=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 321 ===
Title: LDO 321 - Chris G FPV, Wings And X Class At Popham 2021
Recorded: 2021-10-21
Hosts: Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Tony "TheTonstar1" Marchant, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash
Guest(s): Chris "Mothereffin" G
Total audience: 2,311
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItABv0UqGMQ); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1147226890-letsdroneout-ldo-321-chris-g-fpv-wings-and-x-class-at-popham-2021.mp3)
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[0.0] Jack: Hello and you're listening to Let's Drone Out and special thank you to our lovely patrons that helped donate so that we could pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things we say. Massive thank you to.
[14.0] Jack: Carlos Campos.
[16.0] Jack: Art Faulkner.
[18.0] Jack: Sam Dahmer.
[20.0] Jack: Mikey Dread.
[22.0] ChrisG: On with the show.
[24.0] ChrisG: Let's Drone Out now.
[54.38] Jack: You're listening to Let's Drone Out.
[56.38] Jack: Welcome back everybody.
[58.38] Jack: And you're joined by Angie slash Frank.
[60.38] Jack: Hello.
[62.38] Jack: Bellrick slash Stephen.
[64.38] Jack: Hello.
[66.38] Jack: Everyone's favourite curry kitten.
[68.38] Jack: Hello. The Chris Mother G.
[72.38] Jack: Hi.
[74.38] Jack: And my darling wife back once again.
[78.38] Jack: Not sure.
[80.38] Jack: I have to call up and request and I, you know, check with her secretary whether she's free and available tonight. What are you drinking tonight darling?
[92.38] Tony: Tonight I'm drinking abstract lens from North Brewing Co. It's a double IPA. Very nice strength. Really nice beer from Tesco. Thank you.
[106.38] Jack: And I'm your bellend of the show. Jack. Hello. Welcome. Welcome.
[112.38] Jack: Welcome.
[114.38] Stephen: Hello. I should give a shout out to my local brewery Beavertown as well. I've got their bloody yellow blood orange IPA.
[122.38] Tony: Oh, I like Beavertown stuff. That's got they've got some nice stuff. They're actually just down the road. You can in the summer you can say that for my house on tap on in some pubs now.
[133.38] Curry: Is there something that all IPAs either have to sound like porn movies or David Lynch films? Let's be honest. I don't really understand. It makes a sale, doesn't it?
[143.38] Curry: Seems to.
[145.38] Stephen: Cider names. I think that's what they're following. The only way you could tell Ciders apart when they turn was like they just all have crass names. So tell you works.
[156.27] Stephen: Brooding someone's bathtub. Funny name.
[159.27] Martin Rye: We've got we've got a different sort of show this week because we know for a fact that at least two of the people on this week have flown since the last show.
[170.27] Martin Rye: That is correct. Because at on the weekends and on Saturday, at least me and Curry went up and we watched Chris and Tony fly at Pop'em, which is nice to be out on a small event again and seeing some slightly crazy, slightly new, slightly odd things going on.
[196.27] Martin Rye: It's nice to go out and see it. Yeah. So for people that don't know, Pop'em Airfield is a manned. It's a proper manned airfield with like microlights and gyrocopters and the odd yak flying in and out.
[211.27] Curry: It's got a real airfield. It's a real airfield. Exactly. A grown up one. Yeah, it's real, but it is small, but you can still get lost if you follow Frank's directions too literally.
[223.27] Stephen: Then you end up on the building site behind some aircraft hangers wondering where you are. Tony got his ex-class in the air then. You're fighting some issues with that last time.
[234.27] Martin Rye: The issues. One or two issues this time. The issues come back.
[242.27] Martin Rye: Yeah, I mean, Curry saying about the building site. I mean, that building site, if you've been to Pop'em before and seen some drone racing or some drone flying, whether that's for the Queen's Cup back in 2016.
[256.27] Martin Rye: There you go. Says the winner of the B-Final, I believe. What does the Queen fly? Well, that was a while ago.
[265.27] Martin Rye: Or if you've been to one of the mini air shows over the past few years, you will know about the netted area that was the drone zone.
[277.27] Martin Rye: When we turned up on Saturday, that wasn't the drone zone anymore. That was the building site. It was hangers, wasn't it? It's a shame because everyone missed that net so much.
[294.27] Martin Rye: You're so sad not to be spending 10 minutes of every round fishing quads and things out of that netting, aren't you?
[302.27] ChrisG: Half a huge wobbly ladder. Yeah, it was great. Now we've got a much better flying site now.
[309.27] Martin Rye: Yeah, because it's now on the field where we had the fixed wing stuff for the mini air show side of things. It's the model aircraft field, which is like for the manned aviation guys.
[322.27] Martin Rye: It's like a permanent no-fly zone, isn't it? You can't overfly this. This is always to be avoided. Don't go over here.
[331.27] Martin Rye: I think Mike at Pop'em was saying it's probably the safest place to fly a drone that you'll find because it's full of manned aviation around it, specifically avoiding this area.
[345.27] Martin Rye: Yes.
[347.27] Martin Rye: It's pretty good for that kind of side of things. But that field, it felt like we were using it all from any air show. It turns out we were using none of it. It turns out it's really big.
[361.27] Martin Rye: Because at the event on Saturday, we were using kind of the far section of it, probably like a third of it, half of it. And that was more than enough, it seems, for the X-class and the wings to have a decent size course.
[377.27] Martin Rye: It wasn't a big course for them. It'd be a big course for a five-inch course. But for the wings and the X-class, it seemed, as a spectator at least, to be reasonable.
[388.27] Stephen: Looking at the cams on the wings, they all seem to be just turning all the time, so I'm guessing it was fairly tight.
[395.27] ChrisG: It wasn't too bad, I don't think.
[399.27] Curry: You wouldn't say it was too bad, would you?
[404.27] Curry: I was just saying it's okay, but I looked at Chris's DVR and it's like, it helps if you put your head round like this and then you're doing something other than a full bank all the way around all the time.
[413.27] Martin Rye: Filming in Pop'em though, that was all.
[415.27] ChrisG: Does anyone fly differently than that normally then?
[419.27] ChrisG: I thought this was normal.
[423.27] Martin Rye: So yeah, so it was, the reason there was the event on, which I think Cerberus and Clive of BV have mentioned either on the show or in the chat,
[435.27] Martin Rye: was it was the X-class world trials, world time trials.
[442.27] Martin Rye: So all the chapters of X-class around the world, on that weekend, we're setting out this exact course with the flags and the gates and things all the same to the millimeter, as Martin found out when he was laying it out.
[460.27] Tony: It literally was millimeters involved.
[464.27] Martin Rye: Because Martin spent, this is Martin Ryde from Fossil Stuff, spent Friday setting it all up and having set it up had to take certain sort of diagonal measurements and pass them back to the head X-class people who were checking that everything was all on the up and up.
[484.27] Martin Rye: And they said, no, this is 300 millimeters out or something.
[493.27] Martin Rye: Had to adjust it all to get it all just right.
[497.27] Martin Rye: And so it was all in compliance.
[499.27] Martin Rye: And so all the tracks around the world, all matching this one.
[503.27] Stephen: And everyone adjusted their temperature and humidity levels as well.
[508.27] Tony: Apart from Canada, I think Canada got weathered off.
[513.27] Tony: I don't know what weather they had, but it wasn't all of it.
[516.27] Martin Rye: All the weather.
[517.27] Tony: It was all the weather at the same time.
[521.27] Tony: So it was only Canada who didn't turn up and do there.
[528.27] Tony: But all across the world, everyone else did.
[531.27] Tony: So it was good.
[532.27] Tony: I mean, I drove up through rain and I was like, oh, my God, this is horrendous.
[538.27] Stephen: Did you get around the course, OK?
[540.27] Tony: Yeah, it was it was good when we got there and got going and it dried out and the sun come out.
[545.27] Tony: It was actually quite warm.
[546.27] Tony: We're all in T-shirts.
[548.27] Tony: Yeah.
[549.27] Tony: By about 10 30 11.
[550.27] Tony: So it got cheered on miraculously, didn't it?
[553.27] Stephen: It was really nice.
[555.27] Stephen: So tell us about your X-class then.
[558.27] Stephen: It's this the kind of passion project you've been working with for ages and it seems to want to misbehave all the time.
[564.27] Stephen: What went wrong this time?
[565.27] Tony: Well, it's to be fair, it's three.
[567.27] Tony: It's a three year old design.
[570.27] Tony: And it was one of Martin's first sort of design.
[573.27] Tony: So it's not the current model.
[576.27] Tony: But my mind is working on another one as well at the moment, which if you've seen Kerry Kitten's video, you've had a look at it.
[587.27] Stephen: For those that hasn't, this is like a stretched X-class, if you will.
[591.27] Tony: It is a stretched X.
[592.27] Tony: Yeah.
[593.27] Tony: And that's our next next look into the X-class stuff.
[598.27] Stephen: I think it's a frame problem that's just a couple too many knocks.
