PILOTerror “… is the channel for all my flight logs. If drone videos make you dizzy, do not subscribe to this channel.”
As Brooks alludes in the description above, if you are prone to nausea, dizziness, motion sickness, or vertigo, do not watch these videos.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
2017-12-26
“Music from Timothy Abbott & Arcana Mundi.”
2017-12-26
“Music from The Rudy Schwartz Project.”
2017-12-26
“Music from Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave” performed by Slovenian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anton Nanut.”
2017-12-10
“Just after landing, I saw something in the goggles but thought it was a bird or something close to the lens. I’ve watched it a dozen times and it still looks to me like it curves when passing behind the trees. The clip was at 12:20 Saturday afternoon 12-09-2017 in Kingsland, Texas looking to the south east.”
2017-12-04
“A couple of days after a neighbor set my flying field on fire while attempting to burn off some cleared brush, the field of cactus is now a field of dust. Actually a good thing since it was a hazard ready to go but it also burned off most of the scraggle too…After I told him I needed the firewood anyway, he started dragging the rest of his cuttings out to my field. More scraggle for now but at the moment, it’s mostly the dust that is annoying me. Check out this Line Of Sight video. Music from The Rudy Schwartz Project.”
2017-11-25
“Thanksgiving day flight around the town. Couldn’t resist a stop by the water tower for a fly by inspection. Looks like some rusty spots may need some attention. Music from George Winston’s ‘December.'”
2017-11-24
“I was sitting at the computer when I looked up and saw the smoke. The neighbor had been burning a pile of brush a few lots over from my flying field and turned his back for just a few minutes and it ended up spreading to the field and got out of control. So glad I saw it in time. Also glad my friend Bev had asked me to haul off all her extra garden hoses. Finally got it under control and keeping my eyes on it. At least now I don’t have so much cactus to climb through to get to a downed quad. Music from Ass and Hammer’s ‘Sunshine Superhits.'”
2017-11-22
“My flying is still a bit twitchy but I don’t crash as much now. Music from Carlos Santana’s “Supernatural” and the song “Corazón Espinado” (featuring Maná).”
2017-11-20
“From one of the Velocidrone race tracks in the Industrial Wasteland scenery. Still just happy I can get through a lap without crashing too many times. I’ll worry about lap times if I ever start racing multiplayers. Demented cartoon music by The Rudy Schwartz Project.”
2017-11-19
“Practicing the power rolls on the dock cranes in Velocidrone to the music of Fat Boy Slim from ‘Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars.'”
2017-11-18
“Getting a little more confident in my acro stuff over pavement since getting Velocidrone flight sim to practice on, wish I have something tall to dive on but not much taller than the light poles out here. Flying the 5 inch Alien with Lumenier motors, Makerfire 25aESCs, 4s batteries. Enjoy the music from Pere Ubu and their collection ‘Ray Gun Suitcase.'”
2017-11-16
“Loving the velocidrone city. Sorry for the poor quality of the video since my computer is too wimpy for the ghost processing. I shot this via my tripod mounted camera shooting the screen from over my shoulder. Awesome music from Ed Hall’s ‘Albert’ with the song ‘Candy House.'”
2017-10-31
“Loving the scenery in velocidrone. Maybe with a few years of this my flying won’t suck so much. Can’t seem to hold a track to save my life. Good thing my crashes don’t cost me money like in the real world.”
2017-09-21
“8 days of full throttle racing around the street with no hesitation. The aluminum frame seems to be holding up just fine even with a broken arm bolt on day 6. The frame parts bend back just fine but the motors have all been bent up … but it still flies like a bat outta hell. Just a lot more shaky.”
2017-09-17
“My latest interactions with the buzzards. Also a video editor test of the lower “preview” quality rendering setting. The “Good” and “Best” settings was causing all my earlier videos to have the double image blurring effect that makes them annoying to watch. This seems to have fixed the problem for now but at a lower pixel count. Better than the blurring effect though.”
2017-09-10
“This is a raw video clip of some laps around the property with the new aluminum frame with 3s battery, DYS BE1806-2300KV motors, 20amp makerfire ESCs, naze32 full FC, H9(fuaxpro) camera.”
2017-08-27
“Another smashup of the aluminum hexcopter, and another field repair. Music by Timothy Abbott & Arcana Mundi.”
