fpv rc planes

A tree is enough to stop a 5.8GHz transmission.
A barn will block 2.4GHz.
A hill will block 1.2GHz.
You can't really find equipment lower than that.

Antennae are also an important component in this mix, since we are talking analog transmissions.
I am very slowly assembling an FPV ground station built around a 72MHz RC control signal and a 1.2GHz video downlink. Both of the antennae - a DIY 9 foot 9 inch copper J-Pole for the 72MHz control signal, and a short whip for the 1.2Ghz video signal reception, will be affixed close to the top of a 100-foot tall metal tower next to my home that sits on a gentle hill out here in the sticks. I look forward to some decent range with this monstrosity after the bugs get worked out.

Rather than go with the traditional outdoor ground station or with video goggles, I plan to emulate the working example of an indoor ground station as built by a gentleman who goes by the handle "Benderfly" over at the RC Groups online forum. l am very grateful to Benderfly for his reference to the Compu-Fly module that enables him to control his multi-rotor FPV bird from his living room, using a regular joystick interfaced with Compu-Fly to a standard Futaba RC Mode 2 controller, and visuals on a wide-screen TV.

By the time all the stumbling about and trial and error is done with here, my plan is to fly my FPV plane using standard desk-top flight simulator controls, flight yoke, rudder pedals, and a throttle quadrant with flap selector lever, while seated in front of a wide screen LCD television to watch the scenery unfold hundreds of feet below my flying Bixler2.

I acquired Arkbird RC auto-pilot for installation in my Bixler2. Arkbird's all-important return-to-home feature SHOULD save my bird if I get signal fade and lose video link. For the price of $160USD, Arkbird, with its 4-waypoint auto-flight capability, as well as that reliable GPS auto Return-to Home, is priced way below comparable gear such as Eagle Tree.

With the relatively flat terrain in these parts, and with my RC control and video downlink signals being sent and received atop the tower well above the tree-line, I expect to be able to fly the plane at low altitudes even when the Bixler2 is a good distance from home base.

If I make headway with my tower-boosted FPV station, I will probably report the results in this forum as well as RCG, but if my dastardly plan fails, I will make sure nobody hears about it ha ha.




My FPV antenna, painted orange and white, is visible in this shot, poking through the tree-tops just to the left of the picture's center. This shot was taken from about a 300-foot altitude by my trusty UDI 13A coax helicopter with its stock 3 megapixel video camera.

The building in the foreground that needs a new roof is my catfish hatchery, and I didn't realize the state that roof is in until I started flying this little $60 coax.
 
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GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
It seems expensive but is really dirt cheap compared to the investment in a Cessna. Those are real money pits that keep on sucking.

Good luck catfish!
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
I have flown full-scale airplanes since 1968 and have owned four. Fuel is a lot more expensive today, but I have never lost money on the buy-sell exchange. There are also clubs to reduce cost. Moreover, if you are only interested in the view and not going anywhere, soaring clubs are a good alternative. Just depends on how you define "money pit." Sure beats going through modern "security" at many airports.

John
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
I have flown full-scale airplanes since 1968 and have owned four. Fuel is a lot more expensive today, but I have never lost money on the buy-sell exchange. There are also clubs to reduce cost. Moreover, if you are only interested in the view and not going anywhere, soaring clubs are a good alternative. Just depends on how you define "money pit." Sure beats going through modern "security" at many airports.

John
I'm lucky enough to live in Pittsburgh and I can drive to Chicago, Washington or New York in about 7-hours so I don't spend much time in airports.

The guys I know who own boats and planes spend huge amounts each season and explain how much money they are saving vs. renting, or how much time they are saving vs standing in line at the airport, or how much more hanger fees would be if they didn't spend hours each month helping take care of the local runway.

I'll never forget a party where two guys were the center of attention in a circle of men as they were explaining how owning a plane is saving them so much time and money. On the way home, my wife tells me how two women at the party spent the whole night complaining about their husbands' spend way too much time and money on their planes.

I am sure there are better planes to own and better ways of managing ownership than these guys but they sure left a bad taste in my mouth.
 
It seems expensive but is really dirt cheap compared to the investment in a Cessna. Those are real money pits that keep on sucking.

