VIDEO: Flying The Vicinity of The Pond on Leonard in Grants Pass, Oregon

It's a interesting property.  I was worried a little in case of a crash because there is a locked fence and barbed wire all along the top.

BTW - The long horn cows across the street came over to watch and seemed interested in the hexacopter.

Okay John, I know I've not been checking out the forum on a daily basis lately but I have missed the leap from your on-board videos this spring to this video which appears to be FPV. Very nice. 
What machine you flying? And that must be the GoPro. 

Hi Bill!  Good to hear from you, is everything OK with you?  It's been a while.  What have you been up to?

Actually all my videos are line of sight flying still, I have not yet gotten the necessary FPV transmitters, receivers and so on.  These videos are being made with my DJI F550 hexacopter. 

The video camera is a Contour HD 1080P.  I prefer it to the GoPro because it has a 135 degree lens instead of 170 degrees of the GoPro.

Wow, it looked like you were some distance down field and quite high too.

You do/did have a GoPro didn't you? That Contour does take some nice video, will it work for you when your ready to go FPV?

Thanks, yes all is good here. As wOOd sometimes says, life has got in the way a bit.
Actually my dear spouse has retired after more than 30 years at her job and I had been helping her with all the required paper work etc.
My boys and I took our week long spring fishing trip to Diamond lake about a month ago.
We have had company for most of the past week so have been showing them around this part of our state a bit.
And last but not least, I've been getting a little stick time instead of just chatting about it. 

I have been venturing further out than I used to.  I attribute this to two things: Airplane flight training from our local AMA club, particularly Mike and Art there and their great plane and buddy box systems.  Also changing propellers on my hexacopter from the stock DJI props that were breaking to German made Graupner propellers.  Even so it get a little scary sometimes that far out that I wonder if I will ever find my bird if it does go down.

I do have a GoPro and it might work for FPV but I won't be using it for that.  I plan to use the Contour HD and a separate FPV camera and later get a Replay XD camera.

It looks like you've been very busy.  Was the stick time you got airplanes or helicopters?

Are you seeing many quadcopters or other multirotors in your area?  Down here where once there was only a couple we now have quite a few and the number seems to be growing.  They are getting very popular.

The stick time was on some planes. My local heli flying site now has a new housing development on it so I've not flown any heli's since I roughed up the Hughes.
I was out yesterday at the flying club site and flew the powered glider around until my neck was kinked. One of these days I'll learn to take a reclining lawn chair.
It was one of those partly cloudy days with lots of lift, great fun and relaxing too. 

No, I've not seen any one flying a multirotor around here, though I'm sure there must be some around as popular as they are getting.
I'll likely be using the club field more for helis now so will probably come across fellas flying them.

I am going to work the biggest part of the month of August so I too have my sights on one with the spare change I'll earn and probably the DJI F550 hexacopter. 

Funny you mention reclining lawn chairs.  We have been saying the same for a year so I guess it's time for us to take action.

I was wondering if you have put the Hughes back together.  It also gave me time to reflect on my own experiences with RC helicopters and all the heartbreak of a crash.  You know me long enough that you also know I have crashes my earlier helicopter so much that it was probably more apart than together.  I've also been building a amazing JR Vibe 500e for years and just can't get myself motivated to complete it.  I think part of me knows how bad I am going to feel if/when I crash it.  Since getting my first multirotor I have barely ever flown my helicopters any more and although I have crashed my multirotors also a bunch of times the repairing process is so much simpler that it almost doesn't matter.  The only moving parts on these things are the motors so we don't have to adjust pitch angles and adjust and balance all the parts of the darn things.  Pretty amazing stuff in my mind.

For pure flying pleasure I still like my GAUI 500X the best.  It is a blast to fly and handles really well but it just can't carry the weight that the DJI F550 can.  I use my F550 for aerial video and it can carry all that stuff with ease, but it sure doesn't handle nearly as well as the GAUI 500X.

I recently got a Team Black Sheep Discovery frame and I will use that platform for my FPV rig.  I am anxious to see how that fly's compared to the other two birds.

The Hughes is still on the shelf and untouched. I do have all the parts I know to broken on hand now but it will be winter again before she gets rebuilt.

I agree about the lawn chairs, they just need to be the first thing out to the truck to be remembered I guess.  ;D

Have you posted photos of the Team Black Sheep Discovery frame yet?

Here is a photo of my frame plates.  Lower in that thread is a photo of another persons built TBS Discovery.

http://southernoregonrc.com/index.php?topic=1441.0

Nice.
It's amazing how fast this segment of the hobby is evolving. I learn something new most every day.