FPV Inside the Crater of Mt. St. Helens

by PDXDave | May 9, 2013 | (29) Posted in Just Fun

In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the devastating eruption on May 18th, 1980, some friends and I did an FPV flight in and around Mt. St. Helens.

The launch point was 9.4 miles from the crater, and the flight was made with no GPS and no RSSI on the OSD, so it was a bit of a gamble. Here are some details that people have been asking about:
Plane: TBS Zephyr
Control: EzUHF w/ Yagi
Video: 2.4 on Circular Wireless antennas
Flight time: 45-50 minutes each flight
mAh used: about 3,000 per flight

Please comment and rate! Hope you enjoy!!!

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COMMENTS

Zatoichi on May 10, 2013
Five stars for complete Awesomeness! Not your stranded F.P.V.vid people. Watch it.Then Watch it again.
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PDXDave on May 10, 2013
Thanks for the great comments, guys -- it's really appreciated! I'll make sure the other members of the team see them as well.
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Good Kebo on May 15, 2013
Wow! That was great. Thanks.
Now someone has to fly an active volcano with an FPV plane. Any takers?
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Piper Cub on May 16, 2013
Amazing! what camera are you using?
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PDXDave on May 20, 2013
Thanks again to everyone for their comments. The camera used to record the HD footage was a GoPro3 set for 1080p at 60fps and on Medium FOV. The flight camera used was a TBS69.
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Kristoffer on May 16, 2013
Really cool! And unbelieveable flight time as well.. Can't wait to get started with FPV, and this video certainly adds to the interest :)
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vcdrawdy on May 10, 2013
Really nice!! !hanks for giving us eyes on the amazing...
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kenton on May 13, 2013
This video is fantastic! Excellent work.
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nunieboy on May 10, 2013
epic.... pure epic....
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Auxiliarypower on May 10, 2013
I hate nothing about this!!!

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MountainSnowFlyer on May 13, 2013
Wow! Incredible. As a geologist, skiier, and FPV pilot I have to rate BIG thumbs up for the look around St. Helens!
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t.tsiplakis on May 11, 2013
good job,men ...nice.....bravo!!!
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Curins on May 11, 2013
Awesome Video! Super Awesome! Just wish you had selected music that didn't open up with the F word. I like the song don't get me wrong, but isn't there a radio version that more kid friendly? Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but if we want more youth in our hobby wouldn't we want to appease the parents? Again super awesome video!
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liveyourdreamsRC on May 10, 2013
Wow, really liked the intro, that was soooo kool!!
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AlexPewPew on May 10, 2013
Blown away. Really great!
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flyingAce on May 10, 2013
Everything about this video is great! Nice job!
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mkoutnik on May 11, 2013
Beautiful!
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nickatredbox on May 19, 2013
Very cool video I had a PC fractal landscape app called Vista strangely enough that had a 3D model of Mt St Helens which you could fly around but this is way better
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3zuli on May 11, 2013
Finally a FPV video that really stands out the crowd. Doing a 9+ mile flight. WITHOUT GPS info or RTH. Over a sleeping volcano. TBS must be proud of you :D 5 stars, keep up the good work.
In the description, you mentioned some signal repeaters... Could you give us some detail, maybe a behind the scenes video? :)
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Jimmy the Heater on May 18, 2013
Well being a Washingtonian and someone who remembers that day, May 18, 1980, I have to give a big thumbs up for this. I tried to go see the mountain one time but the weather was so bad that you couldn't even see anything.
You have made me renew my promise to myself to see it. Thank you so much for sharing.

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Hasersys on May 10, 2013
Very enjoyable video! Awesome job. 9.5 miles with out any GPS? Did I read that right?
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PDXDave on May 10, 2013
Thanks! Yes, you read that right. :) This aircraft didn't have a dedicated OSD installed, so the only OSD info we had was from the TBS Core -- essentially battery status (voltage, current draw, and mAh used) and time. The Core can do RSSI but it was acting up on us so we disabled it. The 9.5 miles is a bit of an estimate based on Google Earth. The GE measurement tool said that it was 9.4 miles from our launch point to the most distant edge of the crater -- we went a bit past that so we figure 9.5 was a good estimate.
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PDXDave

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FPV Inside the Crater of Mt. St. Helens