[602.27] Tony: Mine definitely because it's three years old.
[605.27] Tony: It's been well, it's landed roughly.
[609.27] Tony: I wouldn't say crash.
[610.27] Tony: I don't want to say crash.
[612.27] Tony: It landed roughly a few times.
[615.27] Tony: No, it has crashed.
[617.27] Tony: It's crashed a lot.
[618.27] Tony: And then last weekend I had a big carbon fire on it.
[624.27] Tony: So it's very, very weak now.
[627.27] Tony: So the whole thing needs changing.
[629.27] Tony: But it's three years old anyway.
[631.27] Tony: I mean, you know, it needed doing so.
[634.27] Martin Rye: You've taken it out and done a lot of demos at various events, haven't you?
[639.27] Tony: Yeah.
[640.27] Tony: It's been demoed across the country for the last three years.
[644.27] Tony: So it's done well.
[647.27] Tony: It's done all right.
[649.27] Tony: It just gave up the ghost on the weekend.
[654.27] Tony: Mind you, it was very nice to have Greg from Minute RC there helping me take it apart
[660.27] Tony: and put it back together and it was very helpful.
[663.27] Tony: So thanks, Greg, for that.
[667.27] Tony: But then I think we electrified the whole carbon.
[672.27] Stephen: Bloody hell.
[673.27] Tony: Something happened.
[674.27] Tony: Something bad.
[676.27] Stephen: Dramatic.
[677.27] Martin Rye: There was a lot of smoke, we assumed.
[681.27] Martin Rye: Because Tony just knelt down and plugged it in.
[684.27] Martin Rye: There was a big puff of smoke and everyone was like, oh no, that's not dead.
[688.27] Martin Rye: And about five minutes later, up and flying again.
[693.27] Tony: She looked for about three laps and then she caught fire.
[696.27] Tony: And the carbon caught fire.
[698.27] Tony: The XD90 melted.
[701.27] Tony: That melted, which was a first.
[704.27] Tony: And the earth, or I think it was the earth cable melted, come out and then welded itself to the carbon plate.
[714.27] Tony: Bloody hell.
[715.27] Stephen: That sounds terrifying all round.
[718.27] Curry: Wow.
[719.27] Curry: It's really quite hard to set fire to carbon, isn't it?
[722.27] Tony: Didn't well.
[723.27] Tony: No, not if you have...
[725.27] Stephen: I remember doing it at school.
[727.27] Stephen: I just get the power supplies and put them through bits of pencil lead.
[730.27] Stephen: That's just graphite.
[731.27] Stephen: It goes up quite hot.
[733.27] Tony: No, it was...
[734.27] Tony: Well, good fun.
[735.27] Tony: It was all right.
[736.27] Tony: But yeah, I got some laps in anyway.
[738.27] Tony: It wasn't all...
[739.27] Curry: How did you do in terms of your lap times compared to everybody else?
[743.27] Curry: Because I heard you talking about the Australians were doing well, but they got 14S.
[747.27] Curry: It was the S race.
[749.27] Tony: Not very well, really.
[751.27] Tony: They were doing...
[752.27] Tony: I think...
[753.27] Tony: What did I do?
[754.27] Tony: Six laps, two minutes.
[755.27] Tony: And they were doing five laps, 50 seconds, I think, or something ridiculous.
[762.27] Tony: Bloody hell.
[763.27] Tony: Just so fast.
[765.27] Tony: But I just found out that the winner overall was flying the right sized frame, but he was
[775.27] Tony: flying a five inch gear on it.
[780.27] Tony: He flew a five inch prop on a big frame.
[788.27] Stephen: He flew a five inch prop on an X-Class.
[792.27] ChrisG: Well, is this the one where you put the two motors down each arm?
[796.27] Tony: I think that's what they've done.
[798.27] Tony: I haven't seen it or heard it, but I've watched the video footage and he was doing 7.5 seconds
[805.27] Tony: a lap.
[806.27] Stephen: Does that let you turn quicker then?
[808.27] Stephen: Because you've got less inertia in the prop.
[811.27] Tony: Well, this is the thing.
[812.27] Tony: I think there's going to be some changes in X-Class.
[816.27] Curry: Is that legal or could he just not afford the motors?
[819.27] Curry: Props would be expensive as well, aren't they?
[822.27] Tony: It's about size.
[824.27] Tony: It's about size.
[826.27] Tony: You can literally just have the right size, but do what you want.
[830.27] Martin Rye: The requirement is that it's got to be a frame that's 800 to 1200 millimeters motor to motor.
[836.27] Martin Rye: That is the definition of X-Class.
[840.27] Curry: But that's it.
[841.27] Curry: There's nothing about the motors, how many motors, the prop size or anything like that.
[844.27] Curry: That's all.
[845.27] Tony: No, but I think it will change now because most of us are swinging 13 inch props and
[850.27] Tony: it takes a few seconds to get them spinning.
[854.27] Tony: Your five inch would take milliseconds to get through.
[858.27] Stephen: When you go through a gate and you want to yaw viciously to one side, it's taken a while
[862.27] Stephen: for the motor to slow that down.
[864.27] Tony: It does.
[865.27] Tony: It takes a while to get going.
[867.27] Tony: Unless you're off going next.
[868.27] Curry: The other thing is, it would be really boring to watch with five inch props because you
[872.27] Curry: won't have the super noise.
[874.27] Stephen: You've still got a massive frame, haven't you?
[876.27] Stephen: At least you can see it, I suppose.
[877.27] Tony: You can see it.
[878.27] Tony: I presume you can see it.
[879.27] Tony: I mean, I did see it on the replay.
[882.27] Tony: I've seen what I've seen of it, but I'm sure X-Class guys, most of them are going to want
[888.27] Tony: changes after what happened.
[891.27] Stephen: I remember seeing a couple of years ago, looking at X-Class, that people felt that's why they
[895.27] Stephen: created the beast class because the electronics on the X-Class frame weren't really as large
[900.27] Stephen: as the frame could cope with.
[902.27] Stephen: They were actually something that would work on a much smaller frame and so people started
[906.27] Stephen: doing this beast class like a compressed frame with the same electronics.
[911.27] Stephen: It sounds like those really high-end electronics haven't really advanced a ton.
[917.27] Stephen: You're stuck with 13-inch props, but the frame can handle much larger props.
[921.27] Tony: I reckon it would be nicer to have larger props, to be honest.
[925.27] Tony: I mean, it will slow it down a bit and change things.
[929.27] Tony: The 13-inch props still look quite small on my X-Class.
[936.27] ChrisG: Am I right in thinking that you're on beta flight 3.5 on X-Class?
[942.27] Tony: Yeah, old firmware works best.
[946.27] Tony: Why do you think that is?
[948.27] Tony: I don't. I have no idea.
[951.27] Stephen: Interesting.
[953.27] Stephen: Corey was saying that that seemed to be a trend.
[955.27] Stephen: It's not just Tony, but lots of people are running it.
[958.27] Curry: Martyn said there were a few guys running 4.2, but it seemed everything's...
[964.27] Curry: The thing is, with beta flight, you put it on a 5-inch cord, it's just going to fly.
[968.27] Curry: As soon as you get out of that zone, especially very big or very small, it starts getting more
[975.27] Stephen: You've got to not just tune, but tune really dramatically.
[978.27] Curry: Yeah, who's got time for that? I just want to plug in and go.
[983.27] Curry: More worried about shorting on your frame and things than tuning.
[986.27] Curry: We've got frames to set alight here. We haven't got time to tune.
[991.27] Tony: What I would say is how well the X-Class works with the wings.
[997.27] Tony: I think they went to work together really well.
[1001.27] Tony: They just seemed to work, especially it was like a first ever go.
[1006.27] Tony: Wing racing and having the X-Class at the same time, it was really good.
[1011.27] Martin Rye: I've got a little time lapse video as well of showing how it all kind of worked together.
[1017.27] Martin Rye: It's on an absolute potato, but I'll play it anyway.
[1021.27] Martin Rye: I've got some audio on it so you can actually hear what some of these races were sounding like.
[1026.27] Martin Rye: There's three rounds of wing racing with the inflatable gate up.
[1031.27] Martin Rye: The inflatable gate would come down because it didn't really quite fit for X-Class racing.
[1040.27] Martin Rye: Then there was a round of X-Class racing and then another three heats of the wing racing.
[1047.27] Martin Rye: That was kind of the cycle that it went in over the day.
[1051.27] Martin Rye: It was quite fun to watch. Me and Currie were there for most of the racing there.
[1056.27] Martin Rye: I hung around and Currie had to run away in Currie.
[1061.27] Stephen: I found it very exciting to shred the gate, the inflatable one.
[1065.27] Curry: Martin did manage to take out one of the proper gates, I think, by smacking into it.
[1070.27] Curry: I think he would have completely killed the inflatable one.
