StartFPV

A record of my progress into the world of Drones.

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Hannover is a large environment in the LiftOff simulator. In this video I am cruising around and exploring the environment and getting more familiar with it.

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Fast Acro Proxy - LiftOff track in ‘Autumn Fields ‘

I have been enjoying this track in LiftOff. Autumn Fields has always been one of my favourite environments and this track is the fastest run.  After the first lap I decided to make my own way and have a bit of free riding.

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Liftoff Tracks

Please note that many of the experimental tracks listed below are very much in a beta testing state. Several of them exist solely to show off the ability to edit a track beyond Liftoff’s in-g…

Some amazing LiftOff tracks here

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Proximity Flying in Velocidrone - exploring the river environment low to the ground with a corkscrew dive from high altitude.

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Where to go for an FPV vacation

I have been looking at this breakdown of FPV laws and regulatoins by country. 

https://www.pylo.co/blog/list-laws-and-regulations-about-fpv-and-rc-aircraft-various-countries

The top 3 countries, in that FPV is full allowed, are Norway, Thailand and Italy.So if we are talking a summer vacation in Europe where there is sun and sea for Partners to enjoy while  - Italy is the FPV vacationers location of choice!

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25 mW vs. 250 mW 5.8GHz FPV transmitter comparison

The purpose of this video is to compare the differences in video quality between 25 mW and 250 mW 5.8 GHz transmitters in real environment when line of sight...

Very interesting stuff - reassures me that as a UK citizen 25mW still allows a reasonable range. Much less difference to 250mW than I would have guessed.

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Simulator Flying - some cuts from LiftOff and DRL SIm.  

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Good article on rates in CleanFlight

Also gives a very good summary of each concept

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Car Park Freestylin’

I find the car park pretty tricky to fly in, but I have to say that acro mode does make this easier. I think I would really struggle to keep the props from the ceiling with stability on.  Long way to go though as I last a few seconds and then crunch. If this was real life 30 flying seconds in a carpark would prove very expensive in my case.

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Hay Bale Freerider

I get a lot of pleasure flying around a big open scene like this. My skills are not really good enough yet to fly in the more enclosed scenes for very long. So in LiftOff I always spend time warming up in this environment. I’m suffering from a defective USB controller at the moment that keeps rolling to the right slightly so my flying is having to compensate for that a bit. Looking forward to getting the Turnigy 9XR rigged upto LiftOff for a better quality controller than the Dynam USB one.

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We have LiftOff!

My first run of LiftOff.  First impressions are good. I would say the FPV Freestyler engine has the edge in terms of FPS and overall rendering quality. But that said, LiftOff is clearly a lot busier - and in ‘Fantastic’ mode it was pretty fantastic. I can see once I’ve got a few hours air time in on this I’m going to be a convert and I can see FPV Freestyle gathering dust. Needs juice though - this video is captured at 2560x1440 - I’m running on a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB / 16GB / i7 Quad 3.5GHz.  I’m not prepared to run resolutions that aren’t native to the display so I am going to be tempted to hang a smaller monitor off my iMac to run this on. I believe it supports FPV Googles as FatShark have been involved in the development of this so I can serious a serious dent in my wallet fast approaching.What really excites me about this though is the capacity for multiple online FPV racing. LiftOff IS the sim I’ve been looking for!

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This is me getting to grips with Acro-mode in FPV Freestyler with my Dynam USB Controller. This is my favourite Sim although Liftoff might have something to say about that but I haven’t been able to get it up and running with either my USB controller or my Turnigy - I think Liftoff works best with a Taranis at this point.

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Ascent AeroSystems develops and manufactures small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) called drones. Our drone has a coaxial configuration that is more durable and portable.

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When they said drone music I pictured a Scottish guy wearing a kilt.

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Nice evening out on Earlswood common.  One of the things I’m finding is that I lose track which way the camera is facing. But I can adjust my control to make it go where I want it to go even if it’s not actually forward facing. I think when I go to flying FPV instead of LOS maintaining a forward facing stance will be easier. 

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Practicing flying low to the ground in a circle - an exercise I’m starting to get the hang of - but it’s windy today (just look at flag in video) which makes this tough for a n00b like me.