WOT4 Foam-E aerial footage with the GoPRO HD

Following one from my previous posts on how I've attached the GoPro HD to my Ripmax WOT 4 Foam-E, I captured the following video this weekend and was surprised just how little having the camera attached changed the flight characteristics of the plane. I was expecting I would need to fly the plane on full throttle a lot more, but this wasn't the case.  As can be seen in the video, I tried a few loops, rolls and inverted flight without any issue. There wasn't a whole lot of wind and it's a shame the sun wasn't shinning to show off a little more detail.  On the whole, very happy with the output I've been able to capture and I look forward to doing more experiments now the weather is improving in the UK. 

Come back to see more over the coming weeks/months.

Something rather different on the building table.

I few months ago I commented to my wife wouldn’t it be cool to have something like a remote control flying Pterodactyl only to park the idea and take it no further at that time.

Then in early March 2011 whilst listening to the RC Radio Network Airshow 46 podcast, I was amazed to hear that such a Pterodactyl model/kit actually existed and the highly talented Ron Marston of PteroWorks in America had actually designed a 52” and 80” Pterodactyl and was making it available in kit form.  Anyone listening to the RC Radio Network Show and quoting this was offered a 10% discount if purchasing.

I contacted Ron Marston and he quickly responded by giving me a quote including shipping to the UK. Just short of three weeks later the Pterodactyl has now been delivered and I’m now going to study the plans and instructions in detail as well as taking in all the comments regarding this kit on the RC Groups.com thread. 52" Marston Ptrerodactyl by PteroWorks thread on RC Groups

I plan to keep a build log with pictures along the way, ultimately leading to the maiden flight which I hope to get captured on video.  

For now I’ve captured a picture of the kit contents and ultimately how I want it to look once completed!  I’m not in any great rush to complete this project and as the instructions and threads suggest, you should take your time with this kit which is what I will do!

If you’re interested then please check back in for updates which I plan to post on this blog.

GoPro attached to my WOT4 Foam-E ready to capture in HD

As mentioned in my previous post, I've recently acquired a GoPro HD camera from America. A friend kindly purchased the camera in America whilst on holiday. I managed to get it for £140 as opposed to the £299 asking price on the Amazon.co.uk web site (Rip off Britain or what!!!).

Anyway, I've chosen to strap the camera to my WOT4 Foam-E in the first instance and have opted to mount  the camera upside down between the front under carriage. The GoPro has a neat setting whereby you can still have the camera upside down, but capture the video in the correct orientation if that makes sense? The camera comes with a number of mounts and I've opted to try one of the mounts which has some 3M sticky tape which is very adhesive. As a backup, I've just added a couple of blobs of epoxy resin just to add a further bond. The final backup is have two elastic bands which hold everything together. See pictures below.

I'm hoping the Spring weather in the UK stays settled for the weekend so I can give it a go. Watch out for some videos soon!

Well here goes!

Welcome to my new blog aimed at all things that fly remote control. I've recently returned to the RC world after an absence of about 20 years! I thought I would setup a quick blog to write about my experiences in the RC Flying arena and share some of the experiences and projects which I have on the go or at the planning stage.

As well as the RC side of flying, I also enjoy strapping cameras onto RC planes to capture areil footage. Thus far, I've been restricted to using cheap little key cameras with limited success. Hopefully things will change for the better now I've purchased a GoPro HD camera and I plan to capture some footage with this over the coming months. My Youtube channel can be found as follows and already has a few RC related videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/mjc1970tube

Area's where I'm looking to get into (once I have the funds to do so) is First Person View (FPV) flying, so watch out for this hopefully.

I've been having great fun with a number of Depron pusher jets recently, so will share my building experiences and tips for building these.

I currently have something rather different on order which I plan to build over the coming months and will document on here at different stages. Not wanting to give too much away at this stage, it should certainly turn a few heads!

Feel free to comment and I hope you find some of the information useful!