Colorado CJ Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 Besides wheeling a couple of my other hobbies are photography and FPV Racing. I am a staff member of "The Other Guys", a tier 1 chapter of MultiGP. MultiGP is an FPV quad racing organization. If you've seen DRL on ESPN, it is just like that. In fact, I've raced with most of the guys on DRL as most are locals and attend our events. Every Saturday (when weather permits), we hold races with 30-50+ racers in attendance. We race 8 quads during each heat and I can tell you it is EXCITING. Chasing eachother around a course and trying to fit 8 quads through a 5'x5' gate at 60-80 m.p.h. is an adrenaline pumping experience. There are many midairs and bumping involved, but usually you can fly though it. Racing FPV Quads is an out of body experience. Once you put on the goggles, you are no longer just sitting in a chair, but you are inside the quad. You forget your body and almost become one with the machine. It's just something you have to experience for yourself as it is too hard to explain. Along the flight line you will see people ducking and weaving their heads as they race through the gates. You become connected and its as if you really are in the quad itself. People have been known to fall out of their chair when they crash. Anyway, yesterday we held a Cinco de Mayo Race. A huge course was set up and 37 pilots competed to see if they had what it takes to be 1st. Here's a few photos I took from the event. _CFA8354 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _CFA8358 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _CFA8359 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3153 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _CFA8365 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _CFA8428 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3168 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3173 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3183 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3233 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr (I'm the bearded guy with his head in his chest)_CFA8418 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSF0823 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3260 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr _DSC3251 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 I've seen some videos on FPV quadcopter racing. How do you not get nauseous? Is it easier to fly first person? I tried flying a couple of quadcopters visually, and I kept losing my orientation of which way it was pointing. I didn't have any problems with my RC helicopters like the V911, but I had issues flying a V950. Maybe I didn't spend enough time practicing with it. I think @Keith is into the whole RC world. I wonder if he has dabbled in FPV flight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 1 hour ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: How do you not get nauseous? Is it easier to fly first person? I tried flying a couple of quadcopters visually, and I kept losing my orientation of which way it was pointing. I suspect I’m too old to have the reflexes necessary for FPV racing. I love the idea but no one else in my club has any interest in trying it. A lot of quadcopters now have software that can orientate them with respect to the pilot not the quad, I.e. if you push the stick to the left the quad will travel to your left whichever way it is facing. This makes flying visually very easy, but needs to be turned off if using goggles. To be honest, if you can fly helicopters and planes, quads are boring unless doing something like FPV racing as they fly themselves. Indeed this is exactly why they get a bad press. There have always been a very small number of idiots who decide to have a go at model flying, modellers refer to them as RITA’s (Right Idiots Trying Aviation). In the U.K. they would ALWAYS buy a Spitfire, know all about everything so refuse any help, turn on radios without checking their frequency is clear and, thankfully crash within 50 feet - never to be seen again. Now they can buy a quad get it airborne and happily fly into the path of an airliner, over a submarine base or anywhere else they feel they personally own the sky! As to feeling nauseous with FPV? Some years ago I did talk my club into building an FPV plane. At that time we could only get the video link on 2.4GHz which meant the plane’s controls had to be on the older and more interference prone 35MHz frequency. This resulted in regularly losing control for brief periods and that showed just how immersed you could get. I was turning back towards our field when I lost control and the plane continued to turn and entered a spiral dive. Video picture remained clear and this resulted in the feeling that you were in the plane and about to be killed, it was very unpleasant. Fortunately control returned at that point and I landed safely. We had to give it up as the aircraft flying on 2.4GHz interfered with the video and people were not willing to not fly whilst the FPV plane was airborne. Now you would put the video on 5.6MHz and not have the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rehab1 Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 7 hours ago, Colorado CJ said: Besides wheeling a couple of my other hobbies are photography and FPV Racing. That is one elaborate setup. How much time does it take to set up the course? It looks like a lot of fun. I have flown my Mavic with the goggles but this type of flying is really intense. I can see why a pilot would tend to fall out of his chair after a crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado CJ Posted May 7, 2018 Author Share Posted May 7, 2018 Racing quads aren't like photography quads. They do not fly themselves. They have no self correcting, self stabilizing control. We fly in what is called rate mode, which flies much like a collective pitch helicopter. If you point the quad in one direction and let go of the sticks, it will continue in that direction until you control it to do something else, pretty much exactly like a cp helicopter. Here's some onboard video shot by one of our faster pilots yesterday, Seth "Poison Pilot" Parker. This video is not sped up, this is what fast FPV Racing is all about. In fact, this is a little slower than normal since adding a GoPro slows down the quad somewhat. Here's the video, shot on Saturday on the Cinco de Mayo track. https://youtu.be/bkf-P7wc_Rw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 Crazy cool flying skills, but . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado CJ Posted May 7, 2018 Author Share Posted May 7, 2018 12 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: Crazy cool flying skills, but . Yeah, that can happen. After about a month your brain gets used to it and it doesn't affect you any more. The downside of that is VR games like the Vive lose some of their effect since you don't get there vertigo or motion sickness that makes VR more immersive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Henley Posted May 7, 2018 Share Posted May 7, 2018 4 hours ago, Colorado CJ said: Yeah, that can happen. After about a month your brain gets used to it and it doesn't affect you any more. The downside of that is VR games like the Vive lose some of their effect since you don't get there vertigo or motion sickness that makes VR more immersive. what's the average cost for a set up like that...no drone racing leagues around here, but no unicyclists either so won't let that stop me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.