=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 265 ===
Title: LDO 265 - BlueOwlFPV Replaces Jack
Recorded: 2020-09-24
Hosts: Klaudyna "Kaja" "BlueOwl" Wrochna, Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Tony "TheTonstar1" Marchant, Andy
Guest(s): (none recorded)
Total audience: 2,059
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGfrQvtcyN8); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/899952649-letsdroneout-ldo-265-blueowlfpv-replaces-jack.mp3)
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BlueOwl FPV
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjr3hpadMQEaC9ksaxxVGYw
IG: https://www.instagram.com/blueowlfpv/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/BlueOwlFPV/

Flylikeagirl
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj4hJe6ulQnxohoDhHe-yUw

WeRobotics & Flying Labs Network
https://werobotics.org/
https://flyinglabs.org/

[0.0] Curry: Welcome to Let's Drone Out, the original and best drone themed podcast.
[5.0] Curry: We record the show live on the Thursday night on youtube.com forward slash Let's Drone Out
[10.0] Curry: and our lovely patrons help with the editing costs.
[12.0] (Patrons): These are...
[13.0] Curry: Wacky Wes
[14.0] (Patrons): Mikey Dread
[15.0] (Patrons): Art Faulkner
[17.0] (Patrons): Carlos Campos
[19.0] (Patrons): Thank you
[20.0] (Patrons): Now let the trees recover
[21.0] (Patrons): Let's Drone Out now
[51.22] Frank: Good evening and welcome to Let's Drone Out, episode 265.
[56.22] Frank: We may shortly have a Jack appearing.
[60.22] Frank: First he had to mop up some blood and now he has to mop up his microphone.
[65.22] Frank: So we'll see if he turns up or not.
[67.22] Frank: But joining us this evening we have, yes again, we are, you know, we have the amazing presence of Andy R.C.
[77.22] AndyRC: Oh, hello
[78.22] Frank: Wearing some lovely Cadex gear there.
[81.22] Frank: We have Curry Kitten
[83.22] AndyRC: Hello
[84.22] AndyRC: I just realised it says look, I'm an official team pilot.
[88.22] AndyRC: Team pilot?
[89.22] AndyRC: I've just learned that from reading it on the camera.
[92.22] Curry: Quickly, you can hit what your terms are. Ask for payment.
[96.22] Curry: Yeah
[97.22] Frank: We have Tony Hondul and we have Blue Out FPV.
[102.22] Frank: Thank you for coming on again.
[104.22] BlueOwl: Hey everyone, thanks for having me.
[107.22] Frank: So last time you were on with the girls night number three that Tony organised
[112.22] Frank: and you were about to do quite a major move, I believe, which is tricky thing to do at the moment.
[119.22] Frank: How did that go?
[121.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's true.
[122.22] BlueOwl: I moved abroad to a new country where I've never been before.
[126.22] BlueOwl: Well, I've never lived here before.
[128.22] BlueOwl: So that was that's pretty exciting.
[130.22] BlueOwl: But yeah, it all went well.
[133.22] BlueOwl: Surprisingly, like I said, the Covid was nice to us this time to allow that smooth.
[139.22] BlueOwl: So yeah
[140.22] BlueOwl: And cheap beer.
[143.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's true.
[144.22] BlueOwl: So I'm in Czech Republic.
[145.22] BlueOwl: So it's really good.
[147.22] Tony: Really cheap beer.
[149.22] Tony: So it's more expensive.
[152.22] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[153.22] BlueOwl: Czech Republic is famous for having cheaper beer than bottled water.
[160.22] BlueOwl: And it's real.
[161.22] BlueOwl: It's true.
[162.22] BlueOwl: So it's a good country to move.
[166.22] Frank: I'm coming from France, right?
[169.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's true.
[170.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's true.
[171.22] BlueOwl: So now I'm actually waiting to meet some new people, happy people and find some new spots.
[177.22] BlueOwl: I don't know how it's going to go.
[178.22] BlueOwl: I'm in a big city now.
[181.22] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[183.22] Frank: So if we have anyone in the Czech Republic who's listening, who knows some good spots or some groups or anything, then yeah, let us know.
[193.22] Frank: You did put out a video after you came on last time.
[197.22] Frank: We believed you into putting the video out.
[200.22] Frank: I did.
[201.22] BlueOwl: Yes, I promised you guys.
[203.22] BlueOwl: So I did it.
[204.22] Frank: Oh, good to see.
[206.22] Frank: You seem to get a lot of a lot of comments on there and likes and things that look like it went down well.
[212.22] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[213.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, I have.
[214.22] BlueOwl: I'm pretty lucky.
[215.22] BlueOwl: My subscribers are very, very nice.
[218.22] BlueOwl: They always leave some nice comments.
[219.22] BlueOwl: So, yeah.
[222.22] Frank: I guess that was in France, was it?
[225.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that was still in France.
[226.22] BlueOwl: Yes.
[228.22] BlueOwl: Actually, yes, Switzerland.
[230.22] BlueOwl: I'm not sure.
[231.22] BlueOwl: I used to live on just next to the border with Switzerland.
[235.22] BlueOwl: So sometimes we would just kind of get lost and explore the spots.
[239.22] BlueOwl: And suddenly you don't even notice when you're in Switzerland.
[243.22] Curry: I'm going to go to Switzerland.
[245.22] Curry: That sounds good because you can stand in France flying Switzerland.
[249.22] Curry: And if anybody has problems on either end, you'll just be like, I'm here.
[254.22] Curry: Yeah, I've nothing to do with that, Gordon.
[256.22] Curry: And vice versa.
[257.22] Curry: If the Swiss police suddenly come over, you may cause a bit of an international incident, but it's a good get out.
[264.22] BlueOwl: That could have worked.
[265.22] BlueOwl: I've never tried that.
[266.22] BlueOwl: Maybe next time I will when I go back.
[268.22] Frank: So have you flown at all in Czech Republic?
[272.22] BlueOwl: Not yet.
[273.22] BlueOwl: It's been only two weeks.
[275.22] BlueOwl: So I haven't even charged my labels.
[278.22] BlueOwl: But, yeah, I expect to fly soon, actually.
[281.22] BlueOwl: Got in touch with some people from France.
[284.22] BlueOwl: And I might actually have to learn how to fly in bundles and how to race because this is what they do.
[291.22] BlueOwl: And I just like hanging out with people.
[294.22] BlueOwl: So I might have to switch a little bit.
[299.22] BlueOwl: But it's fine.
[301.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, it's what I need anyway, because if you notice in my videos, I usually fly next to trees and trees are very forgiving.
[310.22] BlueOwl: There are some small gaps, but you can still get away, you know, stay away from troubles pretty easily.
[316.22] BlueOwl: While in bundles and races, you really need that precision that I need to work on.
[322.22] BlueOwl: So it could be good.
[323.22] BlueOwl: I'm going to break a lot of stuff, for sure.
[326.22] Curry: Sounds good, though.
[327.22] Curry: I think we'd all kill for bandos around here.
[329.22] Curry: They're really rare, aren't they?
[331.22] Curry: They're mostly up north where, you know, it's a bit third world up that side of the country.
[336.22] Curry: But down here in the south, if a space bigger than a postage stamp exists, I'll put a block of flats on it or something.
[342.22] Curry: So we never find anything.
[344.22] Frank: Absolutely.
[345.22] Frank: But the other thing that has been going on recently that I know you've been involved with is being the flying like a girl competition.
[355.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's correct.
