My Sky Surfers last flight ( Or so I thought)

[Western]

This is the flight when my Sky Surfer went AWOL for 6 months. Never thought I would see it again.until last Saturday.

http://youtu.be/7VTidAc5tjQ

Regards, Mark

[keukpa]

So what exactly happened?

She seems to be flying well, then just tips over and face plants into the ground...

Awesome news that you got her back tho :)

Keukpa

[FPVSteve]

Wow, what a shame - what happened, you just lose LoS with the transmitter?

Probably best that it went in inverted - would have provided nice cover from rain for the leccy bits :D

Excellent that you got it back! :D

[fpsazerbaijan]

Lucky it didn't end up in the drink!

-Al  ;)

[Flyboysee]

I got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside Mark :)

I now see what happened and I suspect you had RC glitches, leading to some panic and in the last moves of controlled flight you actually went directly 180 from the field and hit the gas to 100%. That, and the tail wind got you about 2.5 km downwind. I know co's I've only just started exploring that farm.

I'm not sure what was happening in the goggles and I assume you never had RTL on board? Did nerves play a part or could you just see nothing in the goggles?

I'm a bit disappointed really in that the plane would probably have been found on the Monday after the meet. I had a little notice up at the pub and put the word out there. You tell me if you know a farmer, or a farm worker who doesn't make it down to the pub at least once a week, especially in winter when they have bugger all to do.

So, probably what happened was the plane got harsh outside elements for two days, then was recovered and kept and I guess the chap must have seen us flying overhead, had his conscious overtake him, called Dave Pickett and the rest was history. Think about it... that was a long, cold and wet winter and judging by the last moments of the video, it was just a few hundred yards maximum from that Warehouse.

In your honour I will swoop them from this day forward when I get bored :)

Great news either way!

[Western]

Hi Rich,
Don't think I had glitches as I know I was giving small controll inputs to see if I could get video back. I think it was a case of just flying to far away without realising it. I know that Krickey was following the flight with his googles and as the video started breaking up he said did I realise I was over 600m away. Also I seem to remember the last thing I did was put in roll and down elevator to bring t down if it was in range so the wingover/dive may of been me.
No RTH on it and another contributing factor was my googles were misted up.
So I'll hold my hands up and say it was all my fault. The vtx was only a 100mw job, so I guess it didn't do too badly.
Apart from the Lipo and the servos everything seems to work. I stripped all the video gear out today hooked it up and stuck it the garden and within 2-3 minutes the Suppo OSD had locked on to satellites and is working along with the ESC and motor.
I held the fuse over a boiling kettle as well to start getting the EPO back no shape and I hope to start gluing it back together tomorrow. Got spare servos so hope to have it flying by next week if possible. The rx will of course need to be range tested but to me it looks as if it hasn't got very wet, no water staining on it. Also will have to test the vtx for range. All in all I think I got off very lightly.
Cheers, Mark

[Flyboysee]

Hi Mark

I'm pretty sure that towards the 2k mark. Weathers gone bad again, but Ill get the Penguin out there to show you the distance.

R

[Western]

Cheers, Rich, that'll be cool. Weather started cloudy here now brilliant sun, I'm sure it'll improve for you too.
Regards, Mark