It's ALIVE! Darth Iratus Takes to the Air!

[Chaosrider]

@rob7 the cover I posted is a perfect fit, just snug enough to stay in without loosening, but no buckling at all.

I got a different cover shortly after getting the FPV, and it was a little too big too (not as bad as yours!). I replaced it with the one posted earlier, was clearly measured and designed for the v2 goggles.

And everyone: Get one of these. NOW. If you've spent yourself poor, mow a few lawns or something. I sunburned my display early on, and can't even tell you when it happened. The risk is huge. Without a cover, all you'll be doing is paranoid babysitting your goggles, once you learn about sunburn.

See my saga here: Goggles gone bad

My cover is on the way!

But I've also evolved a pre-flight routine that naturally protects against this risk. I put the goggles on while I'm still inside, and I don't take them off until I get back inside after flying.

Now, I'm still going to get sunburned...that process is well along!...but the goggles should be safe.

 

[RH009]

But with all of that, the most frustrating thing, by far, was that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to see if the recording was actually happening, either in the aircraft, or in the goggles. I hear a beep when I punch the appropriate buttons. Wonderful. How do I tell, in real time while flying, whether the recordings are happening? At one point, I briefly saw a standard recording counter counting up, which is what I want to see, but I have no idea how I brought that up, and it vanished after a few seconds.

What do I need to do to see, in real time, the recording counters for the drone and/or the goggles? How do I put that on the screen?

TCS

I just got back from flying through my 5 batteries. The recording timer showed the entire flight (right side of OSD, just above center). Counts up for recording time and never went away and that recording timer is for both, the goggles and UAV. If it's recording on one, it's recording on the other (if you have SD cards in both).

 

[RH009]

@rob7 the cover I posted is a perfect fit, just snug enough to stay in without loosening, but no buckling at all.

I got a different cover shortly after getting the FPV, and it was a little too big too (not as bad as yours!). I replaced it with the one posted earlier, was clearly measured and designed for the v2 goggles.

Thanks! I may get it, only because it has the holders for the antennas and extra SD cards, which is nice. The one I'm using for the Oculus works and fits just fine, so it won't be high on my priority list, but I'll get it when I get my 2nd headset, in a few weeks. And yes, I agree that EVERYONE should protect the lenses, not only from the sun but also from getting scratched or damaged.

 

[Chaosrider]

I just got back from flying through my 5 batteries. The recording timer showed the entire flight (right side of OSD, just above center). Counts up for recording time and never went away and that recording timer is for both, the goggles and UAV. If it's recording on one, it's recording on the other (if you have SD cards in both).

I had a conversation with DJI about this, and I'm going to format both the SD cards...even though they already record video. For some reason, something in the system persists in thinking that they need to be formatted.

I asked the question to them in the context of getting rid of the "Format SD Card" warning that never goes away, the fact that the recording is happening notwithstanding. Hopefully, that will stop this "failure to display" problem as well.

But the test will need to wait until tomorrow. Big wind storm coming in today! But a week from now, the weather is supposed to be great.

Thx!

 

[Chaosrider]

Fourth Flight

My fourth FPV flight was a smashing success!



Fortunately, not literally…the flight was actually flawless, and glorious.



I had already re-formatted both of the SD cards, and that was transformational. The “Format SD Card” warning went away. The recording counter in the upper right-hand corner appeared, and worked perfectly.



I put my landing pad on the back deck, to see if that would solve the skittering problem on takeoff. It did, although I did just give an extra zap of power to lift, so I’m not sure what solved the problem. But it’s gone.



Up, up and away! This Beast books compared to the Minis, even in Normal mode. I was at my target 300 ft ATL in no time, and zapped down the canyon.



Having done that same route with Minis, at that same altitude, I can now say definitely that Occusync 3.0 kicks butt on Occusync 2.0! I was much farther down the canyon before the RC signal dropped to 4 bars. It could have easily gone beyond my personal flight limit and remained in full control, but I didn’t do that test. I turned around and headed back up the canyon.



The ”Big H” on the screen is just great. I’ve flown enough in this canyon that I can always point toward home, but it’s a nice convenience. The aircraft warning system works great too. It’s triggered a couple of times over these four flights, and in every case, I got the signal before I could even hear the approaching aircraft, and I can hear them a long way away.



The obstacle clearance warning, which I’ve seen on some earlier flights, isn’t quite intuitive yet. I didn’t notice it today.



On previous flights, the ground proximity warning was an annoying distraction, but today it was useful. Frequently when I sleep on something, I understand it much better when I wake up, and that seems to have happened in this case.



The descent profile is very different for The Beast. With the Minis, if I’m up the canyon wall, I need to be careful to not move forward too fast coming home, because they can’t descend quickly enough to maintain the max 400 ft AGL elevation. Beast doesn’t seem to have that problem. He’ll drop like a stone on command, and remember, I’m still in Normal mode.



On my previous approach and landing on the rear flight deck, I used the shadow of the drone to establish a “glidepath”. I followed that down in increments, hoping to land on the landing pad, but the prop wash blew the landing pad around! Still, with the shadow, and the elevation data, I knew I was in a safe place to land, so I did.



The “auto land” function seems to be a little slow on the uptake. With full stick down, it hovered at 1.1 ft for what seemed like a long time, before deciding to land. It didn’t seem as hard a landing as it had done previously…maybe that function is still waking up…but it’s nothing like the grace of the Mini-2 landing.



Mission accomplished! Flying from the drone’s point of view is now entirely natural. There were no system mysteries or malfunctions of any kind. The only thing that I didn’t like was that the flight was painfully short!



I may have to bump that Fly More kit back up to the top of the wish list…