[356.22] BlueOwl: Yes.
[357.22] Frank: Was it last Thursday or Friday that was the final entry date for the first round of it?
[367.22] Frank: So you're not flying in it.
[369.22] Tony: You're judging it this time, aren't you?
[371.22] BlueOwl: Exactly.
[372.22] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[373.22] BlueOwl: And I'm missing out a lot of fun, but it's also fun.
[376.22] BlueOwl: It's really fun to judge as well.
[378.22] BlueOwl: And it's really great to see all these videos.
[380.22] BlueOwl: We had 11 submissions this year.
[383.22] BlueOwl: Last year we had, well, together with me, there were 14, which kind of makes sense if you think about it, because three participants are now judging this year.
[393.22] BlueOwl: But yeah, I was kind of hoping for more, but I know that people got busy.
[398.22] BlueOwl: And I think with the covid, people got generally...
[404.22] BlueOwl: I don't want to use the word lazy, but a little bit less used to flying regularly.
[409.22] Curry: It's been harder to get out of the way.
[412.22] Curry: There's a bit less of a thing going on.
[414.22] Curry: So one of the questions I had, because when the post went up on Instagram, I went over and I watched all the videos.
[420.22] Curry: And what was really impressive is the amount of variety.
[424.22] Curry: So as I was saying to you before, there were some really epic locations.
[429.22] Curry: And then there were some sort of plain locations, but some really smooth flying and some were really tightly edited and some was just sort of a DVR footage.
[439.22] Curry: I was interested to know how you guys were possibly going to compare like for like, because some videos are so different.
[446.22] Curry: Is it a tough job so far? Have you started? Have you got through? Do you know what's going into round two yet?
[452.22] BlueOwl: Yes, we already have the top five. Actually, we're skipping round two.
[456.22] BlueOwl: Well, we're skipping the one of the rounds, so we only have one left, the final.
[465.22] BlueOwl: And we have the top five. And yes, you're right. It was absolutely it was super tough to judge.
[471.22] BlueOwl: But we had some categories. We had four categories. I think it was published by Jane.
[478.22] BlueOwl: We had location, precision flow and like a general category, meaning that you can basically judge whether you, you know, based on your feeling if you like it or not.
[491.22] BlueOwl: And one thing, yeah, we didn't judge the editing. We also didn't judge whether it was DVR or HD because, well, people have access to different kind of equipment.
[504.22] BlueOwl: You can't judge whether someone doesn't have a GoPro, for example.
[509.22] BlueOwl: But when it comes to the location, we also didn't judge how cool it was, but how well you were using what you had.
[517.22] BlueOwl: So how well you're flying in the spot, not, for example, around the spot, if you see what I mean.
[523.22] BlueOwl: So, yeah, we just had to remember that it was freestyle competition.
[529.22] BlueOwl: It was not. Yeah, you just keep that in mind that it's freestyle competition and you try to concentrate on the technical side of flying.
[541.22] BlueOwl: And it gets slightly easier. It was still super tough, really.
[546.22] BlueOwl: But, yeah, we had five judges and then the score was an average of our.
[554.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, our numbers.
[556.22] Frank: I think those entries are visible up on the Flio FPV video competition YouTube channel, which we've linked down below.
[566.22] Frank: So anyone who's watching or listening, they are well worth a watch.
[571.22] Curry: What's quite nice, because I think you had a limit of what three minutes.
[574.22] Curry: So they're all quite you can watch them all in one sitting and have a really good feel for how everybody else was flying there.
[582.22] Curry: Yeah, good watch. Well worth it. I look forward to seeing who the next round is or to find this, I guess.
[589.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, it's already published.
[591.22] BlueOwl: Is it?
[592.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, well, not the videos, but the title is already published, I think yesterday.
[598.22] BlueOwl: So you can check it out. And then the video should appear probably in around a week or so.
[606.22] BlueOwl: The results will be published on the 4th of October. So we want to have some quite good prizes as well.
[615.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's true. Yes, there are two sponsorships for this place.
[620.22] BlueOwl: And it was already the case last year. And I won this competition and I got an Armaton sponsorship, which I could never, ever even doing off seriously.
[631.22] BlueOwl: It was so I would never even imagine that I would be sponsored by anyone, especially Armaton.
[638.22] BlueOwl: So it was really great. And it's the same this year, which is really exciting.
[643.22] Tony: It's really good, isn't it? Really good.
[647.57] Frank: So do you have an Armaton product that you want to plug here now that you have the opportunity to get your sponsorship happy?
[659.57] BlueOwl: Well, honestly, I moved and all of my drones are still in boxes and in the car, so I don't really have the t-shirt today.
[670.57] Frank: What's your favorite frame of this that you've flown?
[673.57] BlueOwl: My favorite frame is the good old Rooster. I've had it for ages. And yeah, maybe not everybody knows, but Armaton has this lifelong warranty.
[686.57] BlueOwl: And it really works. It really works. I checked it many times. You basically buy the frame.
[692.57] BlueOwl: I know they're not the cheapest frames, but you buy the frame once and then you can just keep breaking it as many times as you want.
[700.57] BlueOwl: And it doesn't mean you just break it accidentally. You can just basically crash full speed into something and then they will replace everything that you've broken.
[708.57] BlueOwl: And this is really great. And apart from that, Armaton, Chris is a great guy.
[715.57] BlueOwl: The team is great, so I'm very, very happy. It's literally the best sponsor I could ever have.
[725.57] Tony: He's brilliant. He's pretty cool, man.
[728.57] Frank: What were the... because Tony presumably has it up because he was looking at it, I think. What are the prizes for this year?
[737.57] BlueOwl: Honestly, that's a good question. I don't know the whole list.
[741.57] Tony: It's quite a lot.
[742.57] BlueOwl: Because it also kept changing. We were getting updates as we were getting new prizes.
[747.57] BlueOwl: And then, you know, it was the English shuffle. Let me see how we have a look.
[753.57] BlueOwl: So there is a Genfan and Orca sponsorship. This is probably the highlight. This is the first place.
[761.57] BlueOwl: Then there is the Hummingbird Croft from Nubit Round. There are motors from 533.
[768.57] BlueOwl: Then there is a gift card to Brain3D and Diatone.
[778.57] BlueOwl: But yeah, this is the first place. Plus, there are some extras as well. There are some antennas.
[784.57] BlueOwl: There is... I think that's a frame from Schizo, right? It's QAVR2.
[790.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, there are some flight controllers, radiographers, and so on. There is a long long wave.
[797.57] BlueOwl: And that's only the first place. There is also... by the way, yes, there is also a popular boat.
[803.57] BlueOwl: So if you liked one of the videos in particular, you can go ahead and vote in the channel.
[810.57] BlueOwl: In the Fly Like a Girl channel. And the person who gets the biggest number of votes will get some extra prizes as well.
[819.57] BlueOwl: Apart from the one, two, and three.
[822.57] Frank: Nice. There we go. Extra incentive for everyone to go watch all those videos and pick their favorite then, I guess.
[828.57] BlueOwl: Definitely.
[830.57] Frank: The other thing that we were talking about last time you were on was how you kind of had been involved in drones.
[840.57] Frank: I mean, first of all, for such a long time, I mean, Jack was very impressed with some of the gear that you had because he's a big fan of the older gear.
[854.57] Frank: As anyone who's noticed what he's been talking about building on Facebook and asking for advice at the moment, he's been asking for resistor codes and all sorts.
