First flight today by a rookie

tcg

Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
86
Reaction score
18
Location
NC
This is a post meant for beginners and enthusiasts that may be hesitant to invest in the P2V and want to hear from a non-expert!

I've been researching and drooling over the P2V since December. No experience with RC aircraft and I only wanted first-person-viewing and some photo capabilities. I was hesitant to purchase after reading what seemed to be endless posts with all sorts of problems and shortcomings. Several phone calls to Atlanta Hobby and emails to and from other stores made me more comfortable and I took the plunge last week.

Unit arrived yesterday. The P2V is a solid aircraft and was heavier than I expected. I followed the instructions from the videos (watch them ALL before you do anything) and the build was simple – attach the rotors, put the range extender and smartphone holder on the transmitter, charge the batteries and range extender. Changed the controller from SE to FCC mode. Took about 15 minutes to build. No tools necessary. Only thing not included was 4AA batteries for the controller. Took a couple of hours for the batteries and range extender to charge.

Checked the firmware versions using the Windows software and everything was already up to date. By this time it was 11pm and I managed enough self control NOT to fly in the dark!

Today was perfect weather (and it’s going to snow and rain the rest of the week) – 55degrees and no wind so I skipped out of work a little early and took my first flight(s). Powered up everything, did the calibration dance, waited for green LEDs and then took off. Incredibly smooth flying. Hovers pretty well (drifts just a little, maybe 2 feet?) Practiced in an open field got up to 400 ft away before I got nervous, also went up to about 250ft high before I got scared again! Very easy to fly and having the stickers on the front for orientation really helped.

After over 15 minutes of flying the battery gave the low signal so I landed and put in my second battery. This time I was a little more confident. Sent the P2V 400 feet to the end of the field and shut off the controls. As expected, the P2V rose up to about 60ft and slowly flew back to the home point, hovered and then gently descended. At that point I powered up my controller again and took control back. Again, over 15 mins of flight before the battery gave the first low power signal so I brought it back for a landing.

And, even though I was off the beaten path in the woods I had two cars stop and watch the Phantom as I flew it back and forth, left and right, up and down just trying to get a feel for the controls.

Anything Bad???? Well, the first person view seems to have a little bit of lag but I’m pretty sure that’s my old, slow iPhone4. Will try it with my iPAD 3 next time but haven’t figured out a good tablet holding solution yet. Maybe I will just get out of the dark ages and upgrade to Android! LOL

Took a few pics while in the air and will look at the recording later tonight. The location wasn’t very interesting and the light levels weren’t great but I was impressed with the picture quality(even if it was just a bunch of trees)

Summary: I wanted a long flight time with first person view and limited photography options and I wanted to be able to have FUN and not have to concentrate on flight mechanics. The P2V met all my expectations!
 
Nice post.

To help with the lag you might check (if you have not done do already) is change the FPS in the "Preview Quality" in the settings and choose 320x240 30 fps on the device that you are using to view the FPV. That will help reduce the viewing lag.
 
flying with an ipad attached will be cumbersome..i would suggest getting a nice 7" android tablet or ipad mini. I opted for the nexus 7 2nd generation because my iphone 5 was just too small. the nexus 7 fit the bill perfectly.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,356
Members
104,934
Latest member
jody.paugh@fullerandsons.