GPS/Black Edition News

[jcflyer]

Originally Posted by Groucho_

How well does the Helicommand GPS unit work?

Was it worth the $1,590 price tag?


Or have you just got a Helicommand without a GPS unit?

I just have the Helicommand unit without the GPS, the GPS is not important to me at this time.

[mkovalcson]

I'll reserve judgement until it is released and I hear the feedback from the first users. The same goes for the Black edition.

I want to see the final feature set and then look at how I see that working for me.

One of my biggest concerns has to do with muscle memory. As it is I fly my 130X behind the house more than my larger birds and I go for the TH instinctually. I've found that when flying my big birds I have to think about when to hit the bailout and of course I need to remember to hit up collective when I do. With the the GPS I need to think about how I want to map my switches. I have 3 unused 3 way switches, but would probably use the 1 unused 3 way switch in front of my TH switch.

If I were to use the GPS then I would probably use the 2 SK banks to change other flight characteristics and have this other switch mapped to Up = fly home, Center = hard deck, Down = off.

Left side

Gear - 2 way switch = SK banks (down = bank 1, up = bank 2 )
Flight Mode - 3 way switch

Right side

TH - 2 way switch
GPS Mode - 2 way switch ( Up = fly home, Center = hard deck, Down = off )


The big question is how long I would have to think before using this new switch.

If I'm always thinking TH first, then SL then GPS will I get to the switch in time?

I use my JR 11X on the simulator and to fly all of my helis because I want things to be the same. Currently all of my non-micro helis have SK-720's on them so the SL instinct is uniform even if I haven't used that switch in a long time.

I use my TH much more frequently because I fly my 130X much more dangerously and very close to the ground. If I use TH most of the time because my micro gets the most use, and have SL on all my larger birds, but lets say I only have a GPS on my TDR which switch will I go for when something bad happens?

[ckindt]

Maybe a mic connected to your tx so you could issue voice commands.

A bluetooth headset like the cool/important people wear bound to your tx. That way you can be more covert in your voice commands.... the little blue light blinking on your head would indicate to the less privy that you're properly prepared standing at the flight line.

Aside from how cool you look, all you would have to do to save your bird is issue the voice command.

much easier than all that muscle memory stuff.

[mkovalcson]

LOL!

Computer Freeze Heli

Computer Fly Home


BTW I consider those Blue tooth headsets pretty tacky. I noticed that the cast of Stargate Atlantis wore them constantly, so I guess they were cool tech in the 2003-2008 time frame

[jcflyer]

I've found that when flying my big birds I have to think about when to hit the bailout and of course I need to remember to hit up collective when I do.

With the Helicommand the Captain Rescue feature as it is called applies pitch as soon as it self levels, no need to add collective!!!

[distructor]

Yep it does look like SK is shooting higher then DJI. It's really hard to tell at this stage who is ahead, but I've seen videos of the DJI-NAZA-H. I also believe that a couple of other FBL controller companies are working on similar functions. In the end the market place decides.


Crash expert.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ArguZ]

Originally Posted by jcflyer

I've found that when flying my big birds I have to think about when to hit the bailout and of course I need to remember to hit up collective when I do.

With the Helicommand the Captain Rescue feature as it is called applies pitch as soon as it self levels, no need to add collective!!!

Yes, its terrible...i found out why i crashed my Trex last time.
It was because I did not realize (see) the the bird was rolled right so much the self level kicked it inverted.
So my quick and instinctive reaction of pitching UP basically killed it.
Which is something I set up myself and used for inverted training.
But Acro and Pitch is a life saver that Skookum decided to not have.
I think I just came to a conclusion....

[Castel]

600 Euros!!!!! Wow... This is for the GPS add-on only... I'm speechless.

This is much higher than what most hoped for... Definitely not a viable feature for me and irrelevant when making the decision to buy an SK-720 for the GPS feature at that price point.

[heathy]

Originally Posted by Castel

600 Euros!!!!! Wow... This is for the GPS add-on only... I'm speechless.

This is much higher than what most hoped for... Definitely not a viable feature for me and irrelevant when making the decision to buy an SK-720 for the GPS feature at that price point.

+1

I only wanted the hard deck feature anyway, i will maybe get the black as its got the same gyros as the 540 and i love the 540 over the current 720 now.

This is Multiplex's GPS sensor http://www.sloughrc.com/default.asp?itemid=85417

as you can see its cheap in comparison.