[1074.27] Curry: One of the most exciting things about watching wing racing,
[1077.27] Curry: aside from the fact that you can see what's happening, unlike five inches,
[1080.27] Curry: is the danger. There's a bit of a net to protect the pilots for some reason,
[1085.27] Curry: but everywhere else is uncovered.
[1087.27] Curry: You could feel like you could get hit by a plane, which is fun,
[1092.27] Curry: but at the end of the day, it's just a plane.
[1094.27] Curry: That's why we positioned ourselves by the inflatable gate
[1097.27] Curry: because we knew there's going to be crashes.
[1099.27] Curry: They're all going to crash here, aren't they?
[1101.27] Curry: Sure enough, they did.
[1103.27] Curry: We had some people coming over our heads occasionally
[1105.27] Curry: where people got slightly off-center and stuff.
[1108.27] Curry: It all felt very safe, but kind of semi-dangerous, I'd say.
[1114.27] Curry: Because at the end of the day, it's just wings.
[1116.27] ChrisG: Just foam on the front and prop on the back.
[1119.27] Curry: Bit of foam, not going to hurt many people much.
[1122.27] Curry: A bit, maybe, when the battery flies out and kills somebody.
[1126.27] Curry: Aside from that, all good.
[1128.27] Jack: I find that the only time you hurt anyone with a wing is when they're trucking it.
[1138.27] Jack: Sorry, magical pencil.
[1140.27] Martin Rye: Sorry, Tony.
[1142.27] Martin Rye: The launching was a bit of a challenge on the day, wasn't it?
[1145.27] Martin Rye: It seemed to be.
[1147.27] MULTIPLE: Tony got it wrong.
[1149.27] Tony: I stood in for someone on my launch, so I was busy doing something.
[1153.27] Tony: They were calling over the mic, someone needs to come and spot.
[1160.27] Tony: I was like, oh, I'll spot, I'll spot.
[1163.27] Tony: Didn't think I'd have to bloody launch the plane, did I?
[1167.27] Tony: I was just like, yeah, I'll spot, I'll stand here and count your laps.
[1171.27] Stephen: I don't know, maybe I'm being a quad noob, can't you just slingshot them or something?
[1176.27] Stephen: Isn't there a better way than relying on someone to hurl it and then run away?
[1182.27] ChrisG: You can have a catapult, but yeah.
[1185.27] Tony: It would have probably been better for the guy who I threw into the ground two times to have a catapult, to be fair.
[1193.27] Martin Rye: Yeah, by the time Tony had finished with it, there was significantly less planes.
[1197.27] MULTIPLE: It was bits flying off every time.
[1199.27] MULTIPLE: Yeah, it didn't really.
[1200.27] Curry: After you launched it the first time, I saw you just like, we don't need that bit.
[1204.27] Curry: Wasn't that his winglet or something?
[1206.27] Curry: You're just like, we don't need that.
[1207.27] MULTIPLE: Just throw it again.
[1208.27] MULTIPLE: Just slowing you down, mate.
[1209.27] MULTIPLE: Slowing you down.
[1211.27] MULTIPLE: Let's get some white off this rig.
[1214.27] ChrisG: I was surprised that no one's wings actually went into each other,
[1217.27] ChrisG: because they were all launched at the same time.
[1219.27] ChrisG: There was no staggered launching.
[1221.27] ChrisG: But it all seemed to work very well, I thought.
[1225.27] Stephen: There's definitely a couple of seconds when it looks like uncontrolled chaos with wing launches.
[1230.27] Stephen: You're like, it's technically in the air, but does he know where it's going or have any real control?
[1236.27] Martin Rye: Nobody went into those trees either.
[1239.27] Martin Rye: When the one that Tony had finished with was successfully launched,
[1244.27] Martin Rye: everyone ducked for quite a bit after that.
[1246.27] Martin Rye: It was going a bit haywire.
[1250.27] Tony: I got bent.
[1253.27] Martin Rye: The launching process, I was confused about how that was going to work,
[1260.27] Martin Rye: but it seemed like it was a good process in the end.
[1263.27] Martin Rye: His spotters launched it, and then he has quite a fun little game mechanic
[1271.27] Martin Rye: of starting the race, didn't you?
[1274.27] Tony: I think it was like 10 seconds of loitering, wasn't it?
[1278.27] Tony: Then you'd get beeps and then rush to the gate.
[1283.27] ChrisG: There was a lot of strategy involved in that,
[1286.27] ChrisG: sort of finding out throughout the day,
[1288.27] ChrisG: because you could either take the strategy of loitering as close and as tight a circle
[1292.27] ChrisG: as to the start gate as you could,
[1294.27] ChrisG: so then you'd be the first one through it,
[1296.27] ChrisG: or else you'd loiter higher up, further away, higher throttle.
[1301.27] ChrisG: Then when the beeps went off, you could really dive down into it
[1304.27] ChrisG: and get a lot of momentum as you started through the gate.
[1307.27] ChrisG: It's quite an interesting start.
[1311.27] Stephen: What did you end up doing then?
[1313.27] Stephen: What was the winning strategy in the end?
[1315.27] ChrisG: Somewhere in between.
[1317.27] ChrisG: You need a bit of altitude,
[1319.27] ChrisG: and you want to be midway from the gate,
[1322.27] ChrisG: so round about the end of the course, but not all the way down the field.
[1327.27] ChrisG: Just so then you can dive into it,
[1330.27] ChrisG: but full throttle, I found, worked really well.
[1334.27] ChrisG: They might get to a point where everyone's just doing that
[1337.27] ChrisG: and diving through it right at the same time.
[1341.27] ChrisG: We'll see how many wings can fit through one gate,
[1344.27] ChrisG: but it seems to work on the day.
[1346.27] Stephen: Did they give you a countdown so you can prepare for it
[1349.27] Stephen: and position yourself, get ready to bomb down there?
[1351.27] Tony: Yeah, there was beepers.
[1353.27] Tony: Was it five beeps?
[1355.27] Tony: Five beeps, yeah.
[1357.27] ChrisG: You didn't quite know when those five beeps were going to start,
[1360.27] ChrisG: and you could be quite far away from the gate at the time.
[1363.27] ChrisG: That's what I'm wondering,
[1364.27] Stephen: because it gives you a 30-second call,
[1366.27] Stephen: or it's just beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, go.
[1369.27] ChrisG: Yeah, it's five beeps and then a higher beep,
[1372.27] ChrisG: and that's when you can go through the gate.
[1375.27] Martin Rye: Yeah, there was definitely sort of a mix of
[1379.71] Martin Rye: the people hanging around the gate to begin with,
[1382.71] Martin Rye: and the people were like,
[1383.71] Martin Rye: oh, no, I've got there too early.
[1385.71] Martin Rye: I'm going to have to go around again
[1387.71] Martin Rye: and wait for the rest of the beep to finish.
[1391.71] Martin Rye: You seem to be pretty spot-on timing that one quite well.
[1396.71] ChrisG: Yeah, to start with, there was one round
[1398.71] ChrisG: where the beep went off and I was still miles away from it,
[1401.71] ChrisG: and I was just diving full throttle towards it.
[1405.71] ChrisG: I still somehow managed to get 11 laps in,
[1407.71] ChrisG: so that wasn't too bad.
[1411.71] Curry: Did you still use the single lipo for the entire day, Chris?
[1414.71] Curry: Because you said you weren't dropping below sort of 16 volts at the end of a race.
[1418.71] Curry: You just topped it back up again every time.
[1420.71] ChrisG: Yeah, it wasn't even a lipo, it was an 18650 pack that I bought.
[1425.71] Stephen: What kind of battery, because quad pilots all time it
[1428.71] Stephen: so that they've got just enough battery to get round
[1431.71] Stephen: and then it's pretty much almost killing the lipo at the end.
[1434.71] Stephen: What kind of cell did you use?
[1436.71] ChrisG: It's a 4S1P, and they're these,
[1439.71] ChrisG: I can't remember what the brand of the cell is,
[1442.71] ChrisG: but they'll legit do 35 amp, and they're 18650s.
[1447.71] Stephen: The Molly cell or something?
[1449.71] ChrisG: No, it's not Samsung.
[1451.71] ChrisG: I've got some Samsung ones as well,
[1454.71] ChrisG: but it's like the Sony Vata ones but not.
[1459.71] ChrisG: It's like a similar but different make,
[1462.71] ChrisG: but they're out of brushless hovers,
[1465.71] ChrisG: so they'll legit do like 35 amp.
[1470.71] ChrisG: So yeah, it only dipped, it was 4S,
[1472.71] ChrisG: it only dipped to about 16 volts,
[1474.71] ChrisG: so I kept on putting it on charge after every round,
[1477.71] ChrisG: just didn't even take it out of the plane.
[1479.71] Stephen: Even faster with less battery, you could have gone even faster.
[1484.71] ChrisG: Yeah, I was considering putting a higher-pitched prop on
[1488.71] ChrisG: about halfway through the day,
[1490.71] ChrisG: because I was just pinned at full throttle
[1492.71] ChrisG: by that point going around, and I just needed some more speed.
