Just Pre-ordered my Vision!!

[Firestat]

From Dronefly, $1199 USD, will ship around October 8 2013

That is about what I expected to pay. I have that and more into the other Phantom.

Really excited. Hope the weather holds up for a while.

 

[Firestat]

Correction, October 28. Sorry

 

[wildcatter]

Thanks for the heads up, just placed my order. This will be my first phantom....

 

[Firestat]

I am sure you will like it!

 

[ethemtolga]

Wow! We're looking forward for your reviews! I hope you get them as soon as promised and give us an idea about how it looks like.

 

[Firestat]

Well, not holding my breath on the delivery date, but I am sure they want to get them out there.
I am a little apprehensive about getting in on the ground floor. I almost am never among the first to get something like this. For example, when I ordered it from Dronefly, I looked around there site and could not find an extra battery. I put a note with my order about that.

Secondly, At first, I won't have too many pilots to turn to on this forum to ask questions.

Thirdly, I wish I had a manual to look over before I get it. Makes it much quicker to get it in the air.

I will give my first impressions when I get it.

 

[Adam]

Agree - very interested in getting extra batteries at launch - and the extra battery price. I don't expect them to be cheap.

Phantom 1.2.1 for $479 + Zenmuse $699 + GoPro Black $329 = $1507 for stabilized footage vs $1199 for Non-stabilized footage but iPhone controllable + FPV included + twice the battery life.

 

[Firestat]

Adam, I am a little concerned about the batteries, but not overly concerned. When I bought my first Phantom in August, I was able to buy two additional batteries from one of the vendors at IRCHA, in Muncie IN. I am sure that things will become more available as time goes on.

 

[MrBojangles]

I also have just ordered my Phantom Vision from First Person View here in the UK. Delivery expected after the 28 Oct. Asked about spare batteries.....was told they would be available at a later date...a thought are the batteries balance charged. Didn't see any evidence in any of the videos I have watched.
Also will a Widows phone app be available soon I wonder anybody herd...?

 

[Firestat]

Well, there is a charger included in the package so I assume that it is a balanced charger.

I hope that they are going to have a good inventory of spare parts. It would be sad to have to wait a long time for parts.

 

[wildcatter]

Well I got the vision on the 5th late afternoon. The weather sucks, high wind and rain. All I have ever flown was a 60 dollar wltoys V222. Was a blast till I lost it in the timber a few days later. On the 6th the rain let up but wind was 20mph gusting to 35. I finally couldn't take it any more, I had to try. I took the phantom up to 50 feet, maneuvered around some and felt very comfortable with everything. I went up to 150 feet, flew around my place for about 20 min. It was awesome, yes the video was a little shaky but who knows how hard the wind was blowing at that height. Like I said it was 20 mph on the ground according to my wind gauge. I build powerlines for a living and believe me, when you get up in the air the wind is a lot stronger. I see a few people are having a few problems. All I can say about the Phantom is ..... Awesome

 

[Pull_Up]

I agree, wildcatter - it's great fun. You are spot on about the wind, though. I remember from my ultralight/microlight flying days the winds aloft are a whole different ball game to what's going on a surface level. At the heights our P2Vs are going to be at you can probably bank on 125% to 150% of the surface wind speed. My first full-length flight was with surface winds in the low teens mph. Once she was up at 100ft or so the P2V had a beautiful bank angle on to hold station with the GPS! It was very, very impressive if a tad "sporting" for smooth video! The only thing that caught me out on my very first flight (coming from flying micro quads mainly indoors) was the inertia you get in this bigger machine. Especially if you are heading downwind you need to pull out sooner than you think as she will carry on a bit until physics catches up. I had a tangle with a bush to learn that lesson. No damage done, though.

 

[wildcatter]

I agree, wildcatter - it's great fun. You are spot on about the wind, though. I remember from my ultralight/microlight flying days the winds aloft are a whole different ball game to what's going on a surface level. At the heights our P2Vs are going to be at you can probably bank on 125% to 150% of the surface wind speed. My first full-length flight was with surface winds in the low teens mph. Once she was up at 100ft or so the P2V had a beautiful bank angle on to hold station with the GPS! It was very, very impressive if a tad "sporting" for smooth video! The only thing that caught me out on my very first flight (coming from flying micro quads mainly indoors) was the inertia you get in this bigger machine. Especially if you are heading downwind you need to pull out sooner than you think as she will carry on a bit until physics catches up. I had a tangle with a bush to learn that lesson. No damage done, though.

I checked out your video Pull_Up, looks good I posted my as well. I let youtube do the stabilization but it sucked. I am reloading in raw. youtube.com/watch?v=7CRuBqAWyLI is the link to the stabilized version. the raw links is http://youtu.be/SMgxCIOrNS4

 

[Pull_Up]

See what you mean about the stabilization there. It will be interesting to see how mine gets stabilized given my much calmer conditions. I'm not so much into video that I want to get heavily involved in post-processing, so if YouTube's built in effects are ok for light winds then that will be excellent. It's still only 50% processed at the moment so we'll see!

 

[wildcatter]

See what you mean about the stabilization there. It will be interesting to see how mine gets stabilized given my much calmer conditions. I'm not so much into video that I want to get heavily involved in post-processing, so if YouTube's built in effects are ok for light winds then that will be excellent. It's still only 50% processed at the moment so we'll see!

Here is another, raw no stabilization only 2-5 mph wind this time. youtube.com/watch?v=N79g5WmC0jY