[864.57] Frank: So he was very impressed with what sort of the old gear that you had.
[870.57] Frank: I mean, the other thing I think was the camera angle impressed everyone that you were flying at.
[876.57] Curry: Made me scared. I don't know if it impressed me. It sounds insane.
[880.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, that's what people say as well.
[884.57] Frank: I think it was showing off well in your video, like why and how you fly with that camera angle. You tell that quite well.
[895.57] Frank: But the other thing was that it's flown around CERN, I remember, as the kind of interesting nugget there.
[906.57] Frank: I don't think we went too far down that road.
[910.57] Curry: We didn't please expand on this. We're all interested.
[914.57] Frank: No, the story behind flying at CERN.
[918.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, so when we say flying at CERN, it doesn't actually mean flying FPV at CERN. That was my job. That's where I worked, so I didn't want to mess with my workplace.
[929.57] BlueOwl: But I was still flying drones at CERN because I was the one and only drone pilot at CERN.
[935.57] BlueOwl: Something that not many people know is that at CERN, CERN is not only about physics. This is what people talk about because this is the main field. This is what CERN is all about.
[948.57] BlueOwl: But to be able to run such a huge organization, you need a lot more. You need a lot of engineers. You need simple things like you need people who will take care of the garbage, you need people who will take care of the buildings.
[966.57] BlueOwl: There was even a fire brigade at CERN. So we also had a little small team, which was basically surveying the whole territory of CERN and making maps and making sure that everything is updated indoors and outdoors.
[984.57] BlueOwl: When I applied to CERN, I didn't even know, but they were actually looking for a drone pilot. It was kind of an open application, so I didn't expect much.
[994.57] BlueOwl: To be honest, when I was applying, I would never expect that I could get a job in a place like this. So I applied and then I forgot, and then I got the job. It was a nice surprise, but that meant I had to move abroad again.
[1010.57] BlueOwl: That was already, what, four years ago? I think it was four years ago.
[1017.57] Curry: Can I just quickly interject? Does this mean you didn't apply for a job as such? Would you like to work for CERN? Yes.
[1028.57] Curry: When they interviewed you, did the stuff about drones and stuff come out there? Or was it all sort of a bit like, do you like black holes? Do you like physics and trying to work out what you're about?
[1039.57] BlueOwl: I don't know. Actually, there is a program called Fellowship that anybody can, well, there are some conditions. It's meant to be for a fresh graduate from, I think, up to 10 years after you graduate, you can apply for this program.
[1056.57] BlueOwl: And it's a contract of three years. It's not negotiable. You can't extend it more. That's why I'm not there anymore. But it was pretty, you know, still pretty good for years.
[1066.57] BlueOwl: And, yeah, I applied for an open position. I just described my background and I've already used, you know, I've worked in a company building and flying drones before. So, yeah, they kind of like my, I think there are not many people, you know, who apply with this kind of background.
[1085.57] BlueOwl: And apart from that, my background is actually photogrammetry and remote sensing. So that includes map making and, yeah, processing the data from satellites, from planes, from drones as well.
[1100.57] BlueOwl: So that was that was perfect. That was what they were looking for. And it was just, you know, doing the right thing in the right moment. And, yeah, I got a job. I got the job. It was pretty exciting.
[1113.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, and I mapped CERN for three years with a drone and taught people how to do it as well. I had to pass my, you know, get my pilot certificate in French as a beginner in French. That was that was pretty challenging as well.
[1131.57] BlueOwl: And like I said, I live next to Switzerland. So it was also pretty difficult to follow all the regulations because when you fly as you know, when you are a professional drone pilot, you have to follow the regulations.
[1145.57] BlueOwl: And there is actually there is one thing that people don't talk about. Usually when I tell people that I'm a drone pilot, they get very excited. They say really cool. You know, they're they say they're jealous.
[1156.57] BlueOwl: But what you don't realize is that flying is probably about 10 percent of your work. If you're doing everything around it, there is so much flight planning. There is so much, you know, about the regulations, you know, contacting the airport, getting all the permissions and then making sure that you get the good data.
[1179.57] BlueOwl: And then processing the data, integrating it. It's yeah, it's probably more than 90 percent.
[1188.57] Tony: Wow. That's the hard bit. The good bit is the 8 percent flying. That's the only bit that I could do.
[1200.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, the flying part is pretty easy. It was. Yeah, I love flying. It was always a highlight when we could go out flying. And there were so many different things to do.
[1212.57] BlueOwl: We had some inspections to do. We had to survey new buildings. Sometimes I was playing with some 3D models. I was pretty much free to explore different things. It was it was a new thing at CERN.
[1225.57] BlueOwl: We've never had a drone before. And, you know, everybody, everybody knew that there was a drone pilot and everybody knew who I was because I was number one.
[1238.57] Curry: So what sort of was it like a matrice or something or something that you had to build or did they already have it?
[1245.57] BlueOwl: No, we actually got Falcon 8 from Ascending Technologies. It's an optical term. It's a V-shaped optical.
[1253.57] Curry: It's big.
[1254.57] BlueOwl: It's pretty big, yeah.
[1256.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, it's more or less. Yeah. One meter, I think.
[1260.57] (Patrons): They make a good noise. I wouldn't take off.
[1263.57] BlueOwl: The flying is pretty easy. You don't fly in rates. You fly with the GPS.
[1268.57] BlueOwl: Yes. Yeah, the only scary moment is when you get some interference and it's certainly it could happen in many places.
[1278.57] Frank: It's round set.
[1282.57] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[1285.57] BlueOwl: So, yeah, it was pretty fun. I think one fun moment I remember when I joined and it's not related to drones, but I think it's pretty funny.
[1297.57] BlueOwl: Going from my building to the restaurant for lunch, I had to go past a building which was called an antimatter factory.
[1310.57] BlueOwl: And I was like, at the beginning, I thought, OK, that's a cool name for just the ugly building.
[1316.57] BlueOwl: And for two weeks, I didn't even realize that it was an actual antimatter factory.
[1322.57] BlueOwl: You were actually making antimatter inside of it.
[1325.57] BlueOwl: You just, you know, your brain just explodes because it's something you could all read about in your physics books.
[1333.57] BlueOwl: So it was pretty, it was a nice place to work.
[1337.57] Frank: It's an interesting commute past the local bit of the universe that has some antimatter in it.
[1343.57] Curry: And are you interested in the sort of the tech stuff, like the photogrammetry?
[1351.57] Curry: I've never done any of that, but it kind of looks interesting about how you'd have to get the data and how you'd process that and what's the difference between getting good data and bad data in terms of making the maps.
[1362.57] Curry: Was that interesting? Was it the sort of thing that floats your boat?
[1366.57] BlueOwl: Oh, yeah, definitely. That's what I was actually studying.
[1369.57] BlueOwl: You know, there is a you can study these things.
[1373.57] BlueOwl: We were learning more traditional ways of, you know, when I was a student that was 2010, 2015, we didn't talk about drones yet.
[1385.57] BlueOwl: It was not, you know, at least in Poland, there was there were no classes about drones.
[1390.57] BlueOwl: We didn't process drone imagery.
[1392.57] BlueOwl: But there is a lot going on with the satellite imagery, for example.
[1395.57] BlueOwl: So, yeah, it's it's a whole big field that you can study.
[1400.57] BlueOwl: And yeah, definitely, there's a lot going on.
[1403.57] BlueOwl: So, like I said, actually, many people I know that in the FPV community, sometimes you can see a little bit of hate towards people who like phantoms and Maliex and just take photos.
