Hi.
My name is Hank and I'm a 49 year old Canadian. I've wanted to fly RC airplanes since I was little but my parents never had the means and life got busy. I got married late in life and had kids. Four years ago I made a big change in my life. I quit a government job that I had held for 22 years and moved to the private sector. Someone bought me one of those $49 counter rotating helicopters that you can fly indoors and I flew it until it wore out. I bought another and wore it out then decided that I should try something bigger. With my increased means I bought a Belt CP 450 which I crashed and repaired and crashed and repaired and crashed and repaired. Then, I decided to try a quad. I bought a GAUI 330X kit and a landing gear and camera gimbal kit that I spent a long time buildingand getting just the way I wanted it. I flew it tethered a few times to dial it in but never got around to actually flying it. That was 3 years ago.
I've spent the last two years flying a variety of aircraft in RealFlight and recently decided that I would try the GAUI 330X again. I talked to a couple of friends who building embedded systems about building an autopilot and they pointed me toward the ArduPilot. After doing some research I decided to buy a PixHawk system and give that a go. That's a lot of equipment to try to squeeze onto such a small frame but I like a challenge. I attached the practice sticks and balls from the Belt CP to the 330X to protect the props and headed out into the yard. After a couple of false starts I got a relatively stable hover and a few take offs and landings. I then fixed the camera to the gimbal and took it for a spin. I got some cool video of the back of my house before the battery died and it crashed. Fortunately, the landing gear took the impact well and everything was good. I charged up and tried again and got come good video of our farm animals before the battery died and it crashed again. Once again the landing gear and the practice balls took the worst of it.
My friends and family find the videos amusing. I know that I'm coming at this all wrong but I'm enjoying myself and that's what matters to me. I'm a hack but I'm a happy hack.
Here are a couple of videos.
https://www.facebook.com/hank.carr/videos/10153631903747165
https://www.facebook.com/hank.carr/videos/10153632078732165
Hank
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