First flights of my H480..

[Brahma]

First flights of my H480 today. Very impressive- blew me away. I'm 55, and never had any remote control AC's- this was worth waiting for. I have a few questions..

1. The landing gear would not go up on the first flight. I double-checked to I was in Angle mode, and Obstacle Avoidance was off. I could see that it was trying to go up, but stopped and came back down- it maybe moved 1/2". I did this several times and noticed the same thing. After I flew it around a few minutes, I tried it again and it came up. I have 2 other batteries, and the gear worked fine since- anything I can check?

2. I had the CGO3+ set to the 3rd down resolution setting- what can I expect from a 128 GB card if I put it on full res? I've already done it- just wondering. My PC's are all i7's...

3. I live in the Tampa area and there seems to be a full-blown moratorium on the restriction of drones. I bought it to video some of the beauty of the coast, but airspace isn't the problem- it's the various city ordinances. NO parks- no matter how remote, allow drone flying, the beach is restricted. I've been a general aviation pilot for over 30 years, got my Part 107- I'm not trying to break any laws. Any tips on how to approach the various governments on flying?

Just a comment too- this thing is amazingly rock-steady in winds- it's amazing!

Thanks!

B.

 

[Steve Carr]

How high was the H when you tried to raise the gear? I believe you must be at least 10'.

 

[Brahma]

Sorry, forgot to mention I was way above 10’...

 

[AH-1G]

Have you thought about going North or east maybe between Tampa and Sarasota. There are the new flight restricted minimums, looks like it has taken up a bit more of the airspace. Every once in a while I head out to Bradenton, PM me if you would like to get together. I too am a former general aviation pilot.

 

[Ty Pilot]

After sitting in the box on a shelf these gear can get a little set to them that make the first retraction difficult. Try this; remove the gimbal, power up the St 16 then the H as normal. Flip the aircraft upside down and then try to retract the gear - they should work. If so repeat a few times and you should be fine.

 

[PatR]

That 128gig card will capture a few hours of 4k video. The downsides of a 128g card is they make it hard to find a particular video in all the clutter and if you don’t transfer them to a back up device you can lose a lot of videos if something goes wrong.

Hