July 2003

Camera case

Built a case for the nikon coolpix . This should protect the cam pretty good, but is rather big because of the lense.

The coolpix turns off after a selected time, but reactivates on a button press. Nice feature to save battery power.

I have yet to check how AV out behaves - I'd like to transmit AV video from the coolpix using the Unimog TV sender / receiver

July 9th

The Wingo has new motors - see the results

Pictures

July 10th

back in the air with the old engines

Pictures

inflight video - single shots every second, replay as video

video clip 1 (3.85MB 320x240 25fps 2min 24s) as captured

video clip 2 (14MB 320x240 25fps 5mins ) removed (most of the) flicker

video clip 2 small (770kB 320x240 25fps 16s ) just a bit of the one above

flying rather high - amazing what the cam can do when the sun is right in the picture! Best clarity when the sun is in the back. you can compare the video with the aerial picture and you'll see the sports ground and other things I flew over

When I reinstalled the old motors I added small capacitors to remove motor interference - the pictures are now free of vertical lines, but the video is still not as clear as I would like it to be. Next time will fly with 2 9V blocks next time - hope this will help.

July 10th

back in the air with the old engines

Pictures

inflight video - single shots every second, replay as video

video clip 1 (3.85MB 320x240 25fps 2min 24s) as captured

video clip 2 (14MB 320x240 25fps 5mins ) removed (most of the) flicker

video clip 2 small (770kB 320x240 25fps 16s ) just a bit of the one above

July 11th

good flying today, but bad picture quality - I have to find a good 9V battery that is light, or switch over to the video system I used in Unimog.

inflight video - single shots every second, replay as video - the few acceptable shots I got

video clip (902kB 320x240 25fps 33s) I was flying high and far away, avoiding fast turns to handle the cam smooth for over 6 minutes - and there was only flicker after the initial 33 seconds...

I went to another spot where the army practices shooting (not today though) and did some narrow turns and quick climbs to see how I could fly around my house.

The area is surrounded by high trees, and with the wind starting it was getting a bit difficult, but fun anyway. At one point I got very close to a tree, and I did a evasive maneuvre which resulted in a hard landing on the street - nothing broken, just the fuselage foam crumbling a bit more, but all the strape around it holds it in place. After that I removed the cam (which was not doing well anyway) and flew around even wilder :-)

at the back you can see the shooting targets

July 15th

no time for details - just some pics: inflight video - single shots every second, replay as video

video clip (1.8MB full DV resolution, 6fps, 32s) airfield #1

July 19th

I tried a different video system - it worked It was hard to get it in the air - the first start attempt failed.

Second time it went up, after flying close to the ground quite a while.

I needed full thrust to get it up, but once it was there, it was easy to keep it in the air. It was behaving funny, flying unstable, but it was no problem to control.

After a while I thought I had enough video and came closer to the ground. Flying circles to see how to land best, I lost control - the plane crashed in the field from about 20m above the ground (not very high compared to where I was before).

Damage was less than expected - just another epoxy session :-)

When I collected the plane, I noticed that the receiver and the speed controller in the cabin were quite hot - probably the speed controller overheated and shut down...

Although the plane is broken once more, I still consider the flight a success - looking forward to show you the video :-)

Pictures shows the state of the plane after a bad crash, and some pics when I fixed July 20th

the following clips have audio

short video clip (487kB 320x240 14sec)

edited video clip (11.8MB 320x240 6min 26sec)

raw video clip (13.4MB 320x240 almost 7mins)

July 24th

received a Aiptek pocket DV yesterday. This cam can record up to 3mins 20sec of 320x240 9fps video with audio. After some testing yesterday I went for 2 flights today.

Pictures showing how I attached the cam and downloading video to the laptop

The first one was near the building where I have my office. The field is a bit narrow to U-turn and has trees in front of a river on one side and the a major railway track on the other side - not the place to make mistakes.

1st Clip (6.6MB 320x240 10fps with audio) shows the 1st flight with a glimpse of the office building and smooth landing. Audio and video is not in sync (weird camera) with the audio being a bit shorter

I flew with the 6cell 1700mah battery and had some troubles to gain height, that's why you dont see more of the office building - next time :-)

The second airfield is 500m from where I flew Sunday June 22nd (near the parking below the red circle)

2nd Clip (6.2MB 320x240 10fps with audio) shows the 2nd flight with good view over my hometown. As the flight was longer than 3mins you cant see the landing...

