My 2nd and 3rd Tricopter FPV flights

[CurryKitten]

Ok, I should warn people first off, that these could be a bit dull.  My first little steps into FPV means I'm effectively flying up and down a field.  But hey these videos are as much for me as anyone else, I love watching my progress.

First up was a bit of flying from yesterday in the heavy wind, you may have seen the crash part of it before in which my leg folds back.  Was pleased with this as I finally nailed the takeoffs.  I found the wind quite scary, as I had a tail wind coming back towards myself, and where the trees form a point in the field to ram into.  Built up a bit of confidence with this one.

Tricopter - 2nd FPV Flights

This next one was todays flying.  It's basically my first battery.  The wind had dropped off, and I felt much much more in control.  I tried a few little things to push a bit further than before.  Felt really quite comfortable flying this.  I was really looking forward to doing more, but the second battery revealed a snapped cloverleaf and reduced the range dramatically.  Even with a working antenna, I was getting static and slight drop outs at just 200m.  I did figure I'd have more than that, so was a bit surprised.  But with the antenna being broken - I've no idea if it had some damage before I flew and then this flight was the one that actually severed the lobe ?

Anyhoo, the general idea behind this one was - I'm new to this, this is kinda what I'm thinking as I'm flying.

Thoughts from a new FPV'er

What was interesting in watching back both pieces of footage was details I didn't notice as I was flying/concentrating on not crashing.  People walking under me, and wildlife running away.

[BigMouse]

Looking good!

[c0nners]

Thanks for sharing them. Good to watch. youy've got me tempted with putting a toe into a tri or quad now. What made your mind up on a tri & what would you have changed if you bought again from scratch?

Cheers, Conners

[FPVSteve]

Nice videos man, tempted to get my tricopter back in the air

[CurryKitten]

Thanks for sharing them. Good to watch. youy've got me tempted with putting a toe into a tri or quad now. What made your mind up on a tri & what would you have changed if you bought again from scratch?

Cheers, Conners

Oh, good question.  I think it's because I literally discovered FPV randomly one day on YouTube and saw David of rcexplorer.se's Tri.  I don't think I knew such a thing as a Tricopter existed then.  I knew that quads did, but because I didn't really know what I was searching for, all I could find were the massively expensive RTF ariel photo rigs.  David's build guide was so detailed that I thought I would take a stab at it.

I think part of the weakness of the Tri is it's strength as well.  It's the breakable legs, I must have broken something like 10-20 legs now, and whilst they are very cheap and protect all the other components by absorbing the hit, if I break the rear leg I have so much cabling running down it, that it takes me an hour to fix it again.

So I quite like the idea of a quad and having most of your electronics in the central part, with just the wires for the motors running along the length of the leg.

So in hindsight I think the only things I may have done differently is organised the ESC's and my wiring better, so that a broken leg would be an easy swap.  Now that it weighs 1275g, perhaps motors that would have taken a 4S lipo would have been useful in generating more lift.

I do sometimes think a better flight controller than a KK, but I kind of think that flying these things shouldn't be all that easy.  If I'd have got something like a DJI 450 with a Naza controller, then I probably wouldn't have crashed much at all - but then I wouldn't have all the experience of crashing/repairing to learn from.