Altitude--How to Tell?

[Flying Cephlopod]

I am using a stock Phantom 2 with a GoPro camera and a Zenmuse gimbal.

In countless discussions, people mention flying altitude--whether it's 50 feet, 250 feet, etc.

How on earth do you know how high you are flying?

 

[xgeek]

You will need some form of OSD like the iOSD mini and a FPV setup on your P2.

 

[kydan]

If you won't get the equipment you need to measure it, try guesstimating with someone you know like the length of a football field.

 

[480sparky]

Shut it off and time how long it takes to crash. You can then calculate the altitude mathematically.

 

[OI Photography]

You will need some form of OSD like the iOSD mini and a FPV setup on your P2.

That's the most common and probably the easiest method on a Phantom, but there are other telemetry systems that don't require an OSD or FPV (they return the data to an aftermarket controller via the 2.4GHz channel).

 

[phantom_medic]

check out flytrex.

 

[Zinnware]

If you do not have OSD installed or a data flight recorder like Flytrex, you can use alternate methods for estimating altitude.


See these example:

http://patrickjmt.com/finding-the-heigh ... example-1/

http://www.hobbizine.com/rocketaltitude.html

 

[Flying Cephlopod]

Thank you...

...or perhaps some sort of rangefinder.

I have no idea if I fly at 50 ft, 75 ft, 100 ft, 200 ft.

 

[darwin-t]

If you know what your altitude limit is set at and you send it up as high as it will go, you know then how high it is. Other than that, you're guessing.

After the fact, Flytrex will tell you how high it was throughout the flight and if you also buy and install Dashware, you can synchronize the FLytrex data with your video and have gauges showing your altitude, speed, heading, etc. in your video

 

[Flying Cephlopod]

Flytrex sounds pretty interesting
http://www.flytrex.com/

I had started to look at electronic laser rangefinders, but those are pricey at $250 up.

 

[BigTulsa]

Flytrex sounds pretty interesting
http://www.flytrex.com/

I had started to look at electronic laser rangefinders, but those are pricey at $250 up.

The issue will be that Flytrex won't put data on a FPV; you will have to extract the data in post processing.

Here's my first Flytrex/Dashware result. I'm quite satisfied, although Dashware and merging the two together is a bit time-consuming (this 5 1/2 minute video took about 12 minutes to create).

[vimeo]99436749[/vimeo]

 

[Elfman12]

Flytrex sounds pretty interesting
http://www.flytrex.com/

I just got my flytrex last week, it's really nice. Combined with Dashware software, you can get a little creative with how you display this data. Here's a flight I did with this combo:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybYrYmvTLg[/youtube]

My sync is slightly off, but you get the idea.