Maiden Voyage! (finally)

[richnat]

Well, the weather cracked above freezing by the time I got off work so it was time to fly for the first time. I got the compass calibrated this morning while I was on break at work so there was no prep work left. I found a great flying spot just a couple miles from home. Nice concrete walkway for takeoffs and landings and wide open fields. There isn't a lot to see in the video but entirely cool nonetheless. I'm hooked!

A flock of geese were flying over so I panned around to see them, I gave the geese a wide berth, generally though, and then tilted down to see myself and wave back to the camera.



I left it in smart mode and it was just a little breezy, nothing too bad. Overcast with the sun going down so the horizon shots are okay. I shot a 7 minute video but the last little bit got corrupted and I'm unable to edit the video in GoPro Studio. I tried to convert it to .avi using VLC and the resulting file was just random pixel junk so I'm stuck with an MP4 file I can view but can't do much else with. I shot in 1080 at 60fps, best my 3+ can do at 60fps. Gimbal worked perfectly, smooth and reactive. Never had any issues with the live video feed.

I did a few touch and go's and used the fly home feature which worked just great. I got a GPS lock in about 30 seconds and never had a glitch while in flight.

I found the flight ceiling of 150ft, I'll have to open that up pretty soon, maybe a few more learning flights first though. Having done RC in the past really did help even though it has been a couple of decades. I have a PolarPro order on the way, I got the LED lights, a set of camera lens filters and some extended legs. They had a 10% discount thing going on so I got all that shipped for around $85.

As soon as Best Buy has them on sale again, I plan to buy a second one with the backpack, battery, gimbal and props. Should have bought one Saturday night before the sale price ended but I didn't know the price was going to end.

Everything is charging, hope to get another flight in tomorrow while the weather holds. Going to turn poopy again Wednesday.

 

[andrew.baker.142]

Welcome! Glad you are enjoying your Solos!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Frank Foster]

Now you're hooked!

 

[richnat]

Now you're hooked!

I've always looked for new ways to use my GoPro, here is the best of the bunch aside from sticking one to one of my cars and driving "enthusiastically".

 

[richnat]

Flew two batteries tonight. Was about 35 out and I got brave and flung it around pretty good just to see what it would do so I only got about 12 minutes per battery stopping at about 30%. Before I could even land it was at 25% and the controller was bitching at me to hurry up and land.

I tried a few of the automated features, orbit and follow. After three tries I got orbit to work but never did got follow to work. I'll have to read up on it again and try to determine what I did wrong. There were geese all over the place and if I would have raised the flight ceiling, I left it at 150ft., I could have had trouble with a bird hit!

My videos, all five, came out okay and no corruption like yesterday's file so I'll have to see if I can edit them down if they ever finish converting into GoPro Studio! That'll probably run all night at the rate it is going.

It was late in the day and the sun went behind clouds on the horizon but the LEDs really helped keep it in sight and determine what its orientation was. I can't wait to get the PolarPro lights to really help it show up better. I wish there was a way to program the LEDs to put on a little light show of some sort since there are numerous colors in there already. Same for the PP set.

I hope the backpacks go on sale sometime soon, I could really use one!