[1497.71] ChrisG: That plane will do about 80 mile an hour.
[1500.71] ChrisG: It's quite a draggy airframe actually,
[1503.71] ChrisG: but the handling is fantastic.
[1506.71] ChrisG: You can just put it exactly where you want it to go,
[1509.71] ChrisG: and as soon as you come off the throttle,
[1511.71] ChrisG: then it will slow down really quick as well,
[1513.71] ChrisG: so that's what you need when you're going around these courses.
[1516.71] Stephen: Is that a custom build or is that a standard win?
[1519.71] ChrisG: No, I'll show you, one sec.
[1521.71] Stephen: Get into the deets.
[1526.82] Stephen: How do you win a win race?
[1528.82] ChrisG: It's proper old-school, pretty beaten up.
[1532.82] ChrisG: I see tape.
[1534.82] ChrisG: There's more tape than plane, really,
[1536.82] ChrisG: but it's a park zone striker from back in the day.
[1540.82] ChrisG: Wow.
[1544.19] ChrisG: Yeah, just lots of tape, lots of foliage got in it as well.
[1550.19] ChrisG: The nose came off quite a few times on landing.
[1552.19] ChrisG: I didn't like crash crash, but every time I landed this...
[1555.19] Stephen: The camera's actually reattached, I'm guessing, a few times.
[1558.19] Stephen: No, the camera was fine.
[1560.19] ChrisG: It stayed on?
[1561.19] ChrisG: Yeah, yeah.
[1565.19] ChrisG: I think simple is effective, it seems, with win racing.
[1571.19] ChrisG: There's no flight controller or anything in it.
[1573.19] ChrisG: It's just that the simpler and better handling you can get it
[1577.19] ChrisG: seems to be the best.
[1579.19] Stephen: Just a simple FR Sky or something receiver?
[1582.19] Stephen: No, spectrum.
[1584.19] ChrisG: Wow, okay.
[1586.19] ChrisG: Make it all the way round.
[1588.19] ChrisG: Yeah, no fail safes.
[1590.19] ChrisG: Well, no full fail safes anyway.
[1594.19] Stephen: A little wobble here and there.
[1596.19] ChrisG: There was actually one round where I was banked at 90 degrees
[1600.19] ChrisG: and it just momentarily went straight and then started turning again.
[1605.19] ChrisG: I was like, oh, I got to reorient my antenna for the next round.
[1608.19] Stephen: Yeah.
[1611.19] Stephen: Didn't I? It was all good.
[1613.19] Martin Rye: I mean, it was an oval, basically, an oval course.
[1620.19] Martin Rye: It had the inflatable gate at one end and sort of flags around it
[1626.19] Martin Rye: to hold out the oval.
[1630.19] Martin Rye: But it seemed like you had it absolutely dialed in your line around there.
[1638.19] Martin Rye: Quite a few other pilots were sort of speeding round
[1644.19] Martin Rye: and then slowing right down and lining themselves up
[1648.19] Martin Rye: and taking a bit of a straight line through the gate.
[1653.19] Martin Rye: But you seem to have it pretty dialed in.
[1656.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I've flown that plane for, well, since I was a teenager, actually.
[1662.19] ChrisG: So extremely familiar with it.
[1665.19] ChrisG: It's gone through quite a few incarnations.
[1668.19] Tony: And quite a few solar types wrapping as well.
[1672.19] ChrisG: Oh yeah, absolutely.
[1674.19] ChrisG: Yeah, you just need to fly a plane that gives you confidence, I think.
[1677.19] ChrisG: I think that's the main thing.
[1680.19] Curry: It was definitely interesting watching some of the directions from the others
[1684.19] Curry: because it's kind of like they were coming along, especially at the start,
[1687.19] Curry: because it was the big dive.
[1689.19] Curry: And it was, we're not going to make it.
[1691.19] Curry: We've got to pull out and there's just carnage often,
[1694.19] Curry: often the case into that very first lap.
[1697.19] Curry: A lot of bounces off the ground.
[1699.19] Curry: Either people were going too high.
[1702.19] Curry: You saw a lot of sort of go-arounds where they missed it, they couldn't get down.
[1706.19] Curry: And then if people thought, I'm too late, I'm trying to force it,
[1709.19] Curry: then they just hit the deck.
[1711.19] Curry: Yeah.
[1712.19] Curry: And they had that really nice smash against the inflatable one we saw, didn't we?
[1716.19] Curry: That was quite cool.
[1718.19] Curry: Some good noises where it just goes, boing, bounces off the inflatable gate.
[1722.19] Curry: Yeah.
[1723.19] Curry: And some really interesting people that got away with stuff,
[1726.19] Curry: like they managed to hit the guide rope
[1728.19] Curry: and you'd see the wing flip over like a couple of times
[1730.19] Curry: and then recover and carry on.
[1732.19] Curry: It's like, well, that doesn't normally happen. That's amazing.
[1735.19] ChrisG: That might be an advantage of having a flight controller, to be fair.
[1738.19] ChrisG: It probably wouldn't have got away with that.
[1742.19] Curry: You could definitely see that these were people's sort of daily bills
[1745.19] Curry: when I'm looking in the DVR and it's like it's waiting for satellites.
[1748.19] Curry: Your iNav configuration is still waiting.
[1751.19] Curry: Yours was literally just your voltage from the camera, wasn't it?
[1754.19] Curry: So you could just see what you had.
[1755.19] Curry: It's like, round we go.
[1757.19] ChrisG: That's just the camera's OSD.
[1760.19] ChrisG: There's nothing else on there.
[1762.19] ChrisG: Just servos.
[1764.19] ChrisG: My spotter, when he was chucking it, he said,
[1767.19] ChrisG: oh, God, that's light.
[1769.19] ChrisG: There's no fiber glassing or anything on it,
[1772.19] ChrisG: no laminate or anything like that.
[1775.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I mean, that's good for straight line speed
[1778.19] ChrisG: and if we had a bigger course,
[1780.19] ChrisG: I think just bare foam was the way to go on the day
[1783.19] ChrisG: for this particular course.
[1786.19] ChrisG: I was actually going to use my nano goblin as a primary plane
[1791.19] ChrisG: and this was going to be a secondary,
[1793.19] ChrisG: but I flew it after work the night before
[1796.19] ChrisG: because I haven't flown either of them for ages
[1799.19] ChrisG: and this one was so just locked on rails.
[1801.19] ChrisG: I was like, no, I'm using this one.
[1804.19] ChrisG: That's a good choice.
[1806.19] ChrisG: Cool.
[1807.19] ChrisG: There was a nano goblin there, I think.
[1809.19] Curry: Yeah, that was.
[1811.19] Curry: One thing that was flying on a single 18650,
[1813.19] Curry: it was out for a Sunday cruise.
[1815.19] ChrisG: That was actually a 3S 18650.
[1818.19] ChrisG: Was it a 3S?
[1819.19] Curry: It was.
[1820.19] Curry: It was quite heavy.
[1823.19] ChrisG: And he had to watch the amps as well, we were saying.
[1826.19] Curry: Oh, yeah, he said he couldn't go full throttle
[1828.19] Curry: because the battery couldn't handle it.
[1830.19] Curry: Maybe that's why it was cruisy.
[1833.19] Curry: But he's the one I was having watching my goggles,
[1836.19] Curry: which I sadly didn't record.
[1838.19] Curry: He was locked on.
[1840.19] Curry: He was coming into the inflatable target
[1843.19] Curry: and he's lined up straight on the top
[1845.19] Curry: and from like 100 meters out,
[1847.19] Curry: he was just like a magnet.
[1849.19] Curry: It got caught and he was like, he's going for the top,
[1851.19] Curry: he's going for the top and he just hit it
[1854.19] Curry: from such a distance out.
[1856.19] Curry: As soon as you get locked in, that's it.
[1860.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I had to help retrieve that one out of a tree
[1864.19] ChrisG: at the end of the day.
[1866.19] ChrisG: That was a hard one.
[1868.19] ChrisG: That was a really hard one to get out
[1870.19] ChrisG: because we were standing,
[1871.19] ChrisG: we were just going through thorn bushes in those woods
[1874.19] ChrisG: and I was kind of afraid that it had gone
[1877.19] ChrisG: into the neighbor's property
[1879.19] ChrisG: because we had a bit of a grumpy neighbor that way
[1882.19] ChrisG: because I saw on my video feed
[1884.19] ChrisG: that it went onto the roof of their property
[1887.19] ChrisG: and then the feed just cut out
[1890.19] ChrisG: and I was like, oh no, here we go.
[1892.19] ChrisG: But it turned out it had actually bounced off
[1894.19] ChrisG: and into the tree on our side.
[1899.19] ChrisG: So that was good.