Good luck catfish!
Thanks for the reply Gopher. I watch a program on Discovery called "Bush Pilots", on the subject of the young rookie pilots from all over the West who converge on Botswana, South Africa, to add hours to their log books flying single engine Cessnas for a thriving outfit that ferries tourists to dirt strips in game reserves. A comment was once made in that TV program that Botswana's skies are literally grid-locked with general aviation small aircraft.

In this neck of the woods, however, as is typical for most of sub-Saharan Africa, the only aircraft aloft are company-owned helicopters, turbo-prop commuter planes, international or regional airliners, and the private jets of the super rich. I have not spotted a single or twin engine General Aviation aircraft in the skies here over all the years I have lived here.

My interest in FPV is mainly because I have always yearned to soar above the land that I have walked all these years, and cast my gaze out to the horizon to see the lay of the land as is not otherwise possible in this relatively flat landscape.



In the picture above my Land Rover is parked in the lower right of the picture, beside a fishpond holding my prized catfish brood-stock. Just beyond that pond are a few more smaller ponds, and then on the other side of the ribbon of rain-forest with the river winding beneath it, the edge of a multi-square-mile expanse of monoculture oil-palm trees belonging to a Chinese company, who will own much of tropical Africa before long, for better or for worse.

Finally below a closer picture of the small stream whose swamp is home to monkey troops, rare otters, pygmy crocodiles, a semi-aquatic antelope species and various other critters.



One more thing that appeals to me about FPV flying is the fact that I have sat through some ferocious storms as an airline passenger over the African continent, and have developed a slight, ahem... apprehension, about flying in the sort of weather that is common here. With FPV virtual flying I get that seat with the view I crave, but without the attendant nail biting when the ride gets bumpy.
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
monster_catfish, this is the most beautiful premise for FPV I have ever seen. The land is beautiful and the ground station installation is promising. Maybe you should upgrade the Bixler and get some more appropriate for the humongous ground station. Something to get you an hour of flying time.

I hope that I will be able to do some exploring myself, at the area around my village. It is on the side of a mountain, overlooking a valley, run by a river. Flying over the fields should be stunning. However, my main concern is a crashed LiPo causing a fire.
 
The panoramic vistas of the mountainous area around you will make for some spectacular FPV footage for sure, GeoRacer. Your locality sounds picture postcard scenic.

Browsing Youtube FPV videos some time ago, I remember running across footage of some really long-range FPV flights recorded in a picturesque Austrian mountain pass, including some close-proximity flying along the rocky face that I wouldn't attempt with my modest RC piloting skills.

I am hoping to dabble in the fine art of RC building and of FPV flying, using the Bixler2, but I still dream of assembling an FPV platform capable of carrying a more substantial battery that will make possible much longer flight times. Those flying wings look really futuristic, and I might consider setting one of those up for FPV at some point when I am a bit more confident in my RC electronics assembly skills.

Running the specs for a few alternate combinations of motor size, propeller diameter and pitch, ESC and battery, through the Motocalc RC aircraft performance prediction program, the most optimistic flight times estimated for the Bixler2, flying at 51% throttle or thereabouts, were all in the region of 15 to 18 minutes.

My ultimate FPV bird would be one that can attain that almost mythical one-hour duration aloft, so that I can set the autopilot to orbit a few pre-programmed GPS waypoints, during which I can turn my attention away from the rigor of flying for a while, and towards the scenery passing below or the skies and clouds around the bird, using the camera's pan and tilt feature.
 

JohnInTX

Joined Jun 26, 2012
4,787
...On the way home, my wife tells me how two women at the party spent the whole night complaining about their husbands' spend way too much time and money on their planes.
The wonderful, now departed Gordon Baxter once related how he was asked about this at one of his lectures. His reply? "That's what my first wife said, too."

Lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the project.
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
The panoramic vistas of the mountainous area around you will make for some spectacular FPV footage for sure, GeoRacer. Your locality sounds picture postcard scenic.

Browsing Youtube FPV videos some time ago, I remember running across footage of some really long-range FPV flights recorded in a picturesque Austrian mountain pass, including some close-proximity flying along the rocky face that I wouldn't attempt with my modest RC piloting skills.

I am hoping to dabble in the fine art of RC building and of FPV flying, using the Bixler2, but I still dream of assembling an FPV platform capable of carrying a more substantial battery that will make possible much longer flight times. Those flying wings look really futuristic, and I might consider setting one of those up for FPV at some point when I am a bit more confident in my RC electronics assembly skills.

