DJI PHANTOM GPS FLIGHT

Tuesday i had a day off work so it was up at 06:30 put a load of washing in the machine

and then get the rest of the house work out of the way, which left the rest of the day to myself, and as the weather was fair with next to no wind i grabbed the chance to get some more practice in with flying the DJI phantom, for this flight i kept the aircraft in gps mode and just performed some simple maneuvers as i only have two flights under my belt, i switched the phantom on and waited for the  flight iums to warm up which took about five minutes, once the led light turned to green i started the motors and hovered around head hight and took my hands away from the controls the phantom hovered at the same hight and maintained it's position thanks to the gps system getting a good sat reception, once i was satisfied that everything was working correctly i reduced the throttle and brought the phantom down to land and switched on the go pro camera, by this time i only had about 7 minutes of flight time left, as the lithium polymer battery only give about 14 minutes of flight time.

The DJI phantom has a return to home function, should the signal from the transmitter be lost the aircraft will return to the take off position and land on it's own, a good way to test this function is to turn off the transmitter in mid flight and as long as the sat-alight signal is good it will come home and land, however i've not had the confidence to try this yet just incase it goes pete tong.

FIRST FLIGHT WITH THE DJI PHANTOM

So after setting up my Quadcopter the DJI phantom, now it was time to bite the bullet and fly it, so i cycled along to deer park and began calibrating the compass on the phantom, with this done without any problems i began the sequence to start the motors in the recommend GPS mode for the first flight the props kicked into life so i applied more throttle and all of a sudden i was airborne, i kept the phantom hovering about head high and started of slowly with a few easy maneuvers ahh this is to easy so i reduced the throttle and came down to land, easy i thought, lets try her in the att mode that the pros use, well it was a different story all together.......gave her more throttle and away she went, unfortunately not as easy to control the phantom in this mode of flight and was lucky not to turn the maiden flight into a expensive disaster, as i found out it was very easy to lose control once the wind comes into the play and i almost lost her to some tree's, with my heart in my mouth i eventually brought my new toy down to land albeit on an uneven surface and the props got a little tangled in some weeds, however no damage was done and i live to fight another day, but i'll be living that day in GPS mode until i'm a more accomplished pilot.

WIND WIND WIND

This week has been wild, with high winds rain sleet and light snow showers, today was still very windy but dry and bright, so i grabbed the chance to make a beach biking film with the go pro and try out more settings, its also my 40th birthday tomorrow(feb 7th) and I've been looking at alternative ways to film things and decided a while back to save some cash and buy a quad copter for some aerial film making with the go pro, well with the money saved up it was happy birthday to me, the quad copter arrived yesterday and i spent the whole day setting it up, but due to the weather as yet haven't had time to test it, however friday looks like a good day for a maiden flight with lighter winds and sunny conditions, fingers crossed

TIME-LAPSE TEST

While off work last week i ventured out with the go pro hero 3 and tried my hand at  a little timelapse film, i visited the old castle ruins which overlook dunbar harbor that offer decent views out over the forth, as I'm still learning about the settings on this camera the outcome wasn't as good as i had hopped, the poor light and poorer positioning of the camera resulting in a poor first attempt at time-lapse.

For quite sometime now i have wanted a gopro camera but was waiting for the hero 3 cameras to come out, well this week i finally got my hands on a hero 3 silver edition and made this little test video while messing around in the snow, with lots of different settings to try it may be sometime before i get the best out of the camera.

EAST BEACH TO BELHAVEN

Today (sunday) i awoke at 07:30 to beautiful sunshine and had planned a trip from the east beach in Dunbar to Belhaven bay on my inflatable red air sup, the board is constructed from the same material that fast inflatable speed boats are constructed from and are used throughout the world for running river rapids they are virtually indestructible, however to inflate the board takes about five minutes with the hand pump, i started paddling at the east beach as mentioned above and continued to the tyne estuary, there was a small surf rolling in at the bay so i caught a few waves, i made a little film of the trip the beginning shows the board being inflated which i decided to speed up a little, unfortunately the camera angle isn't the best as i have no way of fixing the tachyon camera to anything so had to lay it on the board deck which constrict's the view due to the concave shape of the board a problem i don't think you would encounter with a gopro due to all the different mounting accessories such as helmet and chest straps,
Time fly's when your having fun and today i spent five hours paddling around the coast hopefully the weather will hold tomorrow for my last day off.

HUNGOVER BEACH RIDE

Saturday for me started with a hangover as friday night was the annual 999 Emergency services dance which was held in the Dunbar British Legion and as usual when i am feeling a little unwell the weather outside was stunning for the time of year with bright sunshine and very little wind, so it was off with the PJ's and on with the cycling gear and an hour's ride around john muir to try an erase what remained of my hangover.

I cycled through the woods and headed towards the skittery burn taking it nice and easy and stopping for the odd photo.

The sunlight was warm and pleasant, but once in the shade the temp dropped so i didn't hang around for long as i wanted to get on to the sand of Belhaven beach.

So i took a little short cut through the woods and cycled along spiky Island, once again out in the beautiful sunshine.

And while cycling along the beach i noticed these tracks in the sand, to thick to be from a pugsley so they must have been made by a friends moonlander another fat bike made by surly with even wider wheels which is owned by bruce aka coast kid.

With the rising tide i was fast running out of sand so continued on towards home, i headed along the old dump road towards belhaven and stopped to take a couple of pictures of the wildlife.

This grey heron was feeding in the shallow water, these birds feed on small fish, frogs and insects with it's long bill, herons will also take small mammals such as birds, it will often wait motionless for prey or slowly stalk it's victims, with another ride on the coast complete it was time to get myself home and give the bike a wash, hopefully tomorrow the weather will be as pleasant as it was today and i should be hangover free as i would like to get out on the water with my stand up paddle board, i'll just have to wait and see.