The short life of my WOT4

[RaySky]

Jon

Since my first one and only to date FPV that nearly ended badly I am probably the last person to give advice lol... I got lucky with a capital L when I lost the vid when I flew behind a solid rock embankment, if it hadn't appeared in the blue sky I too would have went looking for it and held my hand up to any damage it (I) had caused,
When the vid link was lost I felt sick to my stomach because I was well out of my comfort zone, when it appeared somehow I landed it like silk but was shaking and I mean visibly shaking from the trauma of lost of vid and my mind was running wild with possible's and what IF's
After 10 mins I went back up for a LOS flight to regain my confidence back and then home to watch the vid playback...
I learned a lot that day and itching to FPV once more when I have sorted all the niggles out of my setup.
Even though my problems were cause by my own in-experience I know the day will come when I have trust in my setup and realise what I am seeing and enjoy FPV the way I imagine it in my mind  :)
my setup is very low cost in comparison to yours but in real terms worth more (if you know what I mean  ;))
Even if mine had crashed and burned that day I would not have been put off  :) Probably more determined to enjoy FPV

Good luck finding your Wot4... its out there somewhere

Ray

[jweaver]

Jon

Since my first one and only to date FPV that nearly ended badly I am probably the last person to give advice lol... I got lucky with a capital L when I lost the vid when I flew behind a solid rock embankment, if it hadn't appeared in the blue sky I too would have went looking for it and held my hand up to any damage it (I) had caused,
When the vid link was lost I felt sick to my stomach because I was well out of my comfort zone, when it appeared somehow I landed it like silk but was shaking and I mean visibly shaking from the trauma of lost of vid and my mind was running wild with possible's and what IF's
After 10 mins I went back up for a LOS flight to regain my confidence back and then home to watch the vid playback...
I learned a lot that day and itching to FPV once more when I have sorted all the niggles out of my setup.
Even though my problems were cause by my own in-experience I know the day will come when I have trust in my setup and realise what I am seeing and enjoy FPV the way I imagine it in my mind  :)

Thanks Ray. I took up FPV a few months ago (Mainly Quad) and I found it surprisingly difficult to go FPV.. But once I got it, I had no problems..

I had done more than 20 flights with zero problems.. And then started to push the range, and had a pant filling moment with my Quad, where it got out of range and did an RTH but I panicked and thought it was just hovering..

In the end, the RTH worked perfectly and I had no reason to panic.. But I learned a lesson which was not to push it... And frankly, I am enjoying FPV local and have little wish to go too far as it really made no difference to the type of flying I wanted to do.

But then I started fixed wing, and realised that I needed to embrace the technology rather than fear it.. And as we now know, I pushed it that little too far.

My gut feel is to give up.. But I do love the hobby.. And whilst I didn't really think that the WOT4 was the centre piece of my fleet of planes, I really did like it. And as I am getting more and more used to the loss.. I am tempted to just buy everything again.. Build it EXACTLY as I did before and forget this ever happened.. Its a lot of money to use.. But I am sure others in the RC world have lost (or Destroyed) more expensive planes than me.

So hopefully in the next few days I will start to come to terms with this and will then think rationally about the future of my FPV flying.. What is clear.. I am going to stick to 500m from now on.. Irrespective of how tempting it is to push on just that little bit further..

Still gutted though :)

[Coyote]

But I am sure others in the RC world have lost (or Destroyed) more expensive planes than me.

Me for example, £600 of Skywalker lost to the sea on its maiden, then about 2 weeks later ........... a £600 Skywalker to the sea again :)

£1200 worth of kit in one month lost, but you either give up or learn from it and keep going. I`m glad I kept going, things just got better and better after that. Still lost a few, but found all of them after that via a good bit of luck, but that`s what happens when you push your own and the planes limits

[Lola]

Hi Jon, guess what? I got out if range yesterday evening and the failsafe on the ardu goes to circle and then 20 seconds later the 2nd failsafe kicks in to RTL. I tested this on mission planner and it worked. Problem was she circled into the ground. All I could do was watch on my monitor.

My mate flew the field this morning with his twin star and we found it within 25 mins, 1.3 kms out. So a standard Turnigy 9x range is just over 1000 meters.

It took out the front and broke the GPS, everything else is ok, just got to test the camera.

Get out there with another plane mate, it works!

[Coyote]

You classed circling into the ground and not returning home as working ? Hmm interesting :)  :)

[Lola]

You classed circling into the ground and not returning home as working ? Hmm interesting :)  :)

I expected it to circle AND maintain height until the 20 seconds was up and then when no signal arrives within the 20 she flys home.

I've changed the settings now in MP so she comes home straight away, bit late now for the easystar but as you said in a post before, lessons learnt.

[Coyote]

Aye that`s it, I now do not maiden planes near the sea :)

[Lola]

Aye that`s it, I now do not maiden planes near the sea :)

I've been brave a few times in my life and loaded my pants a few times as well but a maiden over the sea mate.... respect! 😉

[Coyote]

In my defense, neither time did I actually intend to fly over it, but the first time the control horn failed and it ended up in it, second time RTH kicked in, but it decided home was China :)

[jweaver]

Thanks all.. It helps to know i am not alone, and many others have similar (if not worse) stories...

I am swaying towards tye idea of buying another WOT4 and just repeating exactly what i did again (the build, not the crash). But i am revisiting the idea of installing SMS Based GPS trackers on my planes.. I dont like the idea that they are transmitting At GSM frequencies, but would t it be great to just send it a tect and get the co-ords... Also... I am going to put my phone number on all my planes from now on too.....

We live and learn and i just need to put this down to life experience,

[Heliotrope]

.... second time RTH kicked in, but it decided home was China :)

Classic :laugh: :laugh:

[bignose13]

When I lost my Funjet I was gutted cause it was a great plane to fly
If you look at the vid you can see a triangle parcel of land, easy to spot on google earth so easy to find, wrong, spent hours and hours looking for it, you just need to rise above it and carry on, loosing a plane is part and parcel of this hobby, I've lost 3, one which was only 500 meters
I have a new Funjet now (the one on this forums header), just ripping her apart to upgrade and fly her again,
Heres the lost vid, wait till the end and youll see the parcel of land, just
lost

[Brod]

bad luck on the WOT4.
when you going for any distance or height using the storm osd,alawas keep it in PA mode,that way if you lose video it will stay upright by letting go of the sticks and can switch rth knowing its at the right attitude for rth to work..
flying manual and loosing video only takes afew seconds for the plane to dive or bank too far for rth not to work.

[_tj_]

I have one flyaway once to with a storm in,

Thought I wouldn't see it again,

But luck was on my side after a six month wait.
Someone spotted it in a tree, and remembered us looking for it after knocking on doors.

Luckily I managed to get the co-ordinates from the storm before the battery went flat.

After 6 months in a tree, a puddle in the fuse, everything still worked after it was dried out except for the receiver.

And I'm still flying it today, as my test platform.

Hope you manage to find yours.

[jweaver]

Just one question about this.. My recollection of what I saw from the video is different to what I am seeing on Google Maps.

I know I was over 1Km out and was turning.. But looking at the map, this puts me a lot further out than I remember..

I guess I should trust the GPS more than my memory.. And if it came down almost immediately, this would but it in a completely different place than I remember.. And that could put it in a factory, which has a roof larger than many football fields.

There is a area which I havn't checked and it COULD be a candidate IF the plane flew one for a few 100 yards.. But I doubt it.. If it came down immediately, then based on what I know, it would be in the factory area!