FPV Delta Ray and Flight

Hello again Flite Test Community, I am back with another Hobbyzone Delta Ray video, this time shot whyle flying FPV over my Boy Scout Councils local camp.

For those of you who just want the video here it is, and for those of you who are curious about the setup and possibly doing it yourself, there are details after:

Instagram: @skypirate17

The Heard Scout Pueblo (Flying Location)

A brief history on the Heard Scout Pueblo (the camp I was flying at) because it has a cool story: Years ago the Heard family (they are well known locally for their contributions to the "Heard Museum") wanted to provide Boy Scouts of Amearica's Grand Canyon Council with a local camp. To ensure that BSA would not sell the property it was not given to the Council but rather sold for the grand total of $1 USD under the stipulation that it could never be sold for any more than $1 USD. As no one would ever sell a mountain multi-acre property for that low of a price the Heard family ensured that the camp would be used by Scouts for generations to come.

Why was I at a Boy Scout camp with hundreds of dollars of gear? Why else? Footage. And to fly somewhere new, and to get some people interested in the hobby. It worked so well that I was invited to set up an aviation booth at the Grand Canyon Braves Pow Wow, an event that the Order of the Arrow (National Honor Society of Boy Scouts) puts on at the Heard Scout Pueblo for Cub Scouts ages 5-11. This event includes vendors, a BB gun range, and many other activities. I got some pretty cool footage from that too and I will be releasing a video of that later.

The flight above was all around successful except for a few run ins with mesquite trees (covered in thorns) at the end of the day. 

Now Onto the FPV Setup

At the time of the video (October 2015) I was just getting into FPV. I had purchased a Quanum Complete FPV Bundle ($99) from Hobbyking.

Photo Courtesy of Hobbyking.com

My initial flights were done with the stock board camera set up in a backpack style like in the Flite Test "Simple FPV" episode. I made the mount out of hobby ply that was held together with liquid nails and velcro.

This worked well as I tested the system but I quickly wanted a sleeker setup. The first thing I did was solder one of the cables that the system came with so it could be used with my 808 #16 keychain camera. This way I got 720p footage and could record. I also made a hole in the top of the fuselage which I put the VTx in and ran the battery lead into the battery hatch. I didn't have a 2S adapter to work with the flight pack so I added a 500mAh 2S into the compartment as well. At about this time I was wondering whether or not I would get off of the ground.

Initial setup using FPV backpack (Left) and the later setup using the keychain camera (Right)  

Takeoffs were sketchy to say the least as on takeoff the plane wanted to high alpha for about 30 feet before it got up to speed (hand launched). Thankfully I got a few flights at my normal spot before the flight above.

I will be doing a review on the gear at a later date which will also include the modifications I made to the goggles. Let me know what you guys think in the comments and don't forget to subscribe to the channel for video notifications!