**Interesting Flying Area**

[jahatton]

Hi KrashMaster, My wife and I are heading into the the city tomorrow to get a case of fuel and the parts needed to get the heli back in the air. I rebuilt the camera mount I had and added a turret mount that will be run from a second Tx. We bought a Sony DCR-HC96 with 3mp camera. At this time downlink is out of the question as I don't have a laptop nor the remote camera. The range on the spycam's is rather short.. so I will fly patterns with the video and then extract the pictures I need from that.
I hear you about the reality vs simulator. just get lots of flying time in before jumping in to a camera mount... I had well over 80 flights before I got comfortable enough to attach the frame. BTW the mount helps the stability a lot, only be very careful on landing and make sure the copter lands on level ground or it may tip. Been there done that!
If all goes well I will stick with the Century Raven but may upgrade to a Gasser to carry the payload.
Jim

[hawkman]

Nice one Daz!!! very nice picture.....that heli is using an onboard generator....this is powered through the optional starter shaft which is on some gassers.

The camera array looks totally awsome!! I have a predator which is powered with the 23cc petrol engine.....it is a blast to fly....quite intimadating actually....but rock steady and predictable in the hover...check out the photo section on this site....look for Hawkman and you should find it.

Rob

[KrashMaster]

Originally Posted by jahatton

Hi KrashMaster, My wife and I are heading into the the city tomorrow to get a case of fuel and the parts needed to get the heli back in the air. I rebuilt the camera mount I had and added a turret mount that will be run from a second Tx. We bought a Sony DCR-HC96 with 3mp camera. At this time downlink is out of the question as I don't have a laptop nor the remote camera. The range on the spycam's is rather short.. so I will fly patterns with the video and then extract the pictures I need from that.
I hear you about the reality vs simulator. just get lots of flying time in before jumping in to a camera mount... I had well over 80 flights before I got comfortable enough to attach the frame. BTW the mount helps the stability a lot, only be very careful on landing and make sure the copter lands on level ground or it may tip. Been there done that!
If all goes well I will stick with the Century Raven but may upgrade to a Gasser to carry the payload.
Jim

The downlink is for orientation through Virtual Reality goggles, The onboard DAT tape is for High Quality DVD onboard recording quaaility.
I am at work so I have not much time for details at this moment , but I have a few Bookmarks on the subject of Downlink instruments and video intergrated for pilot orientation, Roll, Yaw/ Pitch / Alt meters on the edge of the Streaming video for about 1500 bucks, Range is limited for the license free model, to about 1500 feet. But A Tech HAM license will open up the doors for a ten watt downlink. I realy don't need to be that far from myself, what I want is to shoot Stunt Pilots flying their stunts from a high altitude and ALL angles, Hovering at 200 feet can be quite disorienting but they have high tech gadgets to fill in the viods of controll and calm the fumble thumbs. I also kinda like the idea of sitting in the cappy of this thing and going for a Virtual tour of my backyard.
I will try to find the time to post the links to the website that sells this commercial equipment. Goverment agents and cops use this stuff, as a matter of fact a cop pointed me to the websites for this stuff. They strap them on a remote four weeler and drive through burning buildings and bank robberies/ methlab cooks etc.. with it. UTAH State police use the instrument and video system they sell for helicopters to video crash scenes at an altitude for a better objective view on the angle of skid marks. That system takes two pilots, one for the cam and one for the Copter.
Scott

[jahatton]

Hi all! It's great to be back in the air after a long cold rainy winter.
Unfortunatly the only thing that feels comfortable is hovering so I guess I have to basiclly start over and get familiar with flying an aircraft with an attitude. (Raven 50)
The video camera under the heli turn's out to be too heavy for a safe auto-rotation so I'm having to rethink the design. The simple way is to upgrade the helicopter (not wanting to do that at this time)
On October 31st the heli crashed hard and after repairing it found the trim's didn't change which is good news.
Jim