I took my P2V to the Northeast Florida Association of Rocketry (NEFAR) launch this past weekend. Unfortunately, the forecast for nice weather was wrong and we were greeted by overcast sky and strong winds. Due to the weather and this being a busy time of the year, fewer people than normal showed up. The weather also discouraged many of those in attendance from flying.
But, a few diehard rocketry enthusiasts went ahead and poked some holes in the sky. And, I was determine to record as much of the fun as I could.
I've only flown the P2V a few times so I was nervous about the wind. So, I first took it up to about 25 feet in altitude and let it hover. I was amazed, and quite pleased, to see how well it handled the wind (which had dropped a little by then to about 15 mph with gusts to about 20).
Because of the wind, I was cautious and didn't fly the 'copter too high or too low and I didn't try to move it around very much. The only real problem I had, though, was landing. I tipped it over most times and completely flipped it once. No damage to the P2V fortunately. After a while I took a break from videoing and practiced landings. I discovered that I was in the habit of using the "CSC" gesture to shut down the motors as the Phantom landed. This worked okay on a day with no wind where the 'copter would actually be on the ground before I did the shutdown. But, on a windy day, I was trying to shutdown the motors while the craft was just above the ground. The problem was that the Phantom was responding to the stick movement before the motors shut off and that was contributing to the tip-overs. When I just pulled the throttle down for a few seconds, I had better success.
The rockets are launched in sessions. The flyers set up their rockets on the multiple launch pads then the range is "closed" and all of the rockets are launched one at a time. I found that I could fly back and land while the rockets were set up on the launch pads and either let the Phantom sit to conserve battery power or swap the battery with one I had charging. In this way I was able to have the Phantom in the air for just about every launch.
If the day had been busier though, i think I would have needed a third battery (and second charger) to keep up. But, most of the time I'm going to be flying my own rockets so there' will be time for batteries to charge when I'm busy doing other things.
I took mostly video and just a few stills. I didn't realize that I was doing that at the time. I think I did it just so I could concentrate more of flying and watching the rockets. As it turns out, I only caught one good still picture of a launch.
The video is just "okay." The wind made it very bouncy. I cleaned it up in Premiere as much as I could and just discarded clips that were too shaky. Not very many larger rockets were flown and I was nervous about flying high, so I didn't capture much of each rocket's flight.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9wzFGknFXM[/youtube]
Here's hoping for better weather in January!
-- Roger
But, a few diehard rocketry enthusiasts went ahead and poked some holes in the sky. And, I was determine to record as much of the fun as I could.
I've only flown the P2V a few times so I was nervous about the wind. So, I first took it up to about 25 feet in altitude and let it hover. I was amazed, and quite pleased, to see how well it handled the wind (which had dropped a little by then to about 15 mph with gusts to about 20).
Because of the wind, I was cautious and didn't fly the 'copter too high or too low and I didn't try to move it around very much. The only real problem I had, though, was landing. I tipped it over most times and completely flipped it once. No damage to the P2V fortunately. After a while I took a break from videoing and practiced landings. I discovered that I was in the habit of using the "CSC" gesture to shut down the motors as the Phantom landed. This worked okay on a day with no wind where the 'copter would actually be on the ground before I did the shutdown. But, on a windy day, I was trying to shutdown the motors while the craft was just above the ground. The problem was that the Phantom was responding to the stick movement before the motors shut off and that was contributing to the tip-overs. When I just pulled the throttle down for a few seconds, I had better success.
The rockets are launched in sessions. The flyers set up their rockets on the multiple launch pads then the range is "closed" and all of the rockets are launched one at a time. I found that I could fly back and land while the rockets were set up on the launch pads and either let the Phantom sit to conserve battery power or swap the battery with one I had charging. In this way I was able to have the Phantom in the air for just about every launch.
If the day had been busier though, i think I would have needed a third battery (and second charger) to keep up. But, most of the time I'm going to be flying my own rockets so there' will be time for batteries to charge when I'm busy doing other things.
I took mostly video and just a few stills. I didn't realize that I was doing that at the time. I think I did it just so I could concentrate more of flying and watching the rockets. As it turns out, I only caught one good still picture of a launch.
The video is just "okay." The wind made it very bouncy. I cleaned it up in Premiere as much as I could and just discarded clips that were too shaky. Not very many larger rockets were flown and I was nervous about flying high, so I didn't capture much of each rocket's flight.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9wzFGknFXM[/youtube]
Here's hoping for better weather in January!
-- Roger