This time with the 7cell 2400mah batts it flew just fine, although there was some wind. I did not check the time and so I did not quite go far enough so one could see my house on the video (about 1km north of the airfield) - I thought the 3mins were up already when I headed back

July 26th

I went for a flight near my home and took some

video footage (6.3MB, 320x240, 10fps, 3min) bigger version (11.8MB, 320x240 with audio, 10fps, 3min)

the picture above is the flight path. I started with the red line, continued with purple, the tight turn is over my house (too close, not visible well), continued with green and landed with blue. It was hard to loose height in this thight space, but I managed a perfect landing.

The one below is the airfield

I was showing off on the crowd that was quickly building up since it was saturday evening, flying low over the heads in large circles. Showing off too much - I hit a lantern post and the tail broke in half - that was just a sign it was time to go home :-)

Pictures

July 29th

Last night I measured engine thrust with a balance.

6cells resulted in about 350g
7cells brought about 450g of thrust
8cells resulted in about 580g of thrust

these results rose my hopes to be able to fly the Nikon Coolpix 880, together with the servo for exposure something around 400g of load.

so this morning I got up early, got the camera case ready and went to the airfield near the army practise grounds.

When I reached there I noticed that the carbon fibre I glued to the aluminium rod did not hold as good as it did before the landing on the lantern pole - I dared taking the camera up anyway.

At first takeoff with the 8cell battery I had set the camera to landscape mode pointing straight down. I probably also had some zoom in it (I must have pressed it when I inserted the cam in the case), so the pictures did not come out as clear as I hoped.

On the second flight with the 7cell battery I attached the camera to point back and rose the sensor sensivity to 400ISO - probably a mistake, as some of the pics look overexposed and grainy.

I was thrilled with the easy the plane was taking up the load. On the second flight there was some heavy wind (20kmh?) and I had troubles flying near the ground. I altitude it was doing fine. As the tail did not hold so well, as soon as I lowered thrust the whole plane starded to shake - I was terribly scared the whole tail rod would brake mid air and crash plane and camera.

The remaining epoxy did a fine job and held strong. On the second landing when I was landing almost full throttle against the wind I was releaved to collect my camera undamaged.

And here are the best aerial pictures I ever took - better ones will follow :-)

July 30th

Perfect weather this morning - almost no wind, the air has been very quiet right from the ground up all the way up to the about 100m above ground I flew.

I took the nikon for 2 flights - the first one with the camera pointing down, the second one with the cam pointing back (without showing the tail this time).

It was a pleasure to see how little power was needed to keep the plane up. It seemed louder than normal as there was no wind noise at all.

Pictures

Lunch time it took the plane for a flight near the office - a first test flight with a 6cell battery showed some wind, but flyable.

Second flight with 8cell battery and Aiptek pocket DV onboard showed wind is changing quickly, takeoff was hairy, flight path rather bumpy (was easy to keep it up once it was 20m above ground) and the wind in higher altitudes seemed quite strong, for a while I was scared the plane would just blow away

Landing was not easy, as the field is not wide enough to face the wind, and faceing the wind is not easy when it's changing so quickly. The field was not much more than bare earth and had a lot of termanl - so every time I approach nicely about 5m above ground level and reach to the field, the plane just lifts away - forcing it down adds speed, not good for landing.

I dont like to walk far to collect the plane, so after a okish approach (but still 4m too high) I wanted to go for another circle and then land - but on the U-turn the wind just took the plane and landed it for me. Aluminium rod bent once more, just behind the carbon fibre I glued on...

Somebody was walking her dog nearby - the dog showed great interest in the plane (when it was in the air he was scared, when it was on the ground he wanted to play with it), and the lady felt sorry with the plane and did not want to believe me when I said it was just minor damage :-)

July did not finish so well, and August did not start better, bad crash on August first after prop broke mid air...

Did have some nice test flying with the 480s and 6cells - failed on second flight with the Aiptek pocket DV on board - poor cam.

If you like what I do, look what others do. Cyber-Flyer has some very interesting projects going on...