules of course). Each time I test new function, I still feel very anxious ... some would say respect for what could go wrong ... but I would say anxious. After many flights, the anxiety turns to a proper respect causing a careful review of pre-flight checks.

 

[jwmcgrath]

I know the feeling. With each flight, at first, I tested boundaries (within FAA rules of course). Each time I test new function, I still feel very anxious ... some would say respect for what could go wrong ... but I would say anxious. After many flights, the anxiety turns to a proper respect causing a careful review of pre-flight checks.

Agreed, along with a healthy respect for trying to keep an eye on all of the various parameters of which there is no shortage.

Just when you think you have a grip on range, altitude, return to home height setting, battery life, the location of people, places and things… Then you start to remember the extras like battery temperature, volume…

And by volume I mean that I flew once not realizing the volume was down to zero on my iPad. I wasn't getting the audible feedback that you get used to and when I realized that there had been warnings I wasn't getting, you become distracted by that too!

 

[jwmcgrath]

A few more shots of the boat chase, again just screenshots of the vid, in chronological order:

He'd have been doing about 30mph at this point. It was AFTER this that I caught him and flew backwards in front of him.

Nothing but impressed with the performance of the humble P3S.

And finally, the moment that low battery RTH kicked in. I usually always let it come home on it's own just for the enjoyment of watching and waiting. This is the view from the RTH altitude and is facing back toward home point:

 

[Rainer P.]

Awesome

 

[jwmcgrath]

Back out last weekend... a long Canada Day weekend!

Just as awesome.

I did have a couple of scary moments... in the same pic as above, I was flying over that island and got a strong wobble.

I'm certain that I was cautious enough to be clearing the trees but now, that confidence is rattled... it certainly looked on the screen like that's what was happening. No trees in the view, no leaves, but other than a bird poking at it, I can't imagine what else could cause a sudden, noticeably strong wobble.

Instinct made me climb, quickly and it never happened again. I'm pleased that there was no panic or poor reaction as that's the first "issue" I've had.

Second... I lost GPS lock in a gusty wind. THAT is scary. There is a ton of drift and as you can see above, not a lot of clearings to head for.

I'm not sure why I lost it but the bird has been SO reliable in every way that I knew it would come back if I gave it a chance...

So, the reaction in this case was to climb to a safe height, determine the direction of drift and position the AC in such a way that all I had to do was keep forward throttle strong enough to compensate for the wind until I regained GPS.

And that's exactly what happened.

I can tell you though, the prospect of trying to land in a small clearing with a gusty wind, was daunting.

Again though, nothing but the highest praise for this AC's performance, and I'm having a blast with all the experience, good or challenging.

 

[jwmcgrath]

Back to the lake again this weekend and another feel good story...

My bone stock P3S traveled to 5,445' with only the beginnings of range warnings and paranoia bringing it home.

Can't love this thing enough.

And I still haven't tried the DBS that I got for it yet.