Daily picture

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by Wild Moose

Thanks Dennis and Scott!

Hi Scott, that last one is of a jobsite I've been shooting for awhile now. It's a very modern juvenile facility that covers 21 acres. Kinda wished that money was spent on public schools though...

That is funny, I was going to say it looked prison'ish, but did not see any guard stations or barb wire fence, so I went for school...

Yeah it's been awhile. Work and a freak incident put a damper on R/C activities...I can remember hearing the words, "do you feel lucky?" when this happened...could've been my neck!

If you're open to sharing, was the accident ground based(setup, testing things, looking at tracking, and got to close) , or was there a crash from the air involved?

[Wild Moose]

That is funny, I was going to say it looked prison'ish, but did not see any guard stations or barb wire fence, so I went for school...

Well one could say that those who go to this place get school'd!

If you're open to sharing, was the accident ground based(setup, testing things, looking at tracking, and got to close) , or was there a crash from the air involved?

I'm open to share about the incident. Keep in mind that I follow a very consistent series of pre-flight checks, even the way I approach the heli (right side so I don't get swatted by the tail blades if the heli spools up on my arse-which it did).

I was performing a pre-flight spool-up of the rotor head to set the blades prior to shooting video on that day as I always do and about half of the time I palm the head once the headspeed has dropped to a reasonable speed. I do this so I can get to the video camera to make last minute adjustments, quickly.

On this day, the damn thing just spooled up as I was reaching down to palm the head button. I remember hearing the motor start up and it was all I could do to jump backwards out of the way. TX was in normal mode, collective at full negative, throttle kill was enabled. Strangest thing was that the heli left the ground up to about 20' AGL before I had any control of it! Once I regained control, I immediately brought the bird down (resetting the throttle kill switch worked???), yanked the batteries and brought the bird home for a thorough inspection.

My set-up has been pretty much trouble free (sans a blown tail servo arm and a couple of sets of batteries) for over successive 170 flights of mixed 3D/sport flying and AP duty. I regularly do system and range checks as well as freq. scan the area prior to flying.

Guess it was my time but I'm very glad it wasn't a permanent one.

-Roger

(sorry to all for going O.T. with this thread).

[dreslism]

Well it was a beautiful day here today, and a great day for pictures.

Started out with a flight on the way to work, sky was brilliant blue. It was so clear that I got up there, and it was SOOOO hard to see the heli against that blue sky. Freaked me out.

Look at the little tiny cars...


Then tonight it was a great sunset, so I got out for a sunset flight. I went over to the DaimlerChrysler World headquarters and flew.

Here is an image that is actually on the DaimlerChrysler website that is their image.



Here is what I shot tonight


Remeber how I got real high in the morning flight? That wasn't nothing.

I was paying attention to the downlink more than the heli (Thanks to the ap2000i) and got up higher than the morning flight, and I could barely see anything of the heli, glad I had one red and one yellow noodle, I could barely make those out, and I could not see the boom at all. The heli drifted directly overhead, and I did not have the patch antenna on, and the video signal went out completely. At this point once again I was relying on the ap2000i to hold the heli. I slowly pushed it forward until the video came back, and started to bring it down. It was almost 9:00PM when I got it down.



I packed up and started heading home, as I was driving down my street, I see this deer just standing in my neighbors yard. I stopped my car, whipped out the camera, and the deer just looked at me and went about his business eating the neighbors flowers.

Here is when I first saw him, shot through the windshield before he took off.



No, he was not going anywhere, he walked over beside the car and starting chomping.



Great end to a great day of pictures.

[AZ ChopperCam]

dude! your daimler shots are WAYYYY better than what they have! damn they look great with the setting sun. and holy crap!!!! you are up there!!!! gotta love that AP2000i huh?!!! VERY nice!!

[Whirly-Girl]

I agree! Your picture TOTALLY blows theirs away!

Nice! I'm envious of your day. I mopped floors and tore apart my OS 50.

Jeanette

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by N74DV

dude! your daimler shots are WAYYYY better than what they have! damn they look great with the setting sun. and holy crap!!!! you are up there!!!! gotta love that AP2000i huh?!!! VERY nice!!

Thanks DJ!