[1900.19] ChrisG: But actually then locating it and getting it down
[1903.19] ChrisG: was incredibly difficult
[1905.19] ChrisG: because the beeper was going off
[1907.19] ChrisG: and we were arming it,
[1909.19] ChrisG: just like wading through all these thorn bushes
[1912.19] ChrisG: but we couldn't see it at all.
[1914.19] ChrisG: It was like right above us, we couldn't see it at all
[1916.19] ChrisG: and I had to end up climbing halfway up a tree in thorns
[1919.19] ChrisG: and finally I could see it and we got to meet a pole
[1922.19] ChrisG: and eventually poked it out.
[1924.19] ChrisG: So yeah, that was good.
[1927.19] Martin Rye: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience,
[1930.19] Martin Rye: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only,
[1933.19] Martin Rye: censored to please the iTunes people,
[1935.19] Martin Rye: hosted on the internet,
[1936.19] Martin Rye: forwarded through to your podcast provider,
[1938.19] Martin Rye: downloaded, playing on your device
[1940.19] Martin Rye: and is now playing in your ears.
[1942.19] Martin Rye: All thanks to our Patreons.
[1944.19] Martin Rye: Consider joining them
[1945.19] Martin Rye: and you'll also get other online benefits.
[1947.19] Martin Rye: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[1953.19] Martin Rye: Good fun.
[1954.19] Martin Rye: There's a bit in the chat about Numskull saw on the stream
[1958.19] Martin Rye: that one went in the netting
[1960.19] Martin Rye: and KO FPV in the chat said,
[1963.19] Martin Rye: yeah, that was me that made it through the net.
[1967.19] Stephen: It's termination.
[1968.19] Martin Rye: He says that the flag behind race control confused him
[1971.19] Martin Rye: for a second on that one.
[1975.19] ChrisG: Yeah, that was, I was flying in that heat
[1978.19] ChrisG: and I just heard this massive impact
[1981.19] ChrisG: and then after the heat just put my goggles off
[1984.19] ChrisG: and saw there was now a massive hole in the net.
[1986.19] ChrisG: I was like, okay.
[1989.19] ChrisG: Right where I was standing.
[1992.19] ChrisG: Did pretty well there.
[1993.19] ChrisG: You were doing too well.
[1995.19] Martin Rye: You saw only one way to stop you from getting any further ahead.
[2000.19] Martin Rye: Take you out.
[2002.19] Martin Rye: Yeah.
[2005.19] Stephen: People suggesting we should have a figure eight
[2008.19] Stephen: to challenge people a bit more
[2010.19] Stephen: because obviously there's not enough risk of collisions
[2012.19] Stephen: just going through gates close to each other.
[2014.19] Stephen: What you want to do is cross them over in the middle of the track.
[2017.19] Martin Rye: Yes, I agree.
[2019.19] Martin Rye: Yeah, I think maybe we need to get a few more people
[2024.19] Martin Rye: reliably making it round the course
[2027.19] Martin Rye: and finishing the race.
[2030.19] Martin Rye: But it would be quite good to see the next step
[2033.19] Martin Rye: to be a figure eight where there's a crossover
[2036.19] Martin Rye: and all the carnage that we've got.
[2038.19] Martin Rye: We did discuss it actually.
[2039.19] Curry: Work your way out to dive gates.
[2040.19] Curry: If it was a single thing for a figure eight,
[2043.19] Curry: that would be too risking it.
[2045.19] Curry: But I think Frank suggested we could have like a two-tier one.
[2048.19] Curry: So if you're going that way, you go underneath
[2050.19] Curry: and you're going that way, you go on top.
[2052.19] Curry: When you say that.
[2054.19] Stephen: Out of 10, how many times is that going to happen?
[2057.19] Curry: Oh, like one or two.
[2059.19] Curry: But that's a part of the fun.
[2063.19] Curry: It is amazing.
[2064.19] Curry: I didn't see any mid-airs on the day,
[2066.19] Curry: which is weird because we only have to fly together
[2068.19] Curry: with like four or five people
[2070.19] Curry: and you will literally ram another plane by accident.
[2073.19] Curry: And the fact you're all in that sort of close proximity
[2076.19] Curry: and no one hit each other unless I missed it
[2078.19] Curry: is pretty amazing.
[2079.19] Curry: I saw people got quite close.
[2081.19] Curry: There were some really occasional, really nice,
[2083.19] Curry: competitive stuff.
[2084.19] Curry: And it was a shame that the heats weren't mixed up
[2087.19] Curry: between the people because you might have had
[2089.19] Curry: a little bit more competition from like Stubsey
[2091.19] Curry: and one of the other races.
[2092.19] Curry: I think that would have been good to fly as well
[2094.19] Curry: just to see everyone mix it up a bit in the heat.
[2098.19] Stephen: Sounds like there's some good ideas.
[2100.19] Stephen: Will there be another race?
[2102.19] Tony: It was a first go.
[2104.19] Tony: Yeah, no, it was good thought we had.
[2107.19] Martin Rye: I'm glad to have seen it.
[2109.19] Martin Rye: Finally, after years of it being talked about...
[2112.19] Tony: It's been talked about a long time.
[2114.19] Martin Rye: We've had attempts at quite a few mid-air shows.
[2117.19] Martin Rye: Basically, every mid-air show,
[2119.19] Martin Rye: we've sort of started putting it together
[2122.19] Martin Rye: and it just hasn't quite happened.
[2123.19] Martin Rye: But to have it there and timed,
[2126.19] Martin Rye: it was good fun to watch.
[2128.19] Martin Rye: All seemed to work well with the lap RF system.
[2134.19] Martin Rye: I hear there was a bit of consternation
[2137.19] Martin Rye: at the beginning of the day convincing everyone
[2139.19] Martin Rye: that actually 25 milliwatts is fine
[2143.19] Martin Rye: and it will be okay.
[2145.19] Martin Rye: And you don't need a watt to get a third of the way
[2148.19] Martin Rye: across the field.
[2153.19] ChrisG: It's just the antennas you're using
[2155.19] ChrisG: because you're not normally banking a quad so much.
[2158.19] ChrisG: When you're coming around 90 degrees
[2161.19] ChrisG: and you've got the null of your antenna facing you,
[2164.19] ChrisG: that's the issue.
[2167.19] ChrisG: So if you can overcome that, then yeah, 25 is fine.
[2171.19] ChrisG: Certainly for that area.
[2173.19] Tony: It was very good though.
[2174.19] Tony: I liked seeing all the wings flying
[2176.19] Tony: and all the different shapes and sizes.
[2178.19] Tony: It was cool.
[2180.19] ChrisG: I agree with you, Tony,
[2181.19] ChrisG: that the X-Class and the wings go well together
[2184.19] ChrisG: and the fact they can use the same sort of track.
[2187.19] ChrisG: And they're both quite spectator friendly sports
[2189.19] ChrisG: compared to regular quad racing.
[2192.19] Stephen: How many wing races did you get attending?
[2194.19] ChrisG: What was the count?
[2197.19] ChrisG: I think it was seven, wasn't it?
[2199.19] ChrisG: Something like that.
[2200.19] Curry: I thought it was three heats of three.
[2202.19] Curry: I thought there were three heats of three,
[2203.19] Curry: so I thought there was at least nine.
[2206.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2207.19] ChrisG: Okay, yeah, must have been.
[2208.19] ChrisG: Well, I think the last time I saw it on IFPV it was
[2211.19] ChrisG: and people were all signing up at the last minute.
[2214.19] ChrisG: There was only five people when I signed up.
[2216.19] ChrisG: But yeah, it was good.
[2219.19] ChrisG: And they came from far and wide as well.
[2222.19] Curry: It was very nice as well that it was very friendly.
[2225.19] Curry: It's like it's not a spec wing class.
[2228.19] Curry: It's like bring something that flies,
[2230.19] Curry: you can fly it around, which is cool.
[2232.19] Curry: It's good just to get a bit of practice
[2234.19] Curry: at flying around the lap if you haven't done it before.
[2237.19] ChrisG: This is another thing I think as well.
[2240.19] ChrisG: There is a lot of talk about spec class,
[2243.19] ChrisG: especially in wings, but I think that kind of takes away
[2247.19] ChrisG: something from it because everyone's flying around
[2250.19] ChrisG: exactly the same thing then.
[2251.19] ChrisG: And I get the argument then, oh, yeah,
[2253.19] ChrisG: it's all about pilot skill.
[2254.19] ChrisG: But I think half of the fun of racing for races
[2258.19] ChrisG: and spectators alike is to see people's creations, really.
[2262.19] ChrisG: I think that's like half the reason why we're in this hobby.
[2266.19] ChrisG: So yeah, I think we should keep it as open as we can, personally.
[2271.19] Stephen: It sounds like the simple nature may have been friendly
[2274.19] Stephen: to pilots as well.
[2275.19] Stephen: I just saw the comment from KOFBV saying
[2279.19] Stephen: that he didn't organize racing whales with no timing
[2282.19] Stephen: and the course was 1.2K long round of valley,
[2285.19] Stephen: which could have been a lot more challenging
[2287.19] Stephen: if you screwed up halfway around the course.
