Thunder Flight

Dirty Bird · Apr 23, 2014

This evening I noticed some thunder and a few flashes of lightning and decided I would send up the Phantom to capture some lightning strikes. The storm was off in the distance, wind was calm, no rain, and I went straight up 300' and hovered, pointing the nose north towards the lightning. In my rush to get airborne I forgot to hit record until about 10 minutes into the flight, so I missed a lot of the light show. Duh!!!

I heard a roar through the trees, and out of nowhere the wind started gusting 20-25 mph. The NAZA was getting a workout and I could heard the motors whining and changing pitch as she struggled to maintain position in the gusting winds. You can see in the video one of the prop arms bouncing around, but the video remained perfectly stable. Without warning the heavens opened up, and it started pouring! Here I am 300' up, pouring rain, in very gusty winds, and I'm imagining a system failure from the water hitting the electronics! I hit the RTH switch figuring the NAZA would have better luck in all that wind than me. When the landing sequence paused at 20' , I took back control, snatched her from the air, and rushed inside to dry her off. The Vision+ is fine, and I am impressed at how the NAZA handled the wild winds. That was a little scary...thought I may have pushed the envelope a bit too far! :shock:

http://youtu.be/aUUu7x8GsIo

Bwells · Apr 23, 2014

Dirty Bird said:
This evening I noticed some thunder and a few flashes of lightning and decided I would send up the Phantom to capture some lightning strikes. The storm was off in the distance, wind was calm, no rain, and I went straight up 300' and hovered, pointing the nose north towards the lightning. In my rush to get airborne I forgot to hit record until about 10 minutes into the flight, so I missed a lot of the light show. Duh!!!

I heard a roar through the trees, and out of nowhere the wind started gusting 20-25 mph. The NAZA was getting a workout and I could heard the motors whining and changing pitch as she struggled to maintain position in the gusting winds. You can see in the video one of the prop arms bouncing around, but the video remained perfectly stable. Without warning the heavens opened up, and it started pouring! Here I am 300' up, pouring rain, in very gusty winds, and I'm imagining a system failure from the water hitting the electronics! I hit the RTH switch figuring the NAZA would have better luck in all that wind than me. When the landing sequence paused at 20' , I took back control, snatched her from the air, and rushed inside to dry her off. The Vision+ is fine, and I am impressed at how the NAZA handled the wild winds. That was a little scary...thought I may have pushed the envelope a bit too far! :shock:

http://youtu.be/aUUu7x8GsIo

Cool footage. Glad you got it down before getting too wet. I like to put black electrical tape over the front lights to eliminate the red glare from showing on night flight footage.

mchrol · Apr 23, 2014

Dirty Bird said:
This evening I noticed some thunder and a few flashes of lightning and decided I would send up the Phantom to capture some lightning strikes. The storm was off in the distance, wind was calm, no rain, and I went straight up 300' and hovered, pointing the nose north towards the lightning. In my rush to get airborne I forgot to hit record until about 10 minutes into the flight, so I missed a lot of the light show. Duh!!!

I heard a roar through the trees, and out of nowhere the wind started gusting 20-25 mph. The NAZA was getting a workout and I could heard the motors whining and changing pitch as she struggled to maintain position in the gusting winds. You can see in the video one of the prop arms bouncing around, but the video remained perfectly stable. Without warning the heavens opened up, and it started pouring! Here I am 300' up, pouring rain, in very gusty winds, and I'm imagining a system failure from the water hitting the electronics! I hit the RTH switch figuring the NAZA would have better luck in all that wind than me. When the landing sequence paused at 20' , I took back control, snatched her from the air, and rushed inside to dry her off. The Vision+ is fine, and I am impressed at how the NAZA handled the wild winds. That was a little scary...thought I may have pushed the envelope a bit too far! :shock:

http://youtu.be/aUUu7x8GsIo

Yes, good luck you was able to retrieve your bird before rain would do more damage. V+ really stable. Can't wait to get mine. Conisdering our colleges I should be more patient

)

RedRyderMedia · Apr 23, 2014

I guess any flight you walk away from with your bird in one piece is good.

Hovtech · Apr 23, 2014

Great video. I wonder how many people were looking at the sky and saw your bird and said, "Look Martha, a UFO!". :lol:

Dirty Bird · Apr 23, 2014

Bwells said:
Cool footage. Glad you got it down before getting too wet. I like to put black electrical tape over the front lights to eliminate the red glare from showing on night flight footage.

That's a great idea about the taping the front LEDs for night flights. Thanks!