Yeah full scale crap...

I'l have to use this for marketing. "What full scale gives you, what I give you."

Yeah it seemed to be up there. I want to find the height of the daimler building on line.

I had my stupid zlog in my toolbox in the back of the truck and forgot to plug it in to see how high both this morning and this evening.

Dude. I think I can take your cousin... :glasses:


We were coming home from grandmas house tonight and we passed the daimler center about 8:00PM, I saw the light on it and said oh I know where I'm going when we get home. Pulled in the garage, told my wife I was going for a sunset flight, jumped out of her car, into my truck, and hauled but to race the sun. I flew from an adjacent field on the other sides of the wooded trees, and had to carry the fully loaded heli (with about a 3 -4 pound mount), and tripod with downlink through a field of about 2-3 foot tall grass, running as I'm carrying this all as I am racing the sun every second. I must have looked hilarious to people driving by.

Yeah the ap2000i allowed the shots to be made. This was all done solo.

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by Whirly-Girl

I agree! You picture TOTALLY blows theirs away!

Nice! I'm envious of your day. I mopped floors and tore apart my OS 50.

Jeanette

Thanks Jeanette, I'm envious of you and the fact that you get to have your fly-ins, and that you have mountains and oceans around you!

Whenever I organize a fly-in only me and my ap2000i show up!
I guess at my fly-in's I don't have to worry about any frequency checks... :wink:

[WillJames]

WOW WOW WOW WOW!!!

THANKS for the great photos!!!!

[Hyde]

dreslism - what were your camera settings for the D-C building? looks nice and sharp even with lower light.

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by Hyde

dreslism - what were your camera settings for the D-C building? looks nice and sharp even with lower light.

I was running in shutter priority with it set at 1/1000, but also in safety mode where it will drop back the shutter if it can't get the set 1/1000.

They ended up coming out at 1/640 @ 2.8

[LoopBaCK]

First post on the Daily... Was doing some test flights after a repair and grabbed these pics...

EDITED - 7/18/2006 8am: Added links to full size images

EDIT - 9-20-2006: Here is the Google Maps view

This pic was towards the end of flight and I turned back towards the sun. Didn't expect anything but this shot of the football field was OK:


Here's the baseball field at the local high school:


Here's the track...


And finally the front of the building...

[AZ ChopperCam]

very nice wes! the lighting is great!

[LoopBaCK]

Thanks DJ... used your old chopper to get them. I really like the evening sun. Good time to shoot... AND it's too darn hot earlier in the day!

[Wild Moose]

Scott, that photo of the DC building should be considered a benchmark for A.P. work! :glasses2: A job very well done!

-Roger

[AZ ChopperCam]

gotta love the AP2000i

about 500' agl

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by Wild Moose

Scott, that photo of the DC building should be considered a benchmark for A.P. work! :glasses2: A job very well done!

-Roger

Thanks Roger, much appreciated. It is a cool looking building.

I am hoping to do a shot from dead in front of the main tower, shooting almost straight down the front of it.

My current tilt does not go down enough, but as soon as my gimbal kit arrives I should have enough travel to do it. Property is tight though in front of that building, and it is their property, so it may be a fly and dash mission.

[dreslism]

Originally Posted by N74DV

gotta love the AP2000i

about 500' agl

Cool. Yeah its up there. This with your front mount? When I was up there the other day, it was real hard to see my heli, my underslung had yellow and red noodles, so that helped. Any noodles on yours?

Looks like your sky was overcast, so that helps with the contrast to see your heli.

Mine was a blue sky day and it was really hard to see.

Can you prove you were at 500? Any altimeter?? :wink: :wink: :wink:

[LoopBaCK]

...so it may be a fly and dash mission

I love those... :cool:

[AZ ChopperCam]

Any altimeter??

no, but using the known object height to horizon methed I get 520'. Each of those power line towers is about 65' tall. takes 8 of them to get to the horizon.

no foam noodles. just trust and faith in the AP and some really tightly clenched butt cheecks.

[Whirly-Girl]

Originally Posted by N74DV

and some really tightly clenched butt cheecks.

So THAT'S the secret to higher shots!?!?!

My husband is going to love the effects of lots of practice then.