[2289.19] Tony: A lot more challenging on 25 milliwatts.
[2293.19] Stephen: No turtle mode.
[2296.19] Stephen: Which three did it even end up in?
[2299.19] Stephen: Yeah.
[2301.19] ChrisG: I saw quite a few people at the race
[2303.19] ChrisG: that they'd end up not crashing into a gate,
[2305.19] ChrisG: but just going into the ground.
[2307.19] ChrisG: And obviously, you can't then just bounce off the ground
[2309.19] ChrisG: and fly again, like with a quad.
[2311.19] ChrisG: So I think there's some scope there for redesigning wings
[2315.19] ChrisG: with some skid plates or something.
[2317.19] Stephen: Maybe following flanks design, more of a VTOL.
[2320.19] Stephen: You know, just get a wing, put four motors on it,
[2323.19] Stephen: and just, yeah, it's fine.
[2326.19] Stephen: Yeah.
[2327.19] Stephen: It's technically a quad, but it's on a wing.
[2329.19] Stephen: You can just turtle your way out of trouble.
[2331.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2332.19] ChrisG: Has anyone seen that quad that's just come out?
[2335.19] ChrisG: I think Joshua Bardwell did a video on it.
[2337.19] Stephen: Oh, yeah.
[2338.19] Stephen: The clip on wings.
[2339.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2340.19] ChrisG: I think we'll see more stuff like that coming out.
[2345.19] ChrisG: Hopefully.
[2346.19] Stephen: You want to make those tight turns.
[2348.19] Stephen: It's going to help, isn't it?
[2349.19] Stephen: A bit of differential thrust.
[2350.19] ChrisG: I think people coming from the quad world
[2353.19] ChrisG: get put off by what they've seen with the waggling
[2356.19] ChrisG: that goes on when you're flying in wind.
[2358.19] ChrisG: We were lucky we didn't have much wind on the day,
[2361.19] ChrisG: but there's, I think, ways and means you can overcome that.
[2364.19] Martin Rye: Usually the wing tips unless Tony rips them off.
[2368.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2369.19] Stephen: Just make it really heavy.
[2371.19] Stephen: Well, that's the thing.
[2372.19] Stephen: If you've got a VTOL, you don't need to go screwing around.
[2375.19] Stephen: You don't need to give your plane to the guy
[2377.19] Stephen: who's having a beer over there.
[2378.19] Stephen: You can just let him carry on drinking
[2380.19] Stephen: and then just take off from the ground by yourself with mine.
[2384.19] ChrisG: Yeah, perfect.
[2385.19] Tony: Oh, there's definitely a toss of that guy.
[2394.19] Martin Rye: Has anyone seen any racing wing-type simulators yet?
[2401.19] Martin Rye: Is that a thing?
[2402.19] Stephen: There was.
[2403.19] Stephen: I think people talk about one sim in particular for wings,
[2406.19] Stephen: don't they?
[2407.19] Stephen: There's not good wings.
[2408.19] Curry: I think Painless covered it.
[2409.19] Curry: It was called Wings, which was about a sort of wing simulation.
[2413.19] Stephen: Is it a free flight or something flight?
[2416.19] Martin Rye: Cerberus would like to point out that there was no beer at the event,
[2422.19] Martin Rye: for entirely legal reasons.
[2428.19] Martin Rye: I mean, I'm glad Cerberus is in the chat.
[2432.19] Martin Rye: I think he did a very good job of heading together
[2436.19] Martin Rye: but basically two brand new styles of racing.
[2441.19] Martin Rye: I don't think we've had a timed...
[2443.19] Martin Rye: We might have had a timed X-Class race
[2445.19] Martin Rye: but not with basically more than a couple of people, right, Tony?
[2451.19] Martin Rye: I don't think in the UK.
[2453.19] Stephen: The barrier to entry on X-Class is a bit high, isn't it?
[2456.19] Martin Rye: So to put the X-Class racing together and dial that format in
[2461.19] Martin Rye: and to have the wing racing and to dial that format in
[2465.19] Martin Rye: and brought a load of wing wangers as he was putting it.
[2471.19] Martin Rye: Very hard to say that.
[2473.19] Martin Rye: With the race, how a race event works.
[2479.19] Martin Rye: Sign that really fast, Frank.
[2481.19] Martin Rye: Wing wangers.
[2483.19] ChrisG: Wing wangers.
[2484.19] ChrisG: That should be the technical term, like the official term.
[2489.19] ChrisG: I'm going to tell the BDRA straight away.
[2492.19] Curry: Whatever, definitely.
[2493.19] Curry: Should it be an official thing?
[2495.19] Curry: Each racer will require one wing wanger.
[2497.19] Curry: Wing racers have their own wing wangers.
[2499.19] Curry: It's a specialised field.
[2501.19] ChrisG: You can't fight against it.
[2503.19] ChrisG: It's like trying to fight against the media saying drone.
[2505.19] ChrisG: It's just going to go that way.
[2509.19] Martin Rye: Just going to accept it and go with it and adopt the word, you know, take control of it.
[2514.19] Martin Rye: You mentioned the BDRA and you've got the BDRA t-shirt on.
[2518.19] Martin Rye: Yes, I do.
[2519.19] Martin Rye: You were at the BDRA National Championships as well a couple of weeks ago, weren't you?
[2524.19] ChrisG: I did, yes.
[2526.19] ChrisG: Yeah, up at Buckminster.
[2528.19] ChrisG: Great flying sight they got up there.
[2531.19] ChrisG: Not jealous at all.
[2535.19] Martin Rye: Because it's an enormous field that's got a really sort of well manicured, you know,
[2541.19] Martin Rye: they've got a lot of volunteers there all taking nice care of the whole space.
[2546.19] Martin Rye: It's very big, well-moaned and all that kind of thing.
[2550.19] Martin Rye: And it's also in the middle of nowhere.
[2553.19] Martin Rye: You can say that again.
[2555.19] Martin Rye: Yeah, getting there is a bit of a trick, but once you've found it,
[2560.19] Martin Rye: but it is very far in the middle of nowhere.
[2563.19] Martin Rye: But it does occasionally have the Rolls Royce Spitfire doing a display just off-site.
[2570.19] Martin Rye: Yeah, it's also quite fun to watch.
[2573.19] ChrisG: It's the second time I'd been up there for the championships,
[2576.19] ChrisG: the first time it was like typhoon weather.
[2581.19] ChrisG: And that wasn't so fun.
[2583.19] ChrisG: The marquee just got completely destroyed the first time, in the first night.
[2589.19] ChrisG: But yeah, it was lovely up there, weekend before last.
[2594.19] Martin Rye: And you ended up getting your final position,
[2599.19] Martin Rye: four points or four positions higher than you qualified, right?
[2603.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I like how you spun that.
[2610.19] Martin Rye: Especially for not having practiced,
[2613.19] Martin Rye: you were saying that you hadn't been doing any training recently.
[2617.19] ChrisG: Yeah, now that I'm flying such big drones these days
[2622.19] ChrisG: that I think it's getting me out of practice for racing.
[2625.19] ChrisG: I'm flying them all like a bus.
[2627.19] ChrisG: I need to readjust a bit.
[2629.19] Stephen: What's your day-to-day sort of regular flyer then?
[2634.19] ChrisG: My own one, it's QAVX.
[2638.19] Stephen: What size is that?
[2641.19] ChrisG: Oh, 250.
[2643.19] ChrisG: Yeah, the QAVX frame.
[2646.19] ChrisG: Oh, you mean my one?
[2648.19] Stephen: Well, you said you were flying such big drones that you...
[2651.19] ChrisG: We were talking about big ones.
[2653.19] ChrisG: Yeah, at work.
[2656.19] ChrisG: Those are quite large.
[2660.19] ChrisG: Jetson-sized things.
[2663.19] Martin Rye: Chris was showing some photos around and we were all like,
[2667.19] Martin Rye: oh, and then just sort of look at the X-Class like,
[2670.19] Martin Rye: well, that's just a toy.
[2673.19] ChrisG: Ones that are in the public domain, I hasten to add.
[2676.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2679.19] Stephen: So these are giant camera rigs and equipment rigs.
[2682.19] ChrisG: Oh, no.
[2683.19] ChrisG: They're for payload delivery.
[2685.19] Stephen: Right.
[2688.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I mean, we've delivered medkits with them and lunch.
[2697.19] Martin Rye: What's the biggest payload one, just to give us a sense of scale?
[2701.19] Stephen: I'm talking 50 kilos, 100 kilos.
[2704.19] ChrisG: Biggest one is 180 kilos at the moment.
[2708.19] Martin Rye: And that's payload, right?
[2709.19] ChrisG: Yeah, that's just the payload.
[2711.19] ChrisG: What's that?
[2712.19] ChrisG: Can you fly me?
[2715.19] MULTIPLE: Could you fly me?