[1414.57] BlueOwl: And then, you know, some.
[1416.57] Tony: Only a little bit of hate.
[1418.57] Tony: Yeah.
[1420.57] BlueOwl: Because from our from our perspective, the flight characteristics, it's just so simple to fly.
[1428.57] BlueOwl: You basically push a button and it takes off and lands for you.
[1432.57] BlueOwl: There's nothing you have to do, right?
[1434.57] BlueOwl: But the thing is, when you're doing projects with drones like photogrammetry projects, the whole complexity is still there.
[1443.57] BlueOwl: But it's just it's not in the flight.
[1446.57] BlueOwl: If you see what I mean, it's it's really spread out throughout the whole project, but it's still there.
[1451.57] BlueOwl: You still need a lot of skill and, you know, you need to spend a lot of time planning and then you take the data and process the data.
[1458.57] BlueOwl: It's it's still yeah, it's not it's not that simple.
[1462.57] Tony: Yeah, I can imagine.
[1465.57] Tony: I can imagine.
[1467.57] Tony: I don't like doing that bit of it.
[1470.57] Tony: I just like the flying bit.
[1472.57] Tony: It's all I do.
[1474.57] Tony: I'm a pro. I've got paid for work.
[1476.57] Tony: Right.
[1478.57] Frank: All right. Are you allowed to have paid for work yet, Tony?
[1487.57] Frank: Well, in fact, in a television, I believe, yes, that make it extra indoors.
[1492.57] Frank: It does.
[1494.57] Frank: Yeah. So so since CERN, presumably you've still been kind of using the drones and surveying and putting all that stuff together because I think I saw a post on your Instagram about something kind of related.
[1514.57] Frank: So what have you what have you been doing kind of since leaving the anti-manufacturing mind?
[1521.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, I've been pretty busy.
[1524.57] BlueOwl: So, yeah, when I finished my contract, I thought, OK, so how do I top that?
[1530.57] BlueOwl: How do you get a cooler job?
[1533.57] BlueOwl: And I think I've told you before I get sport pretty quickly and easily.
[1538.57] BlueOwl: So, yeah, actually, I found another job and it's it's still with drones.
[1544.57] BlueOwl: And believe me or not, but I think it's even cooler than working at CERN.
[1550.57] BlueOwl: I mean, CERN was was really cool. It was really cool.
[1555.57] BlueOwl: It got to be honest at the end of it.
[1559.57] BlueOwl: It got pretty repetitive because how many times can you map the same land, the same area? Right.
[1565.57] BlueOwl: And my my job right now.
[1568.57] BlueOwl: So I work at we robotics.
[1569.57] BlueOwl: It's NGO.
[1571.57] BlueOwl: It's called we robotics, but 90 percent of the time we actually work with drones.
[1577.57] BlueOwl: And it's an NGO, it's a nonprofit who created a very cool concept.
[1583.57] BlueOwl: They developed, they started a network of flying labs and the flying labs.
[1588.57] BlueOwl: I know that some of you guys are watching me.
[1591.57] BlueOwl: So hi, hi, guys.
[1593.57] BlueOwl: I've seen Tanzania flying labs as well.
[1594.57] BlueOwl: And yeah, the flying labs, these are local knowledge hubs, which are located mostly in the developing countries, in the global south.
[1605.57] BlueOwl: So Africa, South America and Asia mostly.
[1609.57] BlueOwl: And what we do at we robotics and this is this is my job.
[1613.57] BlueOwl: My my position is called drone and data systems specialist, basically on the technical person who supports the network and with whatever they need.
[1624.57] BlueOwl: You know, and it's a pretty cool concept because when you think about it, there are, you know, we are kind of used to this concept of sending the international experts to do some work, for example, in Africa.
[1642.57] BlueOwl: And then they go back to their countries to the US or Europe or Australia.
[1646.57] BlueOwl: And the people there, they live with, you know, they're left with nothing.
[1651.57] BlueOwl: They don't know how to continue the project.
[1652.57] BlueOwl: They don't know how to use drones.
[1654.57] BlueOwl: They don't know how to what to do with the images because we're yeah, we're speaking about drone projects specifically, right?
[1662.57] BlueOwl: But our idea is to actually invest the time and build the capacity of people who who are, you know, born there and who who know their countries the best and they know their needs.
[1677.57] BlueOwl: They know their local languages and they are really, really intelligent, great people.
[1684.57] BlueOwl: They are full of passion.
[1685.57] BlueOwl: They are so creative.
[1686.57] BlueOwl: It's really it's super inspiring working with them.
[1690.57] BlueOwl: So my job is to support their projects when it comes to hardware and software and they have all kinds of projects.
[1697.57] BlueOwl: The, you know, the general sort of category is social good.
[1704.57] BlueOwl: So anything goes anything really.
[1707.57] BlueOwl: So environmental projects, I don't know, cargo projects for, for example, medicine delivery, anything that helps people in any way disaster response, you know, disaster relief.
[1721.57] BlueOwl: Things like this.
[1722.57] BlueOwl: There are so many examples.
[1723.57] BlueOwl: And right now we have 30 groups, 30 flying labs.
[1730.57] BlueOwl: Most of them are located in Africa.
[1733.57] BlueOwl: There is one group per country and their role is not only to work on the project, but also to, you know, spread the knowledge to teach other people and to kind of make sure that everybody understands the technology and that it's going forward in their countries.
[1754.57] Tony: Wow.
[1755.57] Tony: Can I call on you?
[1757.57] Tony: I've got some beta fight problems at the moment.
[1764.57] Tony: Is there any chance that I can just, you know, hit you up on Instagram?
[1767.57] Tony: You can help me.
[1771.57] Curry: I don't think your project is community based enough and it's not helping a developing country.
[1776.57] Curry: So back of the key for you, Tony.
[1778.57] Tony: Okay.
[1779.57] Tony: I'll take that.
[1781.57] Tony: I can still help you.
[1784.57] Frank: Take pissy on you specifically.
[1786.57] Frank: Yes.
[1788.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, actually it's a good timing to talk about it because tomorrow we have an anniversary of the creation of flying labs.
[1795.57] BlueOwl: It's our first birthday.
[1798.57] BlueOwl: We're celebrating the flying labs day.
[1800.57] BlueOwl: Wow.
[1801.57] Frank: Happy birthday flying labs.
[1802.57] Frank: Yeah.
[1803.57] Frank: Yeah.
[1804.57] BlueOwl: Happy birthday.
[1806.57] Frank: Are you going to go out for a fly?
[1808.57] BlueOwl: Maybe.
[1810.57] BlueOwl: Maybe.
[1811.57] BlueOwl: I think it's going to rain.
[1812.57] BlueOwl: So we'll see.
[1815.57] Tony: It's that time of year again now, isn't it?
[1818.57] Tony: Do you have this rule as well?
[1819.57] Curry: So whenever you get a new job, you need to change countries you're working in because you do seem to move about a lot as well.
[1825.57] Tony: She gets bored.
[1826.57] Tony: She told you she gets bored of countries.
[1830.57] BlueOwl: In this case, it was a little bit different because we robotics is kind of different than anything I've ever seen, honestly.
[1839.57] BlueOwl: And we all work remotely.
[1841.57] BlueOwl: And I started in January just before the lockdown and the whole COVID craziness.
[1846.57] BlueOwl: And that was perfect because I got this job.
[1848.57] BlueOwl: I started working remotely.
