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Can't see the wood

...for the Trees, they say. But today I can see both, and I'm just off the A272 in Hampshire to grab some aerial shots of the lovely bit of woodland I found myself driving past on my way to my intended fly site, which was high on the South Downs (again).

Fly-style

This is actually a L4 fly-site, with a lot of danger around everywhere, mainly in the form of trees, and narrow fields of view. Any RTH action (once, shown in vid) MUST be above the level of the trees when called, and any GPS drift had to be tightly controlled as I manoeuvred through some pretty tight spaces in the tree canopy.

Initially I had planned to just burn 1 or 2 batteries here, but in the end I stayed for 3, and would have done more, and gone on somewhere else if the technology department hadn't surprised me again.

Arc Welding for beginners...

Yep, this time, due to a slightly less than ideal power-up, although I was not to know it at the time, the deans connectors on the battery pack and the craft had arced, and actually welded themselves together.

Nothing I could do would prise those 2 connectors apart after the flight, and all-too-aware of the dangers of trying to lever them with a knife, guaranteeing shorting, shocks, sparks and worse, and being obviously unwilling to go home with a powered craft in the boot. I had no option but to disconnect the battery from its Deans, which I did with a reassuring amount of brute force. That'll need a new connector then.

I've always hated Deans connectors - it's a rubbish way to connect things. I will be changing to APP, EC3 or EC 5, I think. I haven't decided which yet.

Obviously, that was the end of the flyings, and it was left to Aeroxcraft to save the day - would I have enough decent footage to make a flight log video from only 3 short flights ?

Soundtracking...

It's my favourite Trevor Morris again, with pieces from the 2nd and 3rd series of the Tudors this time ! I do hope he doesn't mind. At least I bought them...