Running the specs for a few alternate combinations of motor size, propeller diameter and pitch, ESC and battery, through the Motocalc RC aircraft performance prediction program, the most optimistic flight times estimated for the Bixler2, flying at 51% throttle or thereabouts, were all in the region of 15 to 18 minutes.

My ultimate FPV bird would be one that can attain that almost mythical one-hour duration aloft, so that I can set the autopilot to orbit a few pre-programmed GPS waypoints, during which I can turn my attention away from the rigor of flying for a while, and towards the scenery passing below or the skies and clouds around the bird, using the camera's pan and tilt feature.
We are well into 2014 and I can safely tell you that one hour of flight time is by all means achievable. It sounded mythical until last year but this is not the case anymore. Li-ion batteries are part of this success. Low C-rating but high power density.
I believe that a Ranger will be able to pull it off. A Cyclops (Techpod copy) has been recorded to make laps of a total 300km on a 7-hour flight. Exciting times!
(http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/anatomy-of-a-301-km-flight)
 

Thread Starter

KeepYourChinUp

Joined Jun 18, 2014
6
The video downlink with the current means is done by analog transmission. This is the first hurdle, which limits both image quality (no checksums, picks up static/interference) and bandwidth.
In turn, the video is received by an analog receiver which drives a 640x480screen at most. Pixels are clearly visible in that resolution but thanks to the moving picture you tend to ignore them.
Finally, radio communications are sure to black out if obstacles come in the way of you and your plane.
A tree is enough to stop a 5.8GHz transmission.
A barn will block 2.4GHz.
A hill will block 1.2GHz.
You can't really find equipment lower than that.

This is a more realistic FPV live sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmD1ZB85czU (top left is the actual live footage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AiNmPHqsMk

Antennae are also an important component in this mix, since we are talking analog transmissions.
I'm so glad you posted that video Geo. I'm actually shocked at how bad the quality is compared to the raw footage you see on youtube videos. Is there any way whatsoever to overcome this locked quality?

In todays technology there has to be a way to get much better quality than that! I'll look into it some more but even that quality isn't terrible and I think I'd still find enjoyment flying with that quality aslong as I was wearing goggles and not looking at it on a screen
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
You can do digital transmission, for example GPRS. This is essentially streaming data from your phone (or lookalike) to your laptop. However encoding and decoding the video takes a lot of time which means that the resulting latency will break your ability to directly fly the aircraft. You can be a passenger though, if it flies on autopilot.
A similar option is to use an onboard PC and a digital air modem. Ubiquity radios have been used to do that, but I don't have more info on this.

I saw this (http://www.oz9aec.net/index.php/dvb/490-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-live-hdtv-transmitter) recently. Maybe it will be of interest to you. However, keep in mind that a HUD (or OSD as it is commonly named) interface to display system information (altitude, battery levels etc) is very important to have and I'm not sure if it can be done hassle-free with digital video.
One could think of having two simultaneous transmissions, analog and digital going on at the same time and switching between them, but to lift all that equipment in the air you would need a plane with more than 2m wingspan.

As a final note, don't be put off by the bad quality. The video motion smooths things out a lot and many people already claim to be addicted to this kind of FPV.
 
We are well into 2014 and I can safely tell you that one hour of flight time is by all means achievable. It sounded mythical until last year but this is not the case anymore. Li-ion batteries are part of this success. Low C-rating but high power density.
I believe that a Ranger will be able to pull it off. A Cyclops (Techpod copy) has been recorded to make laps of a total 300km on a 7-hour flight. Exciting times!
(http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/anatomy-of-a-301-km-flight)
Wow that is simply phenomenal flight time. I will keep a keen eye out for more developments in the field of Li-ion batteries for RC use, which look set to render the dangerously volatile Lipo batteries obsolete, if this new distance record was indeed set using Li-ion batteries.

Exciting times is a very good description of the breathtaking pace at which developments have been unfolding in the RC world over the past couple of years. A whole lot of aerial exploration can be crammed into a two-hour FPV flight, and I certainly look forward to upgrading to much lighter and far more powerful RC airplane batteries in the very near future.
 
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