It's 2019 drone days

I collected tonnes of video footages from my builds however most of them were just from around the front yard.  I now have close to 40 quadcopters built up mostly with Betaflight 3.0 and 4.0 flight controllers with several SP3 for the earlier builds. I flew almost daily during the Spring of 2018 all the way into the summer. As winter approached  I fly them only occasionally when the weather allows for it or when the clouds are really super duper looking.

Off location flying so far has been only to Fidgeland (several sessions over multiple days), Maudal (one full day) and Vaulen (occasional weekend mornings). Vaulen is easist to get to because it is a site closest to home. Most of the time choosing the best sites to fly has been rather difficult with people's perception of these craft being a nuisance and a tool for invading privacy. To avoid complications and any unwanted confrontation I have always chosen sites away from people and/or time of day when there is less likelihood of having to share the space with other folks.

So far there has been no issue with the neighbours whenever I fly in in the frontyard but I do feel that I'm pushing my luck each time I take to the air. It was much easier when living in Hundvag since the houses are much further apart (except for that barnehage in front).

You can see my boring chasing clouds flight videos on my channel here : Youtube

For 2019 to date I have partially built 5x6-7 in frames and planning to complete them before Spring pops up. These maybe be the last few frames to be build from this class.  These bunch will likely be my last few builds. After this it will be only about flying and maybe occasionally doing maintenance runs.

I also still have two 450 class which have been waiting since last winter to be wired up. I think it is rather difficult to fly large craft unnoticed.

Alfa Monster with DYS Samguk Wei motors

Shark 330 with 3BHobby motors

URUAV 310 with Racerstar Sprog motors

Cross 300 with Emax motors

Diatone 630 with Racerstar Sprog motors

Waiting ...

Several locations that I would like to give more coverage in 2019 are : Fidgeland from 1100m trailing the ridge and  Reve coast trailing the waterline. These would be cool footages to have in my collection.

Intermediate Toy Grade Drones

These slightly larger drones, typical greater than 250 size and with a bit of weight as well as power in the motors. They typically has more than one rate ie. low, intermeidate and high, some just with low or high rates. Other more sophisticated onces control rates via percentages ie. 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%.

There's typically no GPS associated with these class. SOme come with integrated FPV cameras, others allow for Gopro like camera attachment with 1-D gimbal. They also typically have larger range, 100-150m on the shorter spectrum with 300m on the upper spectrum. They are typically brushed (or was it brushless?) motors.

Falling into these groups I picked up the following medium size "toy drone" class:

UDI Predator :
This was a disaster drone for me. It's a very capable drone with lousy sticks on the transmitter. I had to use rubberbands on the throttle for a more measured input to get anywhere with this fella.

Tarantula X6 :
A legend in it's own right, nimble, fast response to the stick and powerful.

WLToys Falcon:
This is a very capable flyer however is flyaway prone outside of transmitter range (12 sec delay to engine cut-off) upon loss of signal.

JJRC H26D:
Fumbling and very twitchy at high rates, could also be due to lack of finely tuned transmitter.

MJX X101:
This one is very stable with two rates, low or high, however also prone to fly away issue when out of transmitter range.

Another drone which falls on the borderline between this class and the next is the WLToys Q303. This drone has altitude hold and is very stable which makes it a good camera/video drone. It is  also quieter than all the drones  I have mentioned above perhaps with the excetion of the Falcon.

These are all still manual drones and has no GPS associated with them for a typical Phantom like video. Videos made from this group of drones look more like FPV drone videos though with a much more controlled speed signature. Q303 is different in that regard due to the special altitude hold feature.

WLToys Falcon Q323

JJRC H26D

WLToys Q303 with the smaller altitude hold Hubsan X107D

Yizhan Tarantula X6

MJX X101

Having flown these reresentatives from this class, I would recommend all of them excepth the JJRC H26D. It feels rather loose as if it'll fly away on it's own given half a chance. The Tarantula X6 and he MJX X101 both are pure joy to fly. The Q303 may feel a bit boring to some but very good for videos with the altitude hold feature.

Another exciting one to fly is the Falcon Q323, it's fast and responsive, however the flyaway issue will always be at the back of your mind during flight. I have had several crashes with the Q323 when it flew out of range or suddenly being hijacked by the wind when flying at 40% rate.

Remember that it takes 12secs before the engine dies off, and with the wind it could go quite a distance away from where it started off. Watch this video of Q323 flew off and I lost control, it had me running after it through the entire neighbourhood.

A second crash video with the Falcon Q323 when flying at low rates (40%) in strong winds from an upwind direction.

A video when flying the well behaved Q303.

Another video with the Q303.

A nice bluesky day on the Tarantula X6 at low rates.

A big scare from the JJRC H26D.

