DHL parcel services has started a pilot (and did a successful test) of parcel delivery from the German mainland to one of the small islands off the North-Sea Coast.

Very impressive!! I will leave my personal comments for in the comments section.

Apart from the technical side of this, which have been done before, it does seem a next step given the regulatory approval.

The technical partners are the Institute of Flight System Dynamics at RWTH Aachen University and Microdrones GmbH.

English Press release: LINK

This is a video I found of 3D video recording, but it got me thinking about 3D FPV flying. Especially with Team Blacksheep kind-of flying, close to the ground or obstacles like trees, surely stereo viewing must add a lot and help determine distances. Is anyone doing this and is it worthwhile? Haven't got my Fat Sharks that long yet, but start thinking how it must be nice to fly with stereoscopic glasses and dual cam of course.

Apologies for partly jittery video due to unbalanced props and only 1 axis of the camera gimbal was working.

Custom frame Hexacopter (APM 2.5 and ArduCopter v2.9.1b) flying a pre-planned mission autonomously over water, with full auto mode from takeoff to landing. Flight was performed flawlessly! Kudos to 3DRobotics!

Using FatShark (Attitude SD) Goggles I was able to follow the entire flight with live video streaming. Head-up-display (HUD) via MinimOSD also works perfectly.

NB. Any fellow dutch flyers interesting in setting up a get-together sometime?

Hi all,

I've made two videos showing the ArduCopter Auto (and RTL in second video) capabilities of ArduCopter.

The first video is a flight with 5 waypoints at varying altitudes and includes AutoLand.

I only did not include Auto Takeoff in these videos but can confirm that also works well. There was limited takeoff space so I took off in Stabilize mode and then switched over to Auto.

Still have to work on the jello effect, as it turns out I have one motor which causes a lot of vibration.

I hope this shows nicely how well this functionality works!

While flying I have had a continuous videofeed (as a failsafe) via FatShark Goggles and using MinimOSD for HUD projection overlaid on the video. Nb. the new 5.8 Ghz 600mW Tx from ImmersionRC works a treat even at longer distances!

The second video shows a flyover (at high altitude) of a local fair and a return flight via RTL.

Hi there,

Well.. as the title suggests.. truly the cheapest way is by avoiding a hard landing, but let's leave that aside.

This solution cost me about 2 dollars and five minutes.

In this short video I demonstrate how to add rubber caps with foam inserts to both soften a hard landing as well as prevent the legs from sinking into muddy ground, due to the larger footprint.

No glue or screws needed :-)

Hope you like it!

Hi all,

Apologies for the video in portrait, hope it is still visible.

True to the DIY element of this community, I've devised a small, cheap and simple way to attach items of any kind to my Quadcopter and via a servo to release it.

It's quite simple yet effective, using one servo and some pieces of metal and a screw to mount it underneath my hexa (custom frame built entirely from 3DRobotics parts).

You can see I have been doing a lot of bending to get the right angle etc. Now that's DIY! ;-)

Photos from three angles:

With one switch I can now release anything I'd like to transport around, e.g. Waterballoons, Cupcakes, Parachutes etc.

I had all the parts necessary already lying around and the build is really simple. I had to bend a lot of the small metal parts into the shapes I wanted them using simple pliers.

I had been racking my brain about such a thing for a long time, and today was the Eureka! moment.

Hope you like the idea!

Hi all,

Maybe an idea for revision E of the 3DR Hexa?

After having played for some time with my 3DR Quad, I decided to make some changes. Actually, I wanted a hexa for more lifting power. And I was inspired by the guys from Team Blacksheep and their awesome FPV platforms. So I wanted a 'low-rise' Hexa with not too many stacked plates.

What to do? I bought a complete second 3DR Quad frame including motors, and when you add them together... you can build a Hexa AND you are left with some spare parts! 2 spare motors etc. which is great!

As you can see, it's really based on 2 Quad Base plates stuck together by an undermounted Quad arm/leg.

(OK, I had another extra black arm lying around). This also allows for perfect mounting of the small and lightweight HK Pan/Tilt GoPro camera gimbal.

Here's what it looks like, and below a test video (1:12mins) which was it's maiden voyage! I was a bit worried about stability, but it was amazingly stable (using APM 2.8.1)

Let me know what you think! As you can see, it's pretty slim!

I was trying out my GoPro2 and my 3DR Quad-C (APM 2.5) / ArduCopter v2.8.1 and thought the images were worth sharing, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful place.

I have been wondering about how to mount my GoPro camera to the 3DR Camera Tilt Gimbal and found a solution so simple yet so ingenious (if I may say so myself) that I thought it would be worth sharing.

This is my second GoPro camera. The first one broke as it fell off the Gimbal during rough "landing" and I did not have it in its protective housing (duh!). It fell lens-down on the concrete, cracking the glass lens causing some swearing on my part. Needless to say I wanted the new GoPro to be attached including the protective case.

Problem however is that the protective case plus attached base are together too tall to mount on the 3DR Cam Gimbal. When you have a battery fitted as well, there is not enough room for the gimbal to tilt without the Camera case getting stuck underneath the battery space.

However, after some contemplating I found a solution! The Gimbal is now mounted rock-solid without using any extra parts.

What to do: Take 2 minutes!

 1. I used a simple pair of pliers, actually a wire-cutter to cut through some of the holes in the gimbal to make the opening a bit wider as you can see below.

2. Then take the mount of the GoPro case and disassemble it like so:

You just need the long bolt/screw.

3. Then take the case and place it on the base of the gimbal, through the hole you had widened.

4. Now put  the screw in place and make sure you push it as far as you can, use tools if necessary.
By doing so, you are wedging the case in place.

5 . The result is this:

6. And this:

7. Here you can see the wedge caused by one side of the screw being bigger than the other.

If you have wedged it properly, the result should be that the case is tightly fitted to the gimbal. I used it already for recording a video and that confirmed that it is solid as there is no jittering and after flying it for some time, the case is still firmly in place.

All without glue or tape or tie-wraps and in 2 minutes! I was pleased!

P.s. Apologies for the out-of-focus images :-)

P.p.s. It's not my habit to leave the propellors on the quad while tinkering but this was just for the photos as I was about to go outside and fly. Certainly I do not connect the battery inside while the props are on. Trust me, it went wrong once.