2017-08-02
“Yep, I still suck at this. I was going to set it up and try again with a lower camera angle so I could see the rail. Also planned to try going up the rail instead of down. If I got it more than once, I was going to add a motorized grinder wheel to make sure there were at least a few little sparks…but instead I’m saving up for a new set of motors, ESCs, flight controller and receiver … because I suck and wrapped my Alien around a tree.”
2017-07-26
“Inspired by Mr Steele’s attempt at grinding rails with a quad. I figured this would make it a bit easier. Flying in the intense heat here in Texas has been killing off my batteries so it was a short test flight. It didn’t take as much throttle as I expected and it still handled pretty well for all the extra weight. I made the strap on skate board with a poly carbonate deck, some cheap plastic trucks with a bunch of weight milled off with a dremil tool, the axles are fiberglass, the wheels are ethafoam and it’s all assembled with nylon zipties and velcro. I made it to strap to the bottom of my 5 inch Alien but it also seems to fit my HEX. My flying skills…suck, so I’m wanting to send it off to Mr Steels so he can give it the full workout. Thanks for watching and please subscribe.”
2017-07-08
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and it took a few test runs to get my camera angles right for the slower speeds but it worked out pretty good. Same home field block I always fly, this time I was in motion as well. My lovely driver Bev and I are practicing up for a flight/drive down an old country road near the mountain. Music for this one as most, provided by The Rudy Schwartz Project. The song “Vengeance, thy name is Shemp” seems to fit but the video should have included another car with both firing guns at each other like a county version of the movie ‘Foxy Brown.'”
2017-06-29
“There’s usually something crawling around in front of the camera when I crash but this was a first. I’ve only seen 3 snakes out here in the past 8 years so this was an extra special sight.”
2017-06-22
“While out practicing open sky power loops, I came across a few friends. Sorry for the crappy quality of the videos. Still can’t get the editor to process them without the smearing effect. It even seems to be getting worse. Maybe if I got one that was newer than my 8 year old copy of Sony Vegas it may be able to handle the HD stuff a little better. Maybe if I got a connections capable of streaming? Who knows …?”
2017-06-13
“This was just the last 2 months worth of my crash clips from my GoPro Session 4. It lasted all of about 7 months. It’s amazing I got that much use out of it(see power loop fails in my earlier videos). The field I fly over most of the time, is covered with cactus, which actually softens the crashes into the ground but the trees are pretty rock solid mesquite so the quad always loses. Either way…I suffer the pain of picking the cactus needles out of my hands every time I pick it up now.”
2017-05-30
“Work continues on the mystery disks and I got a few good flights in with some tunneling around through the underbrush. Really need to set up some sort of landing pad in the back so I don’t have to drop it in the cactus.”
2017-05-15
“Still messing with different editing settings, trying to get it to stop doing the time blurring thing. This was shot at 1920×1080 at 30fps, then I edited it down to 1280×720 at 30 fps. Still doing the time blur. Could be the computer choking on the file sizes. They won’t even play on this laptop but I don’t have an editor on the better computer…yet. And yes that is The Rudy Schwartz Project’s latest rumination, ‘Participation on the Bunga Bunga.'”
2017-05-11
“This is a quickie raw clip from my new $64 buck FauxPro. Set on the 1920×1080 30fps option since I’m on a tight data budget and my computer chokes on anything larger than that. The clip is 36 seconds long and 65.3 megs. When I try to edit the clips, they all come out like my last posting so I’ll see if the raw clip uploads any better than the edited clip. Also, I have one other clip that is a bit long but brighter sunlight. I’ve noticed the image stability breaks down a little more on the shorter exposure times but still way better than any of the other cheap options.”
2017-05-11
“Here is the first clip from the first day of flying my new $46 buck FauxPro flight recording camera. I’m still having trouble getting the right settings for the video editor so forgive the blurring effects. It doesn’t do that when playing back the raw video files but they’re such hi rez clips, they take forever to upload if I use the full length clip. So much wanting a better internet connection but not to be for us rural folk.”
2017-04-22
“A Mexican Eagle came by to check out the screaming banshee today. They’ve been hanging out in my neighborhood a lot lately but this one seemed to be checking me out to see what all the noise was about. Sometimes they circle low over the field as if they think I’m some sort of scavenger, waiting for something to die and they want to get in on the feast … not sure why the thumbnail pic is looking double image now. It was fine before I uploaded it.”
2017-04-16
“I need to make a windshield wiper for the lens, and I’m thinking about charging the neighbors for all the lawn mowing I’ve been doing here lately. All the new spring growth has started to close up my pathways through the trees.”