[1850.57] BlueOwl: I struggled for a month or two.
[1852.57] BlueOwl: I had to get used to it.
[1854.57] BlueOwl: And then when everybody started working remotely, I was like,
[1858.57] BlueOwl: what do you mean, guys?
[1860.57] BlueOwl: It's easy.
[1861.57] BlueOwl: I was already set.
[1862.57] BlueOwl: I was all good.
[1865.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, it was a good timing.
[1870.2] Frank: Do you always work remotely or do you ever get to like pre-COVID at least?
[1875.2] Frank: Did you get to like go out and visit the flying labs at all?
[1880.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, we do travel sometimes.
[1882.2] BlueOwl: We had a meeting of all flying labs planned in Kenya in May.
[1887.2] BlueOwl: And then I think I was kind of supposed to go to Senegal as well.
[1892.2] BlueOwl: But everything would cancel.
[1894.2] BlueOwl: You know, May was already pretty hot when it comes to COVID.
[1897.2] BlueOwl: So unfortunately, we had to cancel the flights.
[1900.2] BlueOwl: But yeah, sometimes we train people.
[1903.2] BlueOwl: You know, there are many things that we take for granted, actually, when you think about it.
[1908.2] BlueOwl: When you live in Europe or in the US, we are really privileged.
[1911.2] BlueOwl: And sometimes you don't even think about it.
[1914.2] BlueOwl: But actually, people who live in Africa, they may not have access.
[1920.2] BlueOwl: You know, we can go to, I don't know, to any shop or to any website and order a phantom or whatever we want, actually.
[1927.2] BlueOwl: And, you know, you can learn pretty quickly to process the data and you're good to go.
[1933.2] BlueOwl: You're a photogrammetry expert.
[1935.2] BlueOwl: You can get your certificate pretty quickly and easily.
[1938.2] BlueOwl: But for them, you know, without the access to even technology and without any sort of regulations and any way to get certified, you're required to be certified if you're working with drones.
[1956.2] BlueOwl: But you don't have a way to do it.
[1958.2] BlueOwl: This is really stopping them.
[1960.2] BlueOwl: So, you know, the big part of our work and our mission is to provide the same access that we have and that we take for granted.
[1971.2] BlueOwl: For example, we work on tech partnerships.
[1975.2] BlueOwl: You know, we partner up with some companies who we know they are just next door and they may provide some licenses or some discounts for, you know, for gear and stuff like that.
[1988.2] BlueOwl: And this helps a lot.
[1990.2] BlueOwl: It's just, you know, just about having equal access and full of opportunities.
[1997.2] Tony: That's pretty cool.
[1998.2] Tony: Is there like any kind of place where you can donate old stuff that you could send or something?
[2007.2] Tony: You know, I've got like hundreds of drones downstairs.
[2011.2] Tony: Some of them are antiques, but someone else could.
[2017.2] Curry: Tony's trying to get taking his drones to the tip.
[2020.2] Curry: He's like, oh, can you take these stuff?
[2024.2] Tony: But I'm just wondering if there's places out there we can if you had some old motors that you could send or some old FCS or something, you know, that maybe I don't know.
[2036.2] BlueOwl: We've never, you know, we've never thought about this.
[2039.2] BlueOwl: So, yeah, maybe, you know, I mean, good idea. Yeah, yeah.
[2044.2] Tony: Some kind of the thing where you can, you know, if you're changing your motors and you don't want them, you can send three if you've only got three and then they all go somewhere.
[2055.2] Tony: Someone can make good of them.
[2059.2] Curry: Tanzania Flying Labs is saying on the plus side, we do a lot of beyond visual line of sight flights in Tanzania. Is that because you're allowed to or you just you just do it anyway?
[2069.2] Curry: There's no rules.
[2070.2] Curry: This is my question. There's no rules.
[2073.2] Tony: No rules. I just do it.
[2075.2] Curry: I like the idea.
[2078.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, there are some pretty cool projects, for example, Nepal Flying Labs and Dominican Republic.
[2084.2] BlueOwl: They work on cargo drones where, you know, there is this problem that we don't really have in Europe.
[2091.2] BlueOwl: And it's when, you know, during the rainy season, the roads disappear because there are no asphalt roads.
[2099.2] BlueOwl: Even the main roads are sometimes in a pretty bad condition.
[2103.2] BlueOwl: And there are many remote communities, you know, especially especially in countries like Nepal.
[2110.2] BlueOwl: There are many mountains. There are places where you just cannot get.
[2114.2] BlueOwl: And imagine getting sick in such a remote village. You cannot just, you know, take a car or fly out or whatever.
[2122.2] Tony: Yeah, because you can't be washing up.
[2124.2] Tony: There was a sharp knife in the washing up and you cut your finger and you drift your blood everywhere and you can't make it to your own channel and do your podcast because you hurt.
[2136.2] Tony: You need a remote drone coming in with blood to top up your finger. Yeah.
[2142.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, this kind of problem that we're dealing with every day.
[2148.2] Tony: I get that.
[2150.2] Tony: Yeah, I can imagine in remote places how good it would be a life saving drone coming in to draw drugs and stuff like that.
[2159.2] Tony: It would just be wicked.
[2161.2] Curry: But to be fair, we've been dropping drugs for a while in this country, but mainly into prisons, as I remember it.
[2169.2] BlueOwl: I imagine doing the same, but for social good.
[2175.2] Curry: Retraining those criminals to do good with that drug dropping.
[2180.2] Curry: And don't worry too much about trying to drop it in the window.
[2184.2] Curry: So I guess these are these projects sort of unmanned, sort of long range, like take something, do sort of a mission plan and drop it somewhere and then fly back and have a sort of regular thing.
[2197.2] Curry: I mean, people have been talking about that for a while.
[2199.2] Curry: I get the feeling there's more sort of red tape in the West that's stopping people from doing it because we all get a bit all like you can't fly drones around here.
[2209.2] Curry: But over in places in more developing countries, it sounds like you can cut through the red tape a bit and you can just get on with it and start getting things delivered nicely.
[2220.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, but that's the thing in the developing countries.
[2223.2] BlueOwl: The regulations are often so early on in the development of the regulations that very often actually flying labs sometimes work with the governments to introduce the regulations and to develop them.
[2238.2] BlueOwl: So sometimes it's sometimes it's actually easier to get a permission.
[2244.2] Curry: Yeah, I guess you can sort of show this is good. Look, I was like, oh, yeah, that's good.
[2249.2] Curry: Let's have that in before the hysteria breaks out and you're accused of bringing down seven four sevens and things.
[2255.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, no, but everything, you know, everything is legal and they always make sure to get all the permissions.
[2262.2] BlueOwl: It's a normal thing when you do it for work, you don't really want to risk doing something stupid and, you know, flying into into airspace or an international airport, for example, you really need to know what you're doing.
[2276.2] Frank: So usually the other projects based around hardware that's kind of the off the shelf stuff that would kind of usually be used commercially in Europe or the US or is it more kind of the scratch built assembled that maybe we were we were, you know, we have more as the hobby level.
[2302.2] BlueOwl: Actually, it depends. There are all kinds of hardware and that's because every flying wax is different.
[2309.2] BlueOwl: We do not tell them how to do things or what to use. They're pretty independent and every group, like I said, every group is different.
[2317.2] BlueOwl: So it's sort of like a franchise model.
[2321.2] BlueOwl: They are part of the network, but they could have completely different backgrounds.
