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Thread: Vortex 285 FPV video (crash)

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    Flying nearly every day.
    Yeah, me too, Brad. I'm flying mostly low over water with FPV goggles, which makes me really anxious about dunking it - especially when flying over flocks of birds.

    Quote Originally Posted by lasersbee View Post
    Just saw a review/test of the Mavic Pro V1 and the new MPV2 precision
    landing. The older MPV1 outperforms the new MPV2.
    There is no way I would buy a new product hot off the presses.
    I waited a year before buying my P4P+ and Mavic Pro.
    I'm with you, Jerry. I suspect they will fix that at some point though. Having your Mavic auto-land 5-6 feet away from your take-off point instead of 3 inches is the difference between a safe landing and having it hit a tree or fall into a body of water. There are lots of other issues being reported including cameras falling off, overheating, etc. Here's a thread talking about features that are currently missing for the Mavic 2s as compared with the MP1s: https://mavicpilots.com/threads/mavi...eatures.46510/ Again, I'm sure many of these will be corrected over time and the price will come down.

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  2. #12
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    Didn’t realize how many SELEMers were Mavic owners - pretty cool!
    I guess I need to start showing up at the annual gathering a bit more often so I know what is going on.

    Hmm, maybe a separate SELEMer Mavic thread might be order ~
    I have a feeling it would stay a bit busy for a while.
    I could probably scrape up a post or two since my Mavic traveled with me on my recent Costa Rica trip...
    (Guess I need to learn how to post videos via YouTube, LOL...)

    Back to Buffo’s thread -
    I vote for a SELEMer quad excursion to his new-found flying site!
    Last edited by Stuka; 09-03-2018 at 06:36.
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    I guess I have to get my act together and upload a bit of footage from my new Mavic Pro. :-) Flying nearly every day. Chris, did you see my PM to you a couple weeks ago?
    Brad,
    I didn't receive a PM. Last one I got was from Adam on 8/3. I'm going to PM you with my phone and email. I don't want to post it here.
    So........you bought a Mavic Pro!!! Good for you!! I knew you would love it.

    I would love to see more footage from everyone.

    Here is one I shot last year at Mill Creek Park in Ohio.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16F1kWKTStI

    Chris

  4. #14
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    Bradfo69 is offline Pending BST Forum Purchases: $47,127,283.53
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    Resent the PM and e-mailed. Yup. :-)
    PM Sent...

  5. #15
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    Chris, I think both you are Jerry are correct. I must have hit the moss head-on. The freeze-frame video really tells the story (great job spotting that Chris!), although in the goggles I couldn't see the moss very well at all. But when I hit it, the moss wrapped around that port-side aft prop and whipped around fast enough to tear the receiver wires loose from the radio! That being said, the Vortex is quite robust, so apart from the receiver there was no other damage. I had it flight-ready the next day.

    David, the video of the river you shot with your Mavic is amazing! That thing really does have a nice flight controller. So smooth! And with the GPS auto-home feature, you don't need to be as concerned about flying it farther away (or even over water), since you know it will come back to you if it loses signal. I could never take that chance with my Vortex; if it loses lock on the transmitter it drops from the sky! Then again, it's not designed to be an aerial video platform in the first place, so this makes sense.

    Chris, I also liked the video you shot with your Mavic, although I would have liked to see the return flight as well. That's an interesting creek bed you were exploring. Nowhere near the expansive vista that David was filming, but still cool! It's a good contrast to show the different sorts of shots you can get with that bird.

    I've been practicing at the house with the "Liftoff!" software lately. They added a bunch of new tracks a few months ago, and now it's really fun! According to the announcements on Steam, they will be moving it out of Early Access in the middle of September, so I expect a lot more people will jump on the bandwagon later this year. Personally I've been having the most fun flying through the trees on the Hannover and Golf Course tracks. I just select "free flight" and "no track" and just go for it. It's great!

    Still flying in Horizon mode though. I can do Acro (rate mode) on the simulator, but it's not nearly as much fun. Eventually I will start practicing in Acro mode so I can fly rate mode in the real world, but for now I want to just enjoy things first.

    Adam
    Last edited by buffo; 09-04-2018 at 04:20. Reason: typo

  6. #16
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    Some nice flying Adam. I think you're well on the way to becoming a pro.

    It's a pity the Vortex doesn't have blade guards as somehow I think the moss would have simply been swept aside otherwise. Glad to hear there's no real damage.

  7. #17
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    I think blade guards would only slow it down. And they would have needed to be very fine-mesh guards indeed to keep the Spanish moss out of the props. I don't know that any commercial quads with guards could have shrugged off a hit like that. That moss is tailor-made to foul propellers! Fortunately, it's also rather light, so it really won't hurt anything. I did chip a couple props in that crash, but I'm sure that was a result of the ground impact and tumble, and not from the moss. (And props are cheap!)

    The real solution is for me to get more flying time in! Part of the reason I hit the moss in the first place is because I still struggle with altitude control. If I had been a foot or two lower (which is where I wanted to be) I would have missed the moss entirely. Honestly the main reason I'm still flying in Horizon mode (which means the flight controller is always trying to bring the craft back to a hover when you center the sticks) is because I don't have good control of my altitude yet. From everything I've read online, once you can control your altitude well, you are ready to switch to Acro (rate mode) and have some real fun!

    Sigh - maybe in another month or two...

    Adam

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by buffo View Post
    David, the video of the river you shot with your Mavic is amazing! That thing really does have a nice flight controller. So smooth! And with the GPS auto-home feature, you don't need to be as concerned about flying it farther away (or even over water), since you know it will come back to you if it loses signal.
    Thank you! Flying over water is so much fun. The Mavic Pro is an amazing piece of hardware and version 1 is darn cheap at the moment considering what a video platform it is.

    Regarding the Return to Home feature, yes it provides some piece of mind, but I've only had it activate twice. The first thing it does is rise to whatever RTH altitude you have set and then flies back to its home point lickety-split. (You can cancel once you regain signal.) This is all good unless you lose signal under something like an overpass or high tension lines - which are the two times its activated for me so far. Thankfully it activated slightly after clearing both of these obstacles. Oh and both times were over water. I'm sure I'm going to lose it one day in some body of water. We'll have to start a club for those of us who have lost a drone this way!

    Speaking over over water shots, here is more of another section of that river recorded this morning. It was a very still and I was flying about three feet over the river at 20mph for about a mile. As you know, with the goggles it feels like you are there. What a joy!



    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  9. #19
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    Anybody do ducted fans on those units? The drive is all inside so very little to hang up.

  10. #20
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    Nice! Three feet over the water is a little ballsy. Yes, I have been challenging myself more and more and been doing water fly overs but still staying at least 20 feet or more up. Also been doing a lot way up high - 375 feet in some scenic areas. Doing more in close quarters but still a bit nervous about it. I spent the $99 for the insurance though but I'm wondering how you send anything back to them that's now in the bottom of a river.
    .
    I need to slow down a bit more and make some gimbal movements a bit slower as well.
    PM Sent...

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