My Phantom's Maiden Flight

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I've had a great day today and have actually only invested less than a couple hours (including video editing). I made three separate flights today, the first being bisected by a crash. The video I've linked to here is the first half of the first flight (so it really is the maiden flight). It is no more than a climb, a little translation and some (ok a lot) of rotation, and a descent, with some other gyration included. This part of the flight ended when I landed hard, bounced and then landed hard again and rolled forward and ended up upside down.

The first flight was actually a little more complex than it needed to be because I though I would be cool and also film the activity with my Nikon and iUSBport-camera system. The latter really complicated things because I was trying to do too much! I ended up not correctly filming with the D800 and the iUSBport-Camera (and only caught a 10 second video of me picking up and resetting the crashed Phantom.

The second two flights today were much less exciting and a lot more learning (with a few oversights that will teach a bundle), twice I forgot to put the Micro-SD card in and had to come home and insert it (with the power on by the way).

The first video continued through the crash even though I didn't realize it. I've edited the video down because it was way longer than I had expected. This is the first 2 1/4 minutes that ends with the bounce and crash.

OK, somebody help me figure out how to post a video here!

This is great fun!
Tom
 
Very impressive! I love how you were able to get something out of, or into your car while you left it hovering. :lol: Man, technology sure has made some leaps since my early days of RC flying. I wouldn't call that a crash either, just a "hard landing". :mrgreen:
 
slothead said:
I've had a great day today and have actually only invested less than a couple hours (including video editing). I made three separate flights today, the first being bisected by a crash. The video I've linked to here is the first half of the first flight (so it really is the maiden flight). It is no more than a climb, a little translation and some (ok a lot) of rotation, and a descent, with some other gyration included. This part of the flight ended when I landed hard, bounced and then landed hard again and rolled forward and ended up upside down.

The first flight was actually a little more complex than it needed to be because I though I would be cool and also film the activity with my Nikon and iUSBport-camera system. The latter really complicated things because I was trying to do too much! I ended up not correctly filming with the D800 and the iUSBport-Camera (and only caught a 10 second video of me picking up and resetting the crashed Phantom.

The second two flights today were much less exciting and a lot more learning (with a few oversights that will teach a bundle), twice I forgot to put the Micro-SD card in and had to come home and insert it (with the power on by the way).

The first video continued through the crash even though I didn't realize it. I've edited the video down because it was way longer than I had expected. This is the first 2 1/4 minutes that ends with the bounce and crash.

[vimeo]<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/98689057" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/98689057">Maiden flight 5</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user23132909">Thomas Manson</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>[/vimeo]


This is great fun!
Tom

http://vimeo.com/98689057
I fixed the link for you. :)
 
slothead said:
How did you see this!? I didn't think I got it up! Thanks Phil! What should the line of code in the post look like?

I don't know, I haven't written code for quite awhile. I could just see the brackets and knew that wasn't going to work so just edited the URL in the address bar. Once I was on the right page, I just copied the address and pasted it into my reply.
 
slothead said:
How did you see this!? I didn't think I got it up! Thanks Phil! What should the line of code in the post look like?

Glad you finally maidened your bird, and happy you didn't sustain damage in your roll over. :shock:

I assume you had the camera in FVP mode?
 
Dirty Bird said:
slothead said:
How did you see this!? I didn't think I got it up! Thanks Phil! What should the line of code in the post look like?

Glad you finally maidened your bird, and happy you didn't sustain damage in your roll over. :shock:

I assume you had the camera in FVP mode?

Hi Dirty,
Was I in FPV mode - I have no idea! Ha! How would I know? I was watching it on my iPhone. To me that would be FPV mode, but that's SOP right?

I was worried that I had damaged it and thought that the long rails on the bottom of the landing gear would have prevented my roll (forward), but so would have the prop guards. Neither would allow my Phantom to fit in its case fully assembled.
 
gmbn.inc said:
Much like my first flight video, erratic movements, rotating it left & right & not very entertaining! Lol... It's great fun once you get the hang of it. Just stay away from those lighting towers! Had a few near misses with those things myself.

I hope you don't mind me saying, but it's nice to see that more 'mature' people are buying these things, flying responsibly & treating them with a little bit of respect. If they are used in the manner for which they were intended, as a flying camera, they're great fun. I am 48yo and using the excuse of mid-life crisis to justify my expenditure! It's cheaper than buying a sports car!
Enjoy
Gmbn, Some of that jerkiness is because of how I edited the video (using iMovie), but most, as you say, is in the aircraft's operation (I'll learn to slow down eventually).

Mature? I'm probably not very, although I'm 63.

So far I'm not very impressed with the quality of the imaging (I'm a Nikon guy and am more used to my D800 with its 36MP sensor.) My next objective is figure out how to set the stills on the Phantom to Raw, and I'm hoping that helps me scavenge some better detail from the stills. 14MP of Raw data should help.
 

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