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My letter to the FAA

My father used to take me to the flying field. I would watch him build model planes from balsa kits in the garage. After many hours of work and trips to the hobby shop we would wake up early in the morning to go watch others fly their planes and eventually watch my father fly his plane. It was fascinating to watch something my dad created in our garage actually get in the air under its own power.

This world of creation and flight fascinated me. It still does.

After nearly 25 years of a hiatus my dad once again found the bug. This time with less hard work to make it happen but the same great entertaining result. For my thirtieth birthday my dad gave me the bug. I have since been catching up from where we left off all those years ago.

This hobby over the last few years has provided me much pleasure and entertainment. As a photographer by trade, flying models gives me a needed break and the occasional mix of work and pleasure. I've moved from helicopters, to planes and on to multi rotors. I have passed along new technology, skills and even videos on the internet as my dad now lives over 1,200 miles away. We still connect over the hobby that he and my grandfather started fooling around with long before I was ever a twinkle in my father's eye.

I now have a son of my own and I plan and hope to take him to the park and/or the flying field to become fascinated with flight, building, engineering, creating, imagining.

By putting limits on this hobby the FAA is essentially putting an end to the next generation of great thinkers, doers and creators. They will kill an entire economy that people have created and enjoy with friends & family. People losing jobs over unthoughtful regulation is silly.

Regulation for some parts of this hobby are needed and there will always be someone who pushes beyond the legal boundaries but to punish everyone isn't the right answer. Teaching and working with the hobbyists and leaders in the field will get us to a place that everyone can agree on and understand.

Lets be patient. Lets be smart. Lets go fly something.

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So my HobbyKing ESCs still aren’t here. So I said to hell with it and ordered some from GetFPV.com. Pretty annoyed I didn’t order from there to begin with.

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After three bullet shaped prop nuts disappeared in my backyard grass, I finally went and picked up some nylon lock nuts to replace them. Do yourself a favor, if you purchase some SunnySky motors, do the same. You'll be thankful you did. $0.88

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Replacing my DX6i with a Hitec Aurora 9.  Such a huge difference.  I was debating going with Futaba but the price in which I got this Hitec I just couldn't pass up.  

It had been on the shelf for a while and I couldn't let someone else swipe it while I let it sit and go unused.  Biggest selling point for me straight away were the sliders on either side which I used to control the tilt feature of my ZenMuse gimbal.  So nice and super easy to set up. 

Now I'm just waiting for my mini Hitec receiver for the Blackout and the goddam ESCs. 

For now enjoy me screwing around with my new radio and the tilt feature.

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There was this one time I ordered these ESCs from HobbyKing and it was like a month in and they still hadn't shown up and tracking doesn't show shit and now I have everything except my ESCs and I'm pissed off. :)

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Another piece to the BlackOut puzzle.  Come on ESCs!

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The muscle is here. SunnySky motors to tear it up. Awaiting my ESCs.

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Its Here! All the way from Australia… Time to get Blacked Out. Stay tuned… 

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After some great flights recently with my new DJI NAZA-M V2 installed replacing my soon-to-be-repurposed OpenPilot CC3D, my NAZA won't arm.  Not sure the light code error but dammit this is irritating.

I can't understand it.  I have everything in place the way it should be and just got everything in order and working great to wake up at 5am to get sunrise only for this thing to not arm. Frustrating. 

I've posted to a forum with this video in hopes that this will be squared away in short order.  Probably and hopefully a cheap and easy fix. 

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Hartford Skyline at sunset.

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Crossing the sound

Here's the plan: I plan to fly from this pier on Knollwood Beach in Old Saybrook, CT across the Long Island Sound to Orient, NY via FPV before the winter makes its way to New England again. 

With a couple minutes of research and trying to find a decent method of measuring the distance without using roads to get there… my guess is that the distance from CT to NY is about 8-9 miles.  Making round trip in the neighborhood of 16-18 miles.  This is technically doable, I'm fairly sure.  For me to accomplish this, less so.  Hence the challenge.  Call me game. 

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First couple of flights with a GoPro attached.

Lots to learn, lots to adjust and make better.

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Going FPV

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