[2327.2] BlueOwl: So some of them actually, I know there are a few who specialize in custom built stuff, but most of them use off the shelf solutions.
[2338.2] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience, downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only.
[2345.2] Frank: Sensors to please the iTunes people hosted on the Internet, forwarded through to your podcast provider, downloaded, playing on your device and is now playing in your ears.
[2353.2] Frank: All thanks to our Patreons. Consider joining them and you'll also get other online benefits.
[2359.2] Frank: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash. Let's drone out.
[2363.2] Curry: I was just going to say, because they're all doing different stuff, so I take it you're not there to sort of say this is how you do it. You're there to support them.
[2370.2] Curry: Have you come up as they sort of presented you with ideas you sort of thought, well, I haven't thought of that.
[2374.2] Curry: That's that's an interesting way of doing things.
[2377.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, it happens very often, actually.
[2380.2] BlueOwl: You know, I'm there to support them because I have maybe better access, easier access to the companies and to hardware software and all that kind of stuff and training as well.
[2391.2] BlueOwl: But very often it's me who's learning from them or with them.
[2396.2] BlueOwl: So it's I always work on on a different project, like every day I could work on a different project because there's so much going on around the world.
[2407.2] BlueOwl: So and that's pretty cool. That's very exciting.
[2410.2] Curry: Does sound like a fun job. Well done. You've you've worn up certain somehow.
[2415.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, somehow I know, right?
[2419.2] Frank: It's like not even a specific tool. It's like it's this general group of tools that you know how to use and then you're working with other people so that they can then apply them to lots of different problems, right?
[2433.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, exactly. And it's not just about like I said, it's not just about hardware because there is the whole data processing and data analysis part where you could, for example, predict floods or, you know,
[2447.2] BlueOwl: kinds of stuff. I don't know, look for damages. And there is that we have some projects with AI and, you know, feature recognition.
[2456.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, there are all kinds of projects. It's very exciting, honestly. It's super cool. So yeah, check them out. We're robotics and flying labs.
[2465.2] Frank: OK, so I guess there's that we are a robotics.com.
[2471.2] Tony: I'm just going to put some links in. Yeah, you're right.
[2479.2] Tony: She cut a little thumb the other day and she made it running. Was she washing up? No, she was weirdly, she runs all the time with me running on the mountain bike trails for a year.
[2496.2] Tony: Nothing ever happens. And I thought, oh, I'm going out tomorrow. I'll take her for a quick walk over the park. And we went over the park for like 15 minutes and she caught it on the grass. Ridiculous.
[2508.2] Frank: So she cut her paw on grass? For those of you listening on the podcast, just to explain.
[2516.2] Tony: No, you know, you know, when dogs go to do the little mental run around thing and they just burn off their energy, she stopped really fast and turned and it just caught on something.
[2529.2] Tony: You have to put those shoes back on there just for comedy effect. I sent them back. They're so small. I'd love to love to keep her in some dog running shoes. But she just stood there and went, I can't do this.
[2546.2] Tony: Bless her. But she's all right.
[2549.2] Frank: So Blueout, having only been a couple of weeks since you moved to where you're now talking to us from, you're going to be maybe moving again sometime soon. But other than that, what else have you got planned for the rest of the year? Have you got any other plans at all?
[2572.2] BlueOwl: Just survive. That would be mine.
[2576.2] BlueOwl: Number one.
[2578.2] BlueOwl: No, I don't have any big plans yet. Like I told you, I'm waiting to meet new people and find some cool spots around here. We'll see how it's going to go.
[2594.2] BlueOwl: I'm pretty happy to be a bit closer to home right now because I come from Poland. So I'm just, you know, just around the corner for a change. I used to live in so many different places, but it's always been far away from home.
[2607.2] BlueOwl: So that would be nice as well to go home. There's actually, there's some pretty cool spots actually around my hometown. So I might make some videos there.
[2620.2] Tony: More videos again. Yes. Can we ask now? You promised us a video.
[2627.2] Tony: More videos.
[2629.2] BlueOwl: Okay. Are you going to make me promise again?
[2632.2] Tony: Yes, because everyone loves it.
[2636.2] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[2638.2] BlueOwl: I don't know. I just, you know, I love flying. I have mixed feelings about social media, so that's a good one.
[2646.2] BlueOwl: And there's been a lot going on, you know, it's really the, we robotics has kind of, I guess, start up energy, you see what I mean? Because there's a lot going on. Everything is changing constantly, which is great.
[2661.2] BlueOwl: You don't, you never get bored and it's kind of absorbed my energy. I'll keep flying. That's what I can promise you. I can't promise making a lot of videos.
[2672.2] BlueOwl: I'll definitely keep flying. It's what I do. It makes me happy and sane.
[2680.2] Tony: Yeah. Most of us use it to, well, we used to use it to get used to get away from, you know, life and get out in the field on your own or with your mates and enjoy yourself.
[2691.2] Tony: And just forget about your mortgage and your worries and COVID and what have you.
[2697.2] Curry: I think I need a couple of lipos. I'm starting to get a bit grumpy at home. I haven't been out for a couple of weeks to do something.
[2705.2] Curry: Have you seen the weather though, haven't you? It's been pretty awful lately.
[2709.2] Curry: I think the weekend's going to be all right though.
[2711.2] Curry: Yeah. Try and do something this weekend.
[2714.2] Tony: Yeah, you'll be all right.
[2717.2] Frank: Just a thought with kind of your broad view of lots of different tech. Is there anything out there that's kind of really got your interest at the moment of some new tool you found either hardware or software?
[2733.2] Frank: Hang around with at the moment.
[2736.2] BlueOwl: I'm exploring some stuff. So then the newest thing that I really can't wait to test is maybe some of you will know a company called Fix4D in Switzerland.
[2748.2] BlueOwl: They make the best data processing software. Basically, whenever you want to make a 3D model or make a map of your house or your property or anything else,
[2762.2] BlueOwl: you will easily find it. They just released a product called Fix4Dmatic.
[2768.2] BlueOwl: I think it was released last week and I really can't wait to test it.
[2774.2] BlueOwl: This is what I'm excited about. It's like a next generation software for drum data processing, which is quite great.
[2786.2] Frank: I've seen loads of interesting maps that have been just visual photographic ones, as I think Curry was demonstrating in one of his Sims last week.
[2804.2] Frank: That was an interesting one of the British castle.
[2808.2] Curry: Yeah, we did the castle one and the skateboarding thing, didn't we?
[2813.2] Frank: But I've seen some that are not visual light, but some other things as well.
[2820.2] Frank: So I mean, there's there's like LIDAR things as well. Interesting. But what's what's the maybe have you done any weird maps of like different frequencies of or some different senses that isn't just a camera?
[2837.2] BlueOwl: I've used a thermal camera. I remember we tried to do a work inspection and one time it was still a turn.
[2844.2] BlueOwl: We tried to detect a hot water leak underground. That didn't work.
[2855.2] BlueOwl: Yeah, no, actually, I've never used a LIDAR on a drone. I've worked quite a lot with point clouds from a terrestrial laser scanner, but not from a drone.
[2871.2] BlueOwl: I think, yeah, point clouds are also cool. Basically, when I was a student, the main field was land surveying.
[2879.2] BlueOwl: And for for the first half of my studies, and that was five years, I actually struggled quite a lot because that was just not my thing.
[2888.2] BlueOwl: And then I found photogrammetry and they suddenly I started learning about laser scanners and 3D data and you put lasers and 3D together.
