I've been working on getting my hexacopter out over the ocean for a few months. Partly because I've had a few glitches over land and I wanted to make sure I was 100% confident the hardware wasn't going to fail. If I were to drop this thing into the ocean, I'm pretty sure my wife would consider it grounds for divorce.

After months of practice and patience, I finally took it out into the ocean. A few of us headed up the coast to The Entrance for a kite session, and I took the copter out for a fly.

The camera gimbal still needs a lot of work. It's meant to keep the horizon level at all angles of flight. You'll notice from the video it's far from working as it should. It also had a lot of shake which I needed to take out using software smoothing (makes the video kinda look like jelly). I'll probably need to spend a bit of money to get it working properly... In the meantime I'll deal with it as is.

The hexacopter is flown completely through a set of goggles that have two screens in them. I see exactly what the copter sees. Range on this is about 2km.

Wind on this day was about 20 knots.

I can't wait for a clean day of light west winds and big swell. Should be able to get some awesome surf footage.

Comments welcome!

Appart from editing, you may want to try a diffrent lens, the wide angle moves your subject too far away, you dont need the wide angle as its not board mounted, I think its got great potential. how does the copter handle higher winds?

Once you can fly it backwards through a barrel you got it nailed!

That's a great perspective, can't believe how high it fly's. Wouldn't be concerned so much about getting the gymbal to work but getting a bit closer the the action would be great.

Agreed with all ^^^ .. great potential with an edit & sound track. Thanks for sharing.

You serious about the vision through googles thing? Got a photo/link of what they are?

coastflyer said...

Laurie, I have been involved with RC model aircraft for many years, and FPV model aircraft are very popular, being used by real estate agents and the Surf Life Saving Association. Here is a link if you want to find out more.


http://www.fpvpilot.com/Pages/60616sHexacopter.aspx

laurie said...

Agreed with all ^^^ .. great potential with an edit & sound track. Thanks for sharing.

You serious about the vision through googles thing? Got a photo/link of what they are?

kite shredder

I'm am indeed serious about the goggles. These are the ones I've been using:


As long as you have a good antenna on both the copter and the goggles, it's pretty easy to get a 2k range out of them.

Check out what this guy is doing up in Queensland (watch in HD). He's considered to be one of the best FPV pilots around:


These toys don't come cheap. In total, my setup was just under $5,000. If I drop it in the ocean, I'm probably down about $2,500 as the goggles, transmitter, charger, etc... are not on the copter itself.

coastflyer said...
Laurie, I have been involved with RC model aircraft for many years, and FPV model aircraft are very popular, being used by real estate agents and the Surf Life Saving Association. Here is a link if you want to find out more.


http://www.fpvpilot.com/Pages/60616sHexacopter.aspx

laurie said...

Agreed with all ^^^ .. great potential with an edit & sound track. Thanks for sharing.

You serious about the vision through googles thing? Got a photo/link of what they are?

SydPete said...

no idea what i would do with it, but i really want one.

spy on all the hot chicks in your neigbourhood.

ps love it.

How long can you fly it for. looks great

There's a dude I know from Sweden that used to judge on the PKRA that is right into this stuff. I had a chat to him about it when I saw him last. He reckons that the quadracopters aren't that good for filming due to not having a good place to mount a go-pro or camera to (and some other stuff)... He made his own tri-copters and was a master at flying the thing. He had no auto-gyro at all and was filming guys kiting in Germany when I was there in about 25knots... Some of the footage was pretty sick, but sadly it's always going to be hard to keep stable when its windy enough to kite.
I will try and get in contact with him and find out some more.

This is excellent use of a Quadrocopter

Funny enough, that's the video that originally got me involved in this hobby.

In the meantime, here are two more videos from the weekend out at Boat Harbour. Nothing exciting really, but there are a few shots flying pretty close to the water. I'm definitely ready for the surf... Just need a day of good swell and light offshore winds.

wishy said...

KIT33R said...
This is excellent use of a Quadrocopter

...

Nothing like surfing the pass with 500 of your best mates.

^^^ Could go 15mins drive, have better waves and about 500 less people...

bjw said...
but 15 minutes away there is nobody to film ya.

True... But that's the price you pay I guess.