G'day. I'm new

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G'day. I'm new

Postby Fury » Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:52 am

Hi everyone.
Just wanted to introduce myself, say hi and write what I am doing here and what I plan to do in the world of RC planes etc.

My friend call me “Fury” which is my name here and on the forums. My youtube and donation name is proudman71

Just so you know that is me who throws some small amounts of change to RCmodelreviews from time to time.

Well I’m basically a Harley-Davidson enthusiast who has always been interested in aviation of some sort since I was a kid, many, many years ago. So the plan is to take on RC as a new hobby when I’m not riding my beloved Bike. I live just outside Melbourne, Vic, Australia and ride through some amazing landscapes here. So with that in mind I would like to get views from the air of this area. Hence I am interested in FPV. Also I have years and years of Flight Sim experience and feel that FPV is the next and ultimate step for me.

When I was much younger I flew real scale gliders up in Queensland, so I know that general physics of flight. Did I mention I was an Air Cadet, oh how things change!! Wonder what happen to all that discipline and how I turned into the unsavory type I am now :P

Now in saying that I have no idea at all when it comes to electronics and the mechanics of these toys, so here I am looking for help and advice.

Being me I did rush in and purchase of few items without proper research which I might regret, or at least have thrown some money away, but I will see how I go.

I purchased the Blitz Sky Surfer from BananaHobby, which hasn’t arrived yet, but should do in a week or two. Now this doesn’t seem like a FPV plane, (I realize now), however it does look similar to the AXN Floater. So I might be lucky enough to fit some FPV stuff in it. Let you know how I go.

I also ordered a 5.8G 200Mw Video TX and RX on ebay, which looks like it will be ok after watching Bruce’s reviews.

My first step now is going out to the park and seeing if I can try fly this plane when I get it. I’m not really confident in flight a plane from the ground as my sight can be a bit funny at times, hence another reason form my interest in FPV.
But I will give it a whirl. I did also order a flight simulator (Real Flight) to do a bit of practice. So hopefully that will arrive soon. I choose Real Flight because I read somewhere it has FPV view as an option, which could be beneficial to me.
Getting use to the radio sticks might be a challenge, as I’m used to a joystick and the proper yoke. Should be fun thou.

Next step will be looking for the other items, like camera, osd, stabilization and auto-pilot, which looks a whole lot more complicated, so I will do some homework on those and go through Bruce’s reviews again to make a good decision.

I am very interested in the visor project Bruce has talked about. So I will wait to see how he goes with that before I splash out on some goggles.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but just wanted to introduce myself and share where I’m at and add some more bits as I go along. The idea of this is if anyone will have difficulties in putting together a FPV system and screwing it up, it will be me. Hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes and also I will get great advice here.

Also a quick thanks to Bruce for all his reviews as it as helped me from knowing nothing to a little bit. Not bad for a Kiwi mate.

Cheers

Fury
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Re: G'day. I'm new

Postby RCModelReviews » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:39 am

Welcome to the hood :-)

The FPV vids will hopefully be up starting next week -- unfortunately I've got to find a new supplier for the LCDs that I eventually used in the FPV visor because the original supplier also stiffed me out of $60 worth of stuff on my last order and now their website has gone down so I'm thinking they're not a company you'd want to recommend to your friends and readers!

Stay tuned!
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Re: G'day. I'm new

Postby Sid Sideslip » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:47 am

G'day Fury and welcome to the forum. I'm an Aussie too, from Tassie in my case, though I spent many years in Melbourne and also North East Victoria (where I got my PPL).

I'm fairly new here myself and am getting back into RC planes after a very long break. Btw, like you, I am also interested in FPV flying. I just have to relearn some old skills and am still getting up to speed on all that has happened in the RC world in the intervening years, which I am enjoying immensely.

This is a great forum for help and advice...and the ever inventive Bruce is a huge asset.

