Singapore
FPV beginners course by DRACER.ch
It’s been a long time since I flew FPV for the last time, no blog posts no time for my hobby, so sad. But then I stumbled across this new beginners course for FPV drones in Switzerland by DRACER.ch.
DRACER’s goal is to introduce beginners to drone flying and teach them to have fun in a responsible way!
While not a beginner anymore myself, I thought I might still have a lot of fun flying in a large gym hall. They claim to provide the full FPV gear, professional trainers and a race course. I was sold. So Crashpilot went to a FPV beginners course to go have some fun. Check out the video:
Bye bye 2015 and outlook 2016
The second year of the fpvblog can be summed up as a year with high ambitions, a low article count and the welcome of Alastair Baker our first guest author. Chrashpilot, the editor in chief, hopes that the blog will be more active in 2016 (guest authors welcome). He also expects the next year to be a game changer for pilots and the drone industry in general. Read his thoughts about what 2016 might bring. Happy new Year!
Crash pilots hitting the trees
In a dark, dark wood there sat three dark, dark men;
And the dark, dark men were wearing dark, dark googles;
But the dark, dark googles had NO dark, dark screens;
Because on the bright, bright screens there were…… drones!
9 FAA proposed small drone rules
Hey, chap!
Before you start to explore the world through the eyes of drone technology, there are certain terms and conditions that you should make yourself familiar with. First article by guest author Alastair Baker. Continue reading 9 FAA proposed small drone rules
Zippy, the zip tied FPV racer on Kickstarter
Today Benjamin from Austin, TX sent me his Kickstarter campaign for the Zippy, a 3D printed quadcopter frame only held together with zip ties. While there are tons of interesting Kickstarter campaigns I think this one is worth mentioning as it proposes a conceptually new and simple way of building a quadcopter frame inherently designed to be easily repaired and fine tuned out in the field. Exactly what a crash pilot like me would need to advance in FPV racing. Genius!
Continue reading Zippy, the zip tied FPV racer on Kickstarter
Drone flight visualization from Taranis log
I’ve recently stumbled upon ayvri.com a new website (initially called doarama.com) to visualize your flight paths in a 3D map, alongside the original drone video. Even tough the website is till beta, it looks really awesome. Here is my Zaggometry test flight from last summer. Check it out!
All I needed to provide was the GPS coordinates of the Discovery Pro drone in .gpx format and a link to the corresponding youtube video. This is pretty simple.
You can swap the position of the video and 3D map, by clicking the smaller one. The visualization needs WebGL, which is fine with Firefox and Chrome and Internet Explorer. In Safari it first needs to be enabled.
Find your drone guide part 1: Drone-Personality
Quite often I get asked, “which is the best quadcopter?” or “which drone should I buy to get started?” There is no simple answer besides; “It depends”. In my experience it largely depends on your main motivation to fly a quadcopter. So the better question is: What is your Drone-Personality? Are you a Pilot, a Cameraman or an Engineer? May I present the FPVblog Find your drone guide! 😉
Continue reading Find your drone guide part 1: Drone-Personality
This was 2014!
The first full year of the FPVblog comes to a peaceful end with some relaxing days in the snowy mounains. My copters are all flying again and I could record some nice footage throughout the year. My highlights of 2014 were:
- The rebuild of my DiscoveryPro after the crash with some new modifications.
- The photo course in Provence which resulted in the video Lady in Lavender.
- Logging flights with the Taranis using Zaggometry.
- Filming drone footage for the Killer Landslides episode of the NOVA science show.
- TBS’s announcement of the GEMINI.
I hope you had a great 2014. Happy 2015 New Year! And see you next year with some Gemini unboxing and flight videos.
Filming: Killer Landslides
This summer I had the pleasure to accompany a film crew with my TBS discovery Pro to record aerial shots for the PBS science show NOVA. We were filming at the rupture zone of a landslide site near Preonzo in the south of Switzerland. The terrain is quite spectacular with all the cliffs and cracks as only about half of the unstable ground came down during the last incident in 2012. The ground we were walking and flying over is in fact the dirt and debris of a future landslide. Scary!