From these bigger quads, some important lessons I have learnt:
1. Always fly downwind ... ie. the wind blowing against you from the front with the quad in front of you flying into the wind. If you lose control the wind will bring it back to you.
2. Strong winds and low rates don't mix well. Couple that with flying the drone with the drone down wind of you spells big disaster.
3. Flying in open space gives you more flexibility to maneuver in case of trouble, you want a direct line of sight to your craft.
4. Get your orientation tricks sorted out before flying your quads too high where you can hardly see the craft. If left turn on the sticks, quads go left, your craft is having the same heading as you. If left turn on the sticks, quads go right, your craft's heading is opposite of yours.
5. Never panic if you seemed to have lost control of your craft. Do not turn off your transmitter. With the craft still connected to you via the transmitter you may still have a chance to recover. If you turn it off, you never will.
6. Try all the functions on your quad (RTH, FLIPS, HEADLESS, ALTITUDE HOLD etc) in a big field where you can recover easily, and I highly recommend this be done at low altitudes within a short flight range.

Starter drones for those without joystick thumbs

When I first flew the the Ares Spidex the first flick of the throttle took it right to the ceiling, the second flick slammed it down directly to the (fortunately) carpetted flow. Thus I realised to my dismay that both of my thumbs lacked the finesse to fine control the joystick. The training began ...

The Raider micro drone, looks like a craft Flash Gordon would use.

The Ares Spidex and Raider drone are definite the best starter drones to start for those in the same condition as me. Growing up never interested in computer games, pinball machines and the like I must admit that a lot of training and familiarisation is needed to fly drones manually.

Once I had some inkling of how much of a twitch is needed to pull up or pull down the craft, exact left and right movements I steped up to to a slightly bigger done the Ares Shadow (250 size). It's very light, rather powerful and very agile. It's light construction enabled it to fly fast and fall gently without inflicting much damage to the craft.

By this time, I have also acquired the Hubsan's micro drone. I had the X4, X4 Plus with 480 camera and the X4 Plus H107c with 1080p camera with altitude hold. The Hubsan micros are very agile, fast and capable drone even at the beginner's level. Swap to to "expert" and get ready to fumble if you are not yet quite up to speed with the response rate the micro drone are capable of unleashing.

Hubsan X4 Plus micro drone with 480p camera in black and green.

Hubsan X4 Plus micro drone with 480p camera in red and white.

 Hubsan X4 Plus

Hubsan X4 Plus H107c with 1080p camera and altitude hold

Both the Raider and Ares Spidex are very easy going micro drones and very tolerant of pilot errors. They are light and durable, so many knocks indoors would not do too much damage. The propellers of these crafts are also light and made of plastic. The worst you could do is break or damage the propellers, which can be replaced rather easily ... so long as you adhere to the A and B prop placement convention.

I quickly moved to the Hubsans once I approximately was able to discern fine movements on the transmitters. All the time only working in beginner's mode.

The Hubsan micro quads are definitely a joy to fly ... they are responsive and quick to the flick. The model with altitude holdis slightly more sluggish but not by very much.

Discovering RC flights via micro drones.

I'm not quite sure what triggered this drone fever finally, I think it must've been the many bird's eye view from drone pictures I've been seeing on FB and the internet in general. So with zero joystick and RC experience I jumped straight into the  proverbial drone pool ... what better way to learn than starting from the bottom.

I started sniffing around the online RC shops locally and settled for a small toy grade starter drone from Elkjop and quickly ordered a couple more micro size drones online.

My start date to be precise : 08th Mar 2017 , within the week I lost one drone ... a Hubsan Micro X4 Plus that flew away with the wind to god knows where. Attempt to locate it was futile. However that was quickly replaced the very same with the same exact model. By  the 15th of Mar, I've added a few more of these little drones to my collection.

Watching posts by Quadcopter 101, Dustin, Alishanmao, Tigger and numerous other drone video bloggers made it obvious that I needed to start with the most basic drone to get familiar with the sticks and myself more entrenched in this fascinating seemingly simple but fascinating hobby.

It's safe to say that my starting crafts were:
Hubsan X4 Plus (Elkjop)
Ares Spidex 3d (Saeland)
Ares Shadow 250 (RC-Deler)
Raider (Hobbex)
Ares Spidex Micro (RC-Deler)
Hubsan X4 Micro with Camera (Amazon)

These were all the small quads that properly taught me about joystick control : yaws, pitch, spins, flips and the rest of it. It took many crashes and many days of practice before I finally found sufficient finesse in my opposing thumbs and fingers to finally take these drones outdoors. The good thing about these little craft is that they are practically indestructible, perfect for indoor practice, however suitable outdoors in calm windless situations.

In these here blog pages I hope to record and hopefully share the delight and misfortune (of flyaway drones) I encounter in this new hobby. I hope there will be more stories on the delight of flying and not too many of rogue, flyaway drones and hopefully no misfortunes.

Welcome!