[2717.19] MULTIPLE: That's cool.
[2718.19] MULTIPLE: I'm volunteering now.
[2720.19] ChrisG: We're flying any of us, maybe even two of us.
[2722.19] ChrisG: We could fly two of you, yeah.
[2724.19] ChrisG: Yeah, excellent.
[2726.19] Curry: I would personally pay to strap Tony to a drone.
[2729.19] Curry: I know many others would.
[2731.19] Curry: We'd all like to see that.
[2733.19] Stephen: If I was assured of the software quality, I'd strap myself to it.
[2736.19] Martin Rye: Yeah, exactly.
[2740.19] Martin Rye: Yeah, so...
[2742.19] Stephen: You've got like X8s and stuff like that with motor and prop redundancy?
[2747.19] ChrisG: Yeah, that's right.
[2748.19] ChrisG: Yeah.
[2749.19] ChrisG: Nice.
[2750.19] ChrisG: Yeah, the X8 configuration is quite nice.
[2752.19] ChrisG: This lacks a bit of efficiency, but it's definitely...
[2755.19] Stephen: When you get stupid big, do you get more exotic configurations as well?
[2760.19] ChrisG: I tend to stick with the X8 for practicality, really.
[2764.19] ChrisG: It's a bit of engineering.
[2766.19] ChrisG: Yeah, and you can fold it up for transport more easily.
[2769.19] ChrisG: You only have to have four arms still, so it's quite good.
[2772.19] Martin Rye: And besides your work, I mean, you've been doing a lot of sort of volunteering
[2777.19] Martin Rye: with DroneZone at Pop'em, kind of making those events happen?
[2782.19] ChrisG: Yeah, since the Queen's Cup.
[2785.19] ChrisG: I've been pretty busy recently, so I haven't been able to get down there that much.
[2788.19] ChrisG: It was nice to get down for the wing race, for sure.
[2792.19] ChrisG: But yeah, we've got a hardcore of members, and they come along usually twice a month.
[2799.19] ChrisG: Have a nice FPV day, and they're members of the line-of-sight club by definition
[2806.19] ChrisG: at the same time, so they can come down and fly line-of-sight whenever they want to.
[2810.19] ChrisG: We also do training courses at Pop'em as well for recreational drones.
[2817.19] ChrisG: So if you know anyone who's interested, send them our way.
[2822.19] Martin Rye: Because you've put together like a little FPV racing training course, haven't you?
[2826.19] ChrisG: That's right, yeah.
[2828.19] ChrisG: Yeah, I mean, it's slowed down quite a bit because of Covid, but it's picking up again now.
[2833.19] ChrisG: So get down there and train newbies as and when we can.
[2839.19] Curry: With the old netted DroneZone going, is it just you set up a course in that field
[2844.19] Curry: and go around there when it's the FPV day?
[2847.19] ChrisG: Yeah, well, it's not netted anymore.
[2849.19] ChrisG: It's permanently in that same area that we were flying the wings in now
[2853.19] ChrisG: because it's at the end of the fixed-wing flying field.
[2858.19] ChrisG: So we're kind of out of their way, and it's just more room to fly.
[2863.89] ChrisG: Yeah, nobody liked the net.
[2866.89] Stephen: We had a comment from Cerberus again asking about the hanging X-Class collision.
[2873.89] Stephen: Something to investigate there?
[2877.89] Martin Rye: I've got another recording there.
[2880.89] Martin Rye: I'll try and see if we can unmute everyone when I press play on this.
[2883.89] Martin Rye: This looks very exciting.
[2885.89] Tony: That was me first, and then that was Martin.
[2889.89] Tony: Wow, boom.
[2891.89] Tony: That was loud.
[2893.89] Stephen: Oh, that's worth a replay. Let's just go back over that and catch that one again.
[2898.89] Martin Rye: That was hanging in the gate.
[2900.89] Curry: Oh.
[2902.89] Curry: He wanted to free his brother.
[2905.89] Tony: Ralph was hanging in the air and Clive hit him at full chat.
[2915.89] Curry: So there wasn't an X-Class that didn't get disabled at some point during the day and had to be fixed?
[2921.89] Tony: Well, all of them needed repairing at some point.
[2924.89] Stephen: How much is a prop on one of those things?
[2927.89] Stephen: A single prop?
[2929.89] Tony: Well, the props I fly are 50 quid for four.
[2934.89] Stephen: That's a 12-pounder prop for a single prop.
[2938.89] Tony: I think they're a little bit cheaper if you get different ones, but yeah, the ones I fly are...
[2945.89] Stephen: I mean, I've looked at it because I was interested in the America macro,
[2950.89] Stephen: and so I looked at the cost of the nine-inch props, and I thought those were stupid,
[2955.89] Stephen: but yeah, it's another league.
[2958.89] Tony: Yeah.
[2960.89] Stephen: When the props are more than a tenner each, I'd be very worried about just arming them.
[2964.89] Curry: I think they're about a tenner now.
[2966.89] Curry: It's not the props you have to worry about. It's buying the ESCs and the motors.
[2970.89] Curry: That's the most expensive.
[2972.89] Stephen: Sounds like the arms are the only cheap part of it.
[2974.89] Jack: Steve, do you still need nine-inch props because I have got a few?
[2979.89] Stephen: No, I thought about buying it, and then I just looked at it.
[2982.89] Stephen: It seemed like the props were some kind of older nylon ones
[2985.89] Stephen: and gave the impression that they kind of explode and that they're rather pricey,
[2990.89] Stephen: so I decided maybe I would just look at building a seven-inch instead
[2994.89] Stephen: when the props are all nice, cheaper, polycarbonate,
[2997.89] Stephen: and everything is just a bit easier to find.
[3003.96] Tony: All right. Can someone put Wookiee's chat up?
[3010.96] Martin Rye: Wookiee says, I'm staying away from X-Tars. I like being able to pay my heating bill.
[3016.96] Tony: I can't either.
[3018.96] Jack: The noise when Clive hit was unbelievable.
[3023.96] Jack: That was quite fun.
[3026.96] Tony: Clive survived quite an impact then.
[3032.96] Martin Rye: Yeah, Clive pretty much touched it looked like.
[3037.96] Martin Rye: It was Ralphs that ended up in pieces, just obliterated.
[3043.96] Martin Rye: I hear the flight controller was kind of pringle-shaped.
[3047.96] Tony: Really?
[3049.96] Tony: That's the problem Martin had with his flight controller when he crashed his flight controller.
[3054.96] Stephen: There's so much weight in those, isn't there?
[3056.96] Stephen: The batteries are going to be a couple of kilos, I'd have thought.
[3059.96] Tony: Yeah, batteries are basically a house brick.
[3063.96] Stephen: It's a lot of mass to come to a halt.
[3066.96] Martin Rye: The weight of the entire thing is obviously under three and a half kilos.
[3070.96] Tony: Oh, definitely they all were.
[3072.96] Stephen: It's up to 250 here actually.
[3074.96] Tony: 250 kilos maybe.
[3078.96] Tony: Did I say brick? I meant freeze block.
[3083.96] Curry: That is weird though because you can have like five inch racing, they'll crash all day.
[3088.96] Curry: You won't get flight controllers damaged and we had two out of four on that day go.
[3094.96] Curry: I feel stopping a couple of kilos dead.
[3099.96] Stephen: That's a lot of energy, isn't it?
[3102.96] Tony: Yeah.
[3103.96] Tony: The flight controller was on the outside and has survived three years though.
[3110.96] Curry: Eventually it just gives up and says no, no more.
[3113.96] Tony: No, the flight controller is fine, other bits give up and pop out.
[3117.96] Curry: That means the one terminal block.
[3119.96] Curry: I was all set up to film.
[3122.96] Curry: I was like, Tony's going to fly here.
[3123.96] Curry: I filmed Tony because Tony's pretty good at getting around the course.
[3125.96] Curry: I had the DVR going.
[3126.96] Curry: I had it going on my camera.
[3128.96] Curry: He took off and then fell back down.
[3130.96] Curry: I missed the end of the flight because it just let go.
[3134.96] Curry: It did.
[3135.96] Curry: Was that after me and Greg put it back together?
[3139.96] Curry: I think that was the first time you and Greg put it back together.
[3143.96] Curry: He said it was the connector through the ESCs into the flight controller or something.
[3149.96] Curry: It wasn't supplying power or something like that.
[3153.96] Tony: I don't have a PDB in that old beast because it's so old.
[3157.96] Tony: It was a prototype, that thing.
[3159.96] Tony: It was like three years old.
[3161.96] Tony: It was just like literally they spun it together and fly and see if it works type thing.
[3167.96] Tony: That's what me and Mike did.
[3169.96] Tony: It was just like no PDB in there at all.
[3172.96] Tony: It's like big connecting blocks.
[3174.96] Tony: What current rating are the ESCs in the next class?
[3180.96] Tony: Mostly 120.
[3184.96] Stephen: Is anyone else making ESCs in that category?