[2898.2] BlueOwl: And that's what you know, that's what I like. How simple I am.
[2903.2] BlueOwl: I'm really excited about this field, so yeah.
[2908.2] Tony: You can't say just like normal, can you?
[2918.2] BlueOwl: With the flying gloves, we often use multispectral cameras.
[2924.2] BlueOwl: And then you record each band separately. So you have the RD and B separate.
[2930.2] BlueOwl: And then what's really cool is that you get different spectrum of different wavelengths of the infrared data, which can give you some pretty cool results because, for example, you can fly over a field or forest and you can tell which plants are, you know, in general, which plants are healthy and which plants need more fertilizer, for example.
[2953.2] BlueOwl: So this is pretty cool.
[2956.2] Tony: So like, you'll be like a bee, you can pick out the good plants.
[2962.2] Tony: I think they see in in in how we see.
[2966.2] Frank: Yeah. So I think the same effect you get right if you take like an FPV camera and you open it, take off the lens and there's the sensor and you've got the little glass bit that's the infrared filter.
[2980.2] Curry: That's the UV filter. You take that out and you get wacky colors.
[2984.2] Frank: You take that out and you get the wacky colors and you can replace it with if you've got a bit of old photographic film, then you can use that.
[2994.2] Frank: So it blocks the visible light that allows the near visible infrared light, which is what the kind of plants reflect a lot when they're healthy.
[3005.2] Frank: And then you can have your own little kind of infrared sensor doing it that way.
[3013.2] Curry: Why have you never done this, Frank? Put it in the queue behind you. Well, where's your where's your video?
[3018.2] Tony: It's archived. Oh, yeah. Frank doesn't make videos. He just pretends to make a video of it.
[3028.2] Frank: A few photos of it, at least on my Flickr. Maybe not on anything more recent. Is that still a thing? No.
[3038.2] Frank: We get some interesting, weird effects doing that way. But then obviously you can you can be much more effective and actually use it for social goods and working out where to put fertilizer.
[3053.2] Curry: Does that mean we can develop a drone that literally will fling in a good way?
[3061.2] Frank: I think that's that sounds like a project for.
[3065.2] Curry: Sounds like something Jack should get involved in immediately, his background in this.
[3070.2] Frank: That's that's for his his special magic that he's built. That should be the next iteration.
[3075.2] Tony: He's not known to defend himself, is he? No. All the better.
[3081.2] Frank: Yeah. Yeah. Andy, you've been very quiet and I know we're going to get told off by the comments if we don't speak to you.
[3092.2] Tony: No, I'm just enjoying the conversation. It's interesting, isn't it? Sometimes you just zone out and you think you're listening to this or you're actually here.
[3107.2] Curry: What have you been up to this week, Andy? Anything cool?
[3110.2] AndyRC: Nothing this week, but I went flying on Sunday. I'm going on Saturday. That's about it. I'm not no agenda. Just going to fly with friends. That's it, really.
[3122.2] AndyRC: I haven't got to. I had a problem with my GoPro nine. I've got to send it back.
[3128.2] AndyRC: What the new one? A new special one. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's my pickiness, really. There's a dead pixel on the sensor.
[3137.2] AndyRC: And so. But anyways, so that's going to pick it up tomorrow. That's it, too, because I wanted to. I haven't seen many flights unless it's just because I'm not looking around.
[3149.2] AndyRC: I haven't seen many flights of the Hero nine. Yeah, I caught that. Pick it up. It's too heavy.
[3156.2] Tony: I've also seen someone's doing I don't know what company are doing. They're doing a so you can make the GoPro nine, seven and eight lighter by taking the battery completely out.
[3169.2] Tony: And then you can plug your LiPo battery in to the type C.
[3179.2] Tony: Yeah, your balance cable can you have a balance cable and then straight into type C so you can get rid of your battery to make it quite a bit lighter.
[3189.2] AndyRC: Yeah, I can see that. I think that's good. I feel popular with the nine for sure.
[3195.2] AndyRC: I can't because it's so big and heavy. And it's really convenient as well because you don't like any time I go flying light.
[3202.2] AndyRC: I charge my GoPro and it's not that if you were out of battery, you can't use it anymore.
[3207.2] AndyRC: So having connect with your quad battery is just something else not to have to worry about making it take out of the mount without ripping the connector off.
[3217.2] Tony: That's a different time lapses and stuff and not worry about having your internal battery.
[3222.2] Tony: You could just stick a big external battery on there and do a nice time.
[3229.2] AndyRC: I've seen them. People are selling them on. Is it like a little USB USB C to thing? I think it's like five quid.
[3237.2] AndyRC: I don't think there's any in England where we're just stick it in the USB port of your flight controller.
[3244.2] Tony: No, a balance port ballot on your LiPo balance. Okay. Yeah.
[3249.2] Tony: It's straight to USB C. That works. Yeah. Yeah. And then you just get rid of that heavy battery and then you've made it lighter than the Hero8.
[3259.2] AndyRC: You're using a success though on the balance port. I don't know.
[3264.2] AndyRC: It might have a back in it, but maybe the GoPro can take a higher voltage.
[3269.2] AndyRC: GoPro are very against. I should watch what I'm saying here, aren't they?
[3274.2] AndyRC: They're very much against you using it as not intended, should I say.
[3280.2] AndyRC: They took the video out ability away, didn't they?
[3284.2] Tony: They did, but it's such a massive battery in the nine, especially if you want to fly.
[3290.2] Tony: I mean, if you want to do a long distance stuff, you could just run it off your LiPo.
[3297.2] Tony: I think it's a good idea, especially for five quid.
[3300.2] Tony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm well up for that for sure. I think it's in the chat already.
[3305.2] Tony: Is that Richard Warwick putting in a chat that we just link? Oh, I feel like it's telling you. That's interesting.
[3312.2] AndyRC: Okay. I'll get onto them about that.
[3316.2] AndyRC: Okay. Go for $4.99.
[3318.2] AndyRC: They're already sending me. I'm sorry. I've already bought a GoPro mount for it.
[3325.2] AndyRC: Yeah, that's the other thing. What I do like about it is you don't need a mount because the legs just fall out now.
[3331.2] AndyRC: So you can just mind you, you can get it scratched and stuff like that.
[3336.2] AndyRC: They get scratched anyways in those mounts. I would.
[3339.2] Tony: Yeah, mount seven is knackered.
[3341.2] AndyRC: Yeah, a mount that's got like the GoPro attachment.
[3344.2] AndyRC: And every time you take them, same with the eight out of those mounts, a huge scratch across the top.
[3352.2] AndyRC: So the protectors, you'll damage them, stick them in the protector.
[3356.2] AndyRC: Remember to unplug it before putting the camera here. Yeah, I fixed it in my latest video.
[3363.2] AndyRC: But yeah, I'm on the hype train for me from GoPro's light, for sure.
[3367.2] Frank: I have to say, Andy, I'm really glad to see that you did the Flywoo LR unboxing.
[3373.2] Frank: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
[3376.2] AndyRC: Really? Because like, people like, I've never really liked unboxings, but I kind of thought I'm going to be flying this before more GoPro 9.
[3386.2] AndyRC: Oh, I'm sorry. Come on. It's still on topic.
[3389.2] AndyRC: Going for an hour, Jack. You know, I mean, you really should be here if you want to stop me, Jack.
[3394.2] AndyRC: Oh, he's got, he's called the ambulance and holding his finger up in here.
