A colleague in Devon was telling me about their FPV Quadcopter (radio controlled helicopter) he flies down south and showed me this amazing video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us_UlXlD_vM&feature=player_embedded

Does anyone round here do something similar, its something I'd like to get into.

Hi, try this club I used to be in, its flying field is by Ellesmere Port. http://www.northwestrcheliclub.co.uk/

Theres loads on ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=Quadcopter&_sacat=0

Hi mate, have a look at the parrot ar drone, fly using your iPad. Very cool

i know someone who uses one of these as part of his motorbike track race training. The bike has a gps sender and the quadcopter a receiver, it is then able to fly remotely at the desired height above the bike, in addition the bike has a camera which is transmitting the forward view directly to a receiver built into what looks like a pair of sunglasses, however the sunglassess wearer (trainer) is getting live coverage of approach speeds, braking, positioning etc from the comfort of the garage and can quickly give the trainee on his return a rundown on the lap. The images are also saved to disk for closer examination later on but this system allows immediate feedback which you cant do in group scenarios.

funny enough I almost bought one for 1k last week but decided not to. now ive seen another for £800.

if you want to get one, get one with a "NAZA" flight controller, you can use GPS hold, altitude hold and auto return to home & more.

I'm dying to get the first aerial photography on the wirral with a decent quad.

I was messing around with my micro quad the other day see below

[youtube]LrxjGTIk_s4[/youtube]

Gibbo! DJI will be releasing its Phantom soon!

It uses the Naza Flight control system with GPS Hold/Altitude Hold/Return to home.

It comes (RTF) Ready to fly with its own transmitter ect. Probly be around £440.

I can't wait!.

That looks amazing!

The Parrot is nice but quite limited over what you can do with regard to mods and upgrades. I would imagine you'd get to its limitations pretty quickly and then be stuck with it.

Whereas a decent quadcopter might be £50 more initially, but much more upgradeable.

I picked up my Fat Sharks yesterday and I can't wait to use them.

I spent some time today making a clover Leaf Antenna for the TX and a Skew Planer Antenna for the RX. Hopefully this will help when the aircraft banks and I loose signal. my soldering is shocking but so far so good and I've added some hot glue to help steady the leaf's . I bought some SMA-Rg58 plugs from Maplin and crimped them on.

I'm going to do some testing in the week and see if theres any improvement. I will also see if my Power inverter will run my 32inch tv or laptop so I can stick it in the boot of my car and have the pictures viewed on there.

The clover is pretty nice but the Skew is a little wonky.

FatSharks



clover= hand made to suit 5740Mhz (channel 1)


glue'dto strenghthen



added SMA-RG58's fit nice


fitted

Nice bit of kit.

I thought my workbench was messy lol, that looks like the soldering kit I've just ordered.
How quick were maplin at sending out parts wheels?

I needed some opti sensors and couplers but ended up getting them off eBay.

This is only 1 of my benches lol. I've not ordered from them I just go Liverpool and pick up my parts

Going to do a range test today

Let us know how you get on bud

My colleague has posted another flight vid, over a reservoir this time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xq3eOO9j74U

that was great, subscribed