[3187.96] Stephen: Because it seemed APD had it stitched up and there wasn't really any competition.
[3190.96] Tony: It's just APD I think.
[3192.96] Tony: I mean more in on APD.
[3194.96] Tony: I think mine are only AEM.
[3197.96] Tony: I can't even remember the name.
[3199.96] Tony: They've lasted three years but they definitely need to upgrade to go faster.
[3209.96] Tony: Especially after seeing 14S.
[3211.96] Stephen: If you go up to 14S can you lower the amps a bit and make everything a little bit cheaper on the ESC front or is it still crazy?
[3219.96] Tony: It's still quite clear.
[3221.96] Tony: I think one PDB and four ESCs are talking 500 quid.
[3227.96] Curry: I'm interested to know where the 14S comes from because it's not like you buy a 14S battery.
[3233.96] Curry: It's not like you see 7S batteries around.
[3235.96] Stephen: 12 is obvious right but 14 right.
[3238.96] Stephen: It's not like you want to go up to 18 or 16.
[3241.96] Tony: It's what they normally do.
[3244.96] Curry: Are people taking batteries apart and basically making up loads of cells together?
[3251.96] ChrisG: It's just like turning a dial up to 11 right?
[3254.96] Tony: Exactly.
[3257.96] Tony: Turn it.
[3259.96] Martin Rye: What battery connectors do you have on your ESC?
[3261.96] Tony: Or do you go on XS?
[3263.96] Tony: XT90s don't they?
[3265.96] Tony: 90s and I won't do it again because mine's melted.
[3271.96] Jack: Yeah, 90 but you've got sparks suppression on them.
[3275.96] Jack: They're like special ones, aren't they?
[3278.96] Tony: They weren't that special.
[3280.96] Tony: It melted.
[3283.96] Tony: They're custom shaped ones now.
[3286.96] MULTIPLE: It's melted.
[3288.96] Stephen: People will fuse out XT60s on five inches as well.
[3291.96] Tony: What was the first welder in the air?
[3294.96] Tony: I was in the air welding.
[3300.96] Stephen: I've seen some people with their separate positive and negative plugs.
[3305.96] Stephen: They've just got big plugs.
[3307.96] Martin Rye: Yeah, I was going to say.
[3309.96] Martin Rye: Before we adopted it.
[3311.96] Martin Rye: Battery connectors.
[3313.96] Martin Rye: Animal.
[3315.96] Martin Rye: Absolutely.
[3317.96] Martin Rye: Have you converted everything over to XT60 yet?
[3323.96] ChrisG: Well, not exactly.
[3326.96] Jack: Here we go.
[3328.96] Jack: It's animal.
[3330.96] ChrisG: What is that?
[3332.96] ChrisG: It's some kind of connector.
[3335.96] ChrisG: Let's just...
[3338.96] ChrisG: Are those bloody banana plugs?
[3343.96] ChrisG: Yeah, four mil gold connectors.
[3346.96] ChrisG: So you can totally just short the battery out if you want to.
[3350.96] Stephen: It's like an alarm speaker while you're at it.
[3352.96] Stephen: It's all good.
[3353.96] ChrisG: So it keeps you alert, you know?
[3355.96] ChrisG: You can see Chris literally hot-wiring his own plane.
[3358.96] ChrisG: He's melting wires together.
[3360.96] Stephen: You want to light your sticky in between races.
[3362.96] Stephen: You can just lean over and spark them.
[3365.96] ChrisG: And then the VTX?
[3368.96] Stephen: Where is it?
[3369.96] Stephen: Back on the solo.
[3371.96] ChrisG: That goes in the balance plug.
[3373.96] ChrisG: There's just two...
[3375.96] ChrisG: I can't see him.
[3376.96] ChrisG: They're just two flying wires.
[3378.96] MULTIPLE: This is what I was hoping for.
[3380.96] MULTIPLE: See, this is starting to look like one of Tony's planes.
[3382.96] Stephen: I'm beginning to wonder now if he had to take the battery out
[3385.96] Stephen: more than a couple of times in the whole day,
[3387.96] Stephen: whether he'd have just destroyed the plane putting it back in.
[3389.96] Tony: Exactly.
[3390.96] Tony: I might have done.
[3392.96] Tony: He just charged his whole wing.
[3394.96] ChrisG: It was great.
[3395.96] ChrisG: It was just like going for a pit stop.
[3397.96] ChrisG: You just plug it back in and away you go.
[3400.96] ChrisG: I hope it doesn't explode.
[3402.96] Stephen: I hope the VTX wire doesn't fall out mid-lap.
[3405.96] ChrisG: Yeah.
[3406.96] ChrisG: Yeah.
[3407.96] ChrisG: I did clean your mind.
[3409.96] ChrisG: By little note coach.
[3411.96] ChrisG: Oh, and the VTX has dip switches on it.
[3414.96] Stephen: Of course.
[3415.96] Stephen: I hear all the best ones do these days.
[3417.96] ChrisG: Yeah.
[3418.96] ChrisG: And so does my gobble module.
[3420.96] Stephen: Do you like to keep the work and the pleasure well-separated then?
[3426.96] Stephen: The work's all cutting edge,
[3428.96] Stephen: but pleasure, very retro by comparison.
[3431.96] ChrisG: Well, this works.
[3433.96] ChrisG: This works better than any of my quad setups.
[3436.96] ChrisG: Why would I change it?
[3438.96] ChrisG: Fair enough.
[3440.96] ChrisG: I mean, I have converted most of my quads to XD60, to be fair.
[3443.96] ChrisG: But that's only because the batteries have died over time
[3447.96] ChrisG: and I've just replaced them with new ones.
[3449.96] ChrisG: And I'm like, well, might as well just use XD60s now.
[3452.96] ChrisG: Saves me from changing all the connectors every time I buy a battery.
[3457.96] Tony: So what's my next thing, XD150?
[3460.96] Tony: Is that a thing?
[3462.96] ChrisG: I think you'd have to go up to Anthony connectors after XD90, wouldn't you?
[3467.96] ChrisG: I don't know if there's anything else.
[3468.96] Jack: Well, Tony won't, because me and Tony can't spell that.
[3471.96] Jack: So don't be able to find it.
[3473.96] Jack: Good girl.
[3474.96] Tony: How do you spell...
[3475.96] Tony: There is an XD150.
[3477.96] Tony: What did you say?
[3478.96] Stephen: Is there?
[3479.96] Tony: Yeah.
[3480.96] Tony: There really is an XD150.
[3482.96] Stephen: Yeah.
[3483.96] Stephen: I've got to look that up.
[3485.96] Stephen: Chunky monkey.
[3486.96] Stephen: Did I make that up?
[3490.34] Tony: Or is there an XD...
[3492.34] Stephen: It's got a bit more of a recessed terminal by the looks of it,
[3496.34] Stephen: so obviously you don't get the sparking problems.
[3499.34] Stephen: The terminals are sunk into the plug.
[3502.34] Stephen: Yeah.
[3503.34] Tony: Okay. Well, it's XD150.
[3505.34] Tony: I'm going to be using...
[3507.34] Tony: It's what you want, man.
[3509.34] Stephen: Treat it to challenge.
[3511.34] Stephen: Buy one of them and see if you confuse it.
[3513.34] Tony: I'll be will.
[3518.58] Jack: We should probably start wrapping up, I think.
[3523.58] Jack: No worries.
[3524.58] Jack: I'm sorry I've been so quiet.
[3526.58] Jack: I've just been waiting for a banger list to keep here.
[3529.58] Stephen: Geez.
[3530.58] Jack: I know.
[3531.58] Jack: Just my insides.
[3533.58] Jack: Anyway, thank you for listening to Let's Drone Out.
[3536.58] Jack: Thank you to everyone who tuned in.
[3538.58] Jack: Major, major thank you to our Patreons
[3543.58] Jack: who are scrolling across the bottom.
[3546.58] Jack: We would not be able to do the show without you guys.
[3549.58] Jack: And thank everyone who showed up.
[3553.58] Jack: And that's been Andrew Schlesfrank.
[3556.58] Martin Rye: Bye.
[3557.58] Jack: Stephen.
[3558.58] Jack: Goodbye.
[3560.58] Jack: Everyone's favourite curry kitten.
[3562.58] Jack: Goodbye.
[3563.58] Jack: The mofo, Chris Mohoji.
[3567.58] ChrisG: See you later.
[3569.58] Jack: Keeping it straight.
[3572.58] Jack: And my darling, lovely wife, Tony.
[3575.58] Jack: Bonjour.
[3576.58] Jack: Will you be back next week or are you busy?
[3580.58] Martin Rye: Yeah.
[3581.58] Jack: We'll see.
[3582.58] Jack: We'll see.
[3583.58] Jack: I've been broke till I fly.
[3585.58] Jack: Thank you, guys.
[3586.58] Jack: Good night.
[3587.58] Jack: Telemetry lost.