Hope you enjoy yourself here and find the place as helpful and friendly as I have.
Last edited by Sid Sideslip on Thu Jul 28, 2011 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: G'day. I'm new

Postby Sid Sideslip » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:53 am

RCModelReviews wrote:Welcome to the hood :-)

The FPV vids will hopefully be up starting next week -- unfortunately I've got to find a new supplier for the LCDs that I eventually used in the FPV visor because the original supplier also stiffed me out of $60 worth of stuff on my last order and now their website has gone down so I'm thinking they're not a company you'd want to recommend to your friends and readers!

Stay tuned!


Bastage!!! Don't you hate it when that happens buying stuff on the intertubes?

Looking forward to your FPV vids. I've been tooling through many of your other ones today. I converted an old ATX power supply today to run my new Turnigy charger...er, when it finally arrives that is; crumbs HobbyKing is slow out of Hong Kong.

Also, lols at hitting the tower in that vid recommending a good beginner's plane. Showed that one to my wife. :lol:
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Re: G'day. I'm new

Postby Fury » Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:15 am

Just wanted to share a quick story.
So while waiting for my plane to arrive, (I’m not the most patient man, hence my nickname perhaps) I purchased a beginners chopper. The Police Helicam by Twister RC. It has a FlyCamOne for recording video.

So I charged up the battery that came with it and threw in 8 AA’s into the Planet TX that came with it. So out to the front yard last night for a little practice, trying to get a feel for it. Basically a little hovering , left, right, back, forward and a quick spin in either directions. Since my front yard is pretty small I was only a foot or so off the ground. It has two rotors, so it is somewhat stable, however I felt that I didn’t have the room, so I put it away ready for the next day.

I had to go up into the Dandenong mountains for a meeting with someone, so I packed up the chopper and took it with me thinking I could stop off somewhere up there to a test flight. I saw a big park that looked big enough, so stopped there and pulled out the helicopter. Place it on the ground started her up and away we went.

I tried hovering a bit and then flew back and forwards fairly close by. Something in my head said, “no sweat, it has a camera onboard so let’s get some height so I can get a birds eye view, check out the camera etc. So up I went at a great rate of knots. Spun around slowly to try to get a good visual of the area. Then I pictured a circuit in my head and attempted to fly around. So far so good, I managed to roughly go where I wanted to. Quite proud of myself, until………….

The chopper was a bit of a distance away so time to bring it back. Oh…..um….. is it facing this way or away from me? Pulled on the stick to see what direction is was facing (damn eyes). Nope that’s not it, spin in around and try again. Nope, still further away. Ok, no drama, I’ll just slowing let in down and go fetch it. So down it goes, not to fast. Ok, there was a building over in that direction, but surely the building is further than my chopper. As it went down it disappeared behind the roof, not good. So I get it some power and there she was, up again. Phew close one. Um, I think it is going further away. Bugger. So frantically now I’m trying to work out which way to come back. Then all of a sudden it must have been out of range and it just dropped down out of the sky. My first thought was, there goes $195. Expensive lesson, it would be in pieces for sure. So off I trudge around the back of the building in search of bits of my helicopter. Should be able to get the SD card out and see the footage at least.

So I get to the building and notice it was a big kindergarden. No I know it went down behind the building, so I walked around the back. Strange place to put this kindergarden, but anyway, so I had to walk up a hill behind the building and once there saw a huge fenced off area where the kids were running around playing in some sort of spongy playground. Now I thought, bugger I hope it didn’t land on a kids head or anything like that. So picture this. There is this big burly biker with full sleeve tattoo’s on both arms standing on a hill walking around looking down into the kindergarden. Perfect location to see the down into the whole back of the fenced playground.

Being a small town in the mountains the police response was real quick and it wasn’t my RC helicopter. “No officer you don’t understand I am looking for my RC helicopter. It landed somewhere around here I think”, I said. With suspicion the police officers join the search, after a while no helicopter. So it was just about the time where the police officers where beginning to doubt my story when some kid runs over with my helicopter in hand. “Thanks kid.”

So then we looked at the damage that was mainly cosmetic except the blades were broken. Luckily you get a spare set of blades in the box. The SD card must of got lost in the crash, so no footage.

Think I’ll stick with fixed wing and flying somewhere a little more remote next time.
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