My GoPro Number 7,a HERO 3 Black,always brave and true,has been critcally injured posibly killed in a terrible multicopter crash today.
It now lays in a desicator burried in silica jel crystals in a critical condition.Allong with the new Arris CM3000 Pro gimbal it was mounted in.
Today was going to be such a great happy day with the final completion of my new hexacopter,a HMF-S550 with Naza Mv2,Ground Station,Arris 3D gimbal,IOSD Mini,NTM motors,SimonK Afro Opto ESC's,Imersion VTX,dual Fat Shark 700TVL FPV cameras,Turnigy retractable landing gear and more.
The plan was looking good,the execution turned out to be exactly that,an execution.
The first attempt to fly failed because the new motors I had installed only this morning were all running backwards.I did not relise this at first and thought it might be a DJI no fly zone thing.I moved to another spot and tried again and then I realised the motors spinning the wrong way.I swaped the props around and all was good,the hex took off.
Unfortunately in my excitement to be finally flying the hex after 5 months of gathering parts and building it I forgot to take into account the first attempt at flight with the same battery where I throtled up to maximum power and held it there a few times.
I flew for a couple of minutes and landed made some adjusments to the gimbal,reset and launched again.Flew around just LOS for a while and it was flying great and I was starting to feel good at the controls.
Came time to bring the bird home so started heading in but when it was about 50 meters away it had a big wobble and plumeted to the ground,well I say ground but it actually fell 2 meters short of ground and landed in a mangrove swamp.A very salty pond.
I ran to find it and saw it there with No.7 fully submerged,gimbal half submerged,gear up one side under water with the motors still chugging around.It had not responded to the CSC or maybe it did and I CSCed again in the panic.
I pulled the hex up out of the water and pulled the batteries plugs as quick as I could but poor No.7 was locked into the gimbal and I could not get the battery out.I turned it off but it just kept restarting on it's own,brave little bugger just wanted to live.
The front LCD was switching between all black and horizontal stripes as I ran to the car with the hex but it took a very long minute to get No.7 out of the gimbal and remove the battery.
I threw everything in the car and made a fast dash for home and on arrival quickly rinsed of the gimbal and washed the mud off No.7 then shook them dry toweled them off and burried them in silica gel crystals inside a glass desicator and now I sit here very sad and wait.
I'll leave them in there for at least a week and see then if there is any signs of life.
I restarted the hex and everything worked,motors ran and spooled up nicely but one retract did not operate.I thought it may be because the battery was too flat so I plugged in a fully charged battery and crackle sizzle smoke,one of the motors fried.
I'm hopeing nothing else is damaged as there was no water on or in anything else.All the main components stayed dry.Luckilly it was only a shallow pond.The tide was out.
To add insult to injury the sd card popped out on impact and when I put it in the computer and loaded it the video of the flight was corrupted and would not play.I did not copy the corrupted file at that time as I should have because I then took it out of the computer and put it into another HERO 3 Black and recorded a short clip and put the card back into the computer and the corrupted file had dissappeared,****!
I was hoping that putting it into a live GoPro would somehow close the file and make it readable.No such luck,so I don't even get to see the crash from No.7s point of view,maybe it's last view.
So prey to the GoPro gods for No.7s recovery as I will be,and reminisce of the fun times I had capturing awesome aerial videos with No.7.
Algebuckina Bridge
Ash Island Radar Station
I'll just slink away hide in the corner and beat myself up now.
It now lays in a desicator burried in silica jel crystals in a critical condition.Allong with the new Arris CM3000 Pro gimbal it was mounted in.
Today was going to be such a great happy day with the final completion of my new hexacopter,a HMF-S550 with Naza Mv2,Ground Station,Arris 3D gimbal,IOSD Mini,NTM motors,SimonK Afro Opto ESC's,Imersion VTX,dual Fat Shark 700TVL FPV cameras,Turnigy retractable landing gear and more.
The plan was looking good,the execution turned out to be exactly that,an execution.
The first attempt to fly failed because the new motors I had installed only this morning were all running backwards.I did not relise this at first and thought it might be a DJI no fly zone thing.I moved to another spot and tried again and then I realised the motors spinning the wrong way.I swaped the props around and all was good,the hex took off.
Unfortunately in my excitement to be finally flying the hex after 5 months of gathering parts and building it I forgot to take into account the first attempt at flight with the same battery where I throtled up to maximum power and held it there a few times.
I flew for a couple of minutes and landed made some adjusments to the gimbal,reset and launched again.Flew around just LOS for a while and it was flying great and I was starting to feel good at the controls.
Came time to bring the bird home so started heading in but when it was about 50 meters away it had a big wobble and plumeted to the ground,well I say ground but it actually fell 2 meters short of ground and landed in a mangrove swamp.A very salty pond.
I ran to find it and saw it there with No.7 fully submerged,gimbal half submerged,gear up one side under water with the motors still chugging around.It had not responded to the CSC or maybe it did and I CSCed again in the panic.
I pulled the hex up out of the water and pulled the batteries plugs as quick as I could but poor No.7 was locked into the gimbal and I could not get the battery out.I turned it off but it just kept restarting on it's own,brave little bugger just wanted to live.
The front LCD was switching between all black and horizontal stripes as I ran to the car with the hex but it took a very long minute to get No.7 out of the gimbal and remove the battery.
I threw everything in the car and made a fast dash for home and on arrival quickly rinsed of the gimbal and washed the mud off No.7 then shook them dry toweled them off and burried them in silica gel crystals inside a glass desicator and now I sit here very sad and wait.
I'll leave them in there for at least a week and see then if there is any signs of life.
I restarted the hex and everything worked,motors ran and spooled up nicely but one retract did not operate.I thought it may be because the battery was too flat so I plugged in a fully charged battery and crackle sizzle smoke,one of the motors fried.
I'm hopeing nothing else is damaged as there was no water on or in anything else.All the main components stayed dry.Luckilly it was only a shallow pond.The tide was out.
To add insult to injury the sd card popped out on impact and when I put it in the computer and loaded it the video of the flight was corrupted and would not play.I did not copy the corrupted file at that time as I should have because I then took it out of the computer and put it into another HERO 3 Black and recorded a short clip and put the card back into the computer and the corrupted file had dissappeared,****!
I was hoping that putting it into a live GoPro would somehow close the file and make it readable.No such luck,so I don't even get to see the crash from No.7s point of view,maybe it's last view.
So prey to the GoPro gods for No.7s recovery as I will be,and reminisce of the fun times I had capturing awesome aerial videos with No.7.
Ash Island Radar Station
I'll just slink away hide in the corner and beat myself up now.