2017-04-06
“The final nail in the GoPro coffin. Some sort of issue with…something, keeps causing one of the motors to cut out and need to be rebooted before it will work again. Mostly when I bounce a landing too hard, or smack a tree, but lately I’ve jacked the super rates up so high, it gives this thing whiplash and sometimes cuts the motor in the middle of a snappy roll. Oh, and warning … I don’t, it’s Butt Hole Surfers again, followed up with a little Rudy Schwartz Project. RIP first GoPro …”
2017-04-04
“My young neighbor wanted to race his 4 wheels against my 4 props … props win!”
2017-04-03
“It started with a few dents in the back panel, then the status display cracked, then a hard hit into a mesquite tree put a tiny chip right in the center of the lens(not the lens cover I first thought). Part 2 will share the last moments, the autopsy, and some final thoughts on future mounting ideas.”
2017-03-24
“It’s a good year for the bluebonnets so I couldn’t resist going out flying on a Friday afternoon.”
2017-03-17
“After the latest rebuild, I was finally able to get the my rates up a bit more than the earlier settings, but no matter what I did I couldn’t get rid of the jitters unless I tuned it down so much the rates got sluggish again. The day after this test, I finally figured out it was mostly the pitch “I” was too high. I’ll be testing out a few new profile sets over the next couple of days so hopefully I’ll be able to get the rates back without the jitters this time.”
2017-02-26
“Some rare smooth air talked me into making a stop at the pit on Saturday. One battery was all it took. Really diggin’ the 3D feel to the place. The excavator just happened to be parked in just the right place for a good power loop and racing along the ridge lines really got my blood pumping. Thanks to Jack, Kevin and Brandon for letting me fly there. Thanks to U2 for letting me use their song “Elevation.” Bono appeared in a dream driving an excavator and told me I should make a video to this music so it’s cool.”
2017-02-25
“A new place to fly! I figured I got the flying camera, may as well help out my friend up the hill, get some good pics of his house and connected lots for the listing. The last battery was for exploring some lines through the trees. To the piano of George Winston’s December.”
2017-01-29
“I got a few days worth of good video of the new Aluminum Alien Hex in action and reaction. It’s taken dozens of hard hits over the past few weeks and only a few slight bends that just needed a quick bending back into shape. No signs of fatigue yet so it’s holding up way better than expected. Perfect for testing out a new frame geometry if you don’t want to go the extra hassle of making it all carbon fiber. as a quad aluminum alien copy, it was only slightly heavier than the carbon. As a Hex, it’s right about 223 grams for just the frame.”
2017-01-22
“The addition of 2 more more rotors to the aluminum alien mutation seems to have given it a lot more traction for the otherwise under powered quad. As a 6 rotor, it doesn’t lose altitude in the turns as much but still pretty sluggish in. the roll and pitch I also noticed I can feel the turbulence a lot more than the quads. Still, I’m enjoying the extra power, not so much the 4 minute flight times now.”
2017-01-17
“After making an aluminum clone of my impulserc Alien, the wimpy 3s motors, ESCs and batteries I have for it just were not cutting it as a stand in while I wait for replacement parts for the original Alien. I had and extra set of the motors and ESCs so I mutated the alien quad into and alien hex. The materials are cheap and easy to make so the fact that they will bend a lot easier than carbon will break, it’s still a good stand in since I can make them the same size and weight. Good for temporary arm replacements when the original parts are on backorder.”
2017-01-14
“One of the few flights I’ve had lately that did not end in a crash with damage. The first flight the next day took out an ESC and since it takes 3 to 4 weeks to get them from Germany, I figured I better get 2. Spending $50 bucks a month on repairs really sucks so I’m really hoping I can get better at this soon or I will be forced to sell it all before I go broke and jump off a bridge.”
2017-01-03
“Seems like just when I’m starting to be able to get up to speed on this thing, the faster I go is directly related to how long it’s out of commission when I finally hit something. 2 broken antennas, a flight controller and possibly an BEC. I ordered the wire to fix antennas and have a back up BEC if needed but need to wait til I have the bucks for the new controller. Not happy that my first KISS FC was DOA but I really don’t want another naze32. What to do?”
2017-01-01
“This is one of my few live appearances lately. There was a time when I got paid to entertain people just about every month or so but now days I’m too old for hauling my robots and music gear out to clubs all the time but a light load of a few bots and some cute quads made it a more enjoyable experience.”