[3398.2] AndyRC: He was here, he just couldn't sort his audio out and went off in a tiz.
[3403.2] Curry: There's definitely some sulking going on from Jack.
[3406.2] AndyRC: Yeah, sulking, get your ass here, or I'm going to talk about GoPro for the next hour and a half.
[3415.2] AndyRC: I'm sorry.
[3417.2] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3418.2] Frank: Have you been up to anything over the past week?
[3421.2] Curry: No, I've been, I tried to make my next video in the Open HD series, which was going fine.
[3428.2] Curry: I've accidentally blown up one of my Pi Zeros by reorientating it and getting the GoPro pins muddled up.
[3437.2] Curry: And so I murdered one, but I got a new one through. I put it on my Rover. I got iNav running.
[3442.2] Curry: I'm checking all my servers out. I'm checking it drives around. That's all good.
[3446.2] Curry: And suddenly it just stopped working.
[3449.2] Curry: And it's eventually been pinned down to one of the GoPro pins is pulling low when it should be high or something,
[3458.2] Curry: which is going to take a little while to fathom out why that is. We don't know.
[3464.2] Curry: So nothing's technically broken on it. The camera still works and stuff.
[3468.2] Curry: The Pi still works, but it doesn't work with Open HD.
[3471.2] Curry: So it's a little bit after getting quite far, quite quickly and like, yeah, this works, this works.
[3477.2] Curry: I put it on something. I said, go. And it goes breaks.
[3481.2] Curry: Other than that, as you and Jack accompanied me, I said, accompanied me in a virtual sense to try out the networking option for planes in the sim.
[3491.2] Curry: So there should be a new sim out tomorrow if I finish updating the wiki so people can fly planes and quads
[3498.2] Curry: and you can try bashing the plane with your quad while the plane attempts to land on the building.
[3503.2] Curry: That's our new game. But no flying because it's been awful weather, but hopefully it might get out this weekend.
[3510.2] AndyRC: No school FPV. It rips the entire solder pad off the board. So I didn't mention that in the video.
[3518.2] AndyRC: And then, of course, all the comments off. You can just solder to it. You can just solder to it.
[3522.2] AndyRC: You can't solder to, you know, bare board. So I mean, technically I could have cut a trace, but I couldn't be asked.
[3531.2] Frank: I like the connector. So what about you, Tony? Have you been, you know, soldering up some pie zeros?
[3539.2] Tony: Of course. You know me. I'm I'm soldering legend. Look at this stuff. I use only the best solder.
[3548.2] Curry: Weird because that's actual solder, not a gaffa tape.
[3551.2] Tony: Oh, no, I've actually got gaffa tape here. This is my second go to solder.
[3557.2] Tony: Yeah. I know I hate I just like flying. I don't like fixing stuff.
[3564.2] Frank: I mean, have you have you have you been out flying at all?
[3567.2] Tony: I flew at my local reservoir, which has no water in it. I saw someone posted.
[3576.2] Tony: There's no water in here. And I thought, I'm going to go fly there because I've flown there when there is water in there.
[3581.2] Tony: And I literally went there and walked down the bank right down the bank where people fish and there was normally just tons of water.
[3590.2] Tony: And there was just a little stream going through and it was just dry.
[3595.2] Tony: And I thought, well, this should actually be quite cool.
[3597.2] Tony: So I just got my card out and done some flying at the reservoir.
[3602.2] Tony: It's pretty cool to see. I might go back there and fly the same spot in Waders.
[3610.2] Tony: Because I'd have to be wearing waders because I think it'd be probably here.
[3615.2] Tony: It would be interesting with that. But, you know, it was really good because it was just a bone dry.
[3620.2] Tony: It was unbelievable, really, especially for what, nearly October.
[3625.2] Tony: Is it my birthday soon? Oh, yeah.
[3628.2] Tony: Waiting for my presents, Jack.
[3634.2] Curry: Did you forget his birthday this year?
[3636.2] Tony: I forgot Jack, so I didn't expect anything.
[3642.2] AndyRC: So next week on the show, Tony's birthday.
[3645.2] Frank: There we go. That's the episode sorted for next week.
[3649.2] Frank: Birthday bumps for Tony.
[3652.2] Frank: I managed to get out flying for like the third week in a row.
[3657.2] Frank: Wow, this is flying. What the hell?
[3661.2] Frank: Yeah, went up to Greenham Common, which is the old U.S. Air Force Base,
[3667.2] Frank: where there was all the nuclear protests about 30 years ago.
[3672.2] Frank: Went and flew Fraser Steen's E-Wings Vortini.
[3678.2] Frank: So there you go. E-Wings, you should definitely come on the show because I've flown one of your wings.
[3683.2] Frank: So it was extremely fast for flying line of sight as a tiny little wing.
[3689.2] Frank: But I managed just about. Yeah.
[3693.2] Curry: Is that a small one? I thought that was quite a big one.
[3695.2] Frank: Well, it was quite small for how fast it was going.
[3699.2] Curry: Is it because it flew away and that made it go small?
[3701.2] Frank: Yeah, it got really small very quickly and then got really big again and then very small again.
[3706.2] Frank: I got you. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun.
[3713.2] Frank: Yeah, we'll see what we do for Tony's birthday next week.
[3716.2] Frank: Get drunk. Yeah.
[3719.2] Curry: We can't give him the bump, so we'll have to ask Tony just to keep throwing himself on the floor 49 times.
[3724.2] Tony: Yeah, it's not 49.
[3727.2] Curry: That's what Jack's telling us.
[3729.2] Tony: Yeah, well, he's lying. I'm young and fit. Thank you very much.
[3734.2] Tony: 40 bloody nine. Not there yet.
[3737.2] Frank: And we'll also have to keep an eye out for the fly like a girl entries.
[3743.2] Frank: And what's on the look through them and see how the next round goes.
[3749.2] Frank: I'm sure everyone is going to be keeping an eye on.
[3752.2] Frank: And I'm looking forward to.
[3755.2] Frank: Yeah, well, thank you very much for coming on this week.
[3759.2] Frank: It's very interesting to hear how not only did you fly at CERN,
[3764.2] Frank: but that you have topped that in your career since, which I think is very impressive thing to do.
[3772.2] Frank: So thank you very much.
[3774.2] BlueOwl: Thanks for having me guys. It's always super nice to talk to you.
[3778.2] Tony: Oh, come back in six months. Tell us what you're doing.
[3781.2] Tony: Wait, wait. How many countries you've crossed?
[3785.2] AndyRC: NASA next on the drone on Mars.
[3793.2] Frank: And how you get on with all the band days as well.
[3797.2] Tony: Yeah.
[3802.2] Frank: Take lots of props. We will we will accept the the broken bits of quads as proof of lots of flying in band days.
[3812.2] Frank: Yes. All right. We'll try.
[3815.2] BlueOwl: It's going to happen.
[3819.2] Frank: Because there's there's fewer leaves and less grass.
[3823.2] Frank: But there we go. We have had on with us tonight. We've had Tony.
[3829.2] Frank: Well, sure. We have had Curry.
[3832.2] Frank: Goodbye. We have had Andy.
[3835.2] Frank: Amen. I've been just like Frank.
[3837.2] Frank: Jack has been just not available or having a house.
[3842.2] Frank: I'm sure he'll be back with us next week when we'll be celebrating Tony's birthday.
[3848.2] Frank: So thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight and see you all next week.
[3851.2] Frank: Goodbye.
[3854.2] Frank: Telemetry loss.