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by heathy

This is Multiplex's GPS sensor http://www.sloughrc.com/default.asp?itemid=85417

as you can see its cheap in comparison.

Thats just a GPS sensor, the SK one has magnetometers and an altimeter as well as extra processing capacity. It also needs to cover the much greater expense that is the software development, the unit you linked is just a logger, no fancy firmware to develop.

[heathy]

Originally Posted by desertstalker

Thats just a GPS sensor, the SK one has magnetometers and an altimeter as well as extra processing capacity. It also needs to cover the much greater expense that is the software development, the unit you linked is just a logger, no fancy firmware to develop.

I was under the impression the 720 held the magic?? Besides that unit does altitude too and is tunable to a degree, my friend uses one in his glider.. For me its too much money for the 1 feature i would use.

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by heathy

I was under the impression the 720 held the magic?? Besides that unit does altitude too and is tunable to a degree, my friend uses one in his glider.. For me its too much money for the 1 feature i would use.

The 720 does some work, the GPS does some as well (not enough power on the 720 AFAIK). That unit could do GPS altitude but that is not very accurate (10m at best IIRC) not sufficient for hard-deck purposes.

But most of the unit cost is software, takes a lot of man hours to develop and test the GPS controlled flight, even more so when the system needs to be able to deal with a heli doing 3D. Which many of the other units cannot (dont know about the align one, but seems aimed at AP stuff).

[Luvmyhelis]

Originally Posted by desertstalker

But most of the unit cost is software, takes a lot of man hours to develop and test the GPS controlled flight, even more so when the system needs to be able to deal with a heli doing 3D. Which many of the other units cannot (dont know about the align one, but seems aimed at AP stuff).

Interesting. I hadn't thought of the fact the Skookum was or might be the only system that could handle 3d. All along georgi and I have been talking about the massive undertaking this system required in software engineering and man hours. I just assumed the rest of them were somewhat 3d capable. In many ways it is far far easier to design and enable a "numb" system that can sedately fly a heli or plane back to Gps preset perameters. But doing it with a full on rapidly moving heli in 3d motion is ten times more complicated. Especially with a system that isn't using assumed values but real time information in its flight control. If Skookum pulls that off, this will be simply brilliant!

Pretty much all I am going to say about it.

[georgi UK]

Originally Posted by Luvmyhelis

Pretty much all I am going to say about it.

=] you must be a beta pilot then??!

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by Luvmyhelis

Interesting. I hadn't thought of the fact the Skookum was or might be the only system that could handle 3d.

AFAIK most of the others will lose GPS lock if the machine is inverted. From what I hear SK have figured out how to deal with that issue.

Can one of the testers confirm that everything works properly inverted?

[georgi UK]

=] yes, it has gps lock while inverted, that's smart!

[rallyant]

Originally Posted by heathy

For me its too much money for the 1 feature i would use.

+1
Buys me a couple of yrs of crashing at that price.
I really did like the idea of pushing my limits and using my 700 instead of my simulator. Oh well, looks like I'm stuck with the Boring sim still.


Sent from Android via Trap a talk 2

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by rallyant

+1
Buys me a couple of yrs of crashing at that price.
I really did like the idea of pushing my limits and using my 700 instead of my simulator. Oh well, looks like I'm stuck with the Boring sim still.


Sent from Android via Trap a talk 2

But how much better would your flying skills be?

When I hit the limits of what I can do with my 130X, I'll be asking myself this question a lot more.

[Luvmyhelis]

Originally Posted by gmcallister

=] you must be a beta pilot then??!

No way bro, I will sit back in awe and watch the guys doing so though. What a cool privelege to be on the inside working on this. Art informed me they only had a few units to beta test with and didn't need anyone in my area. Bummer. Then again with all my helis burning up with castle problems lately and crashing. That would have added another dimension to my nightmare.

Can you imagine Arts reaction with me calling him and telling him I just smoked one of his Gps beta test units with an esc or bec caused power spike, or the heli coming down in a big ball of flames? Yeah, that would score some points.

I will leave the gps beta testing to the big boys...........

And still dream of owning one some day on one of my newer stretched 600s when I get one.

[Groucho_]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

But how much better would your flying skills be?

Who cares?

Why are skills the measurement here?

I'd ask how much more would you enjoy yourself?
How much less would you worry about crashing?
How much better would you feel without the nervous tension each time you exit a loop a bit too fast and too close for comfort...

Skills shmills...

Give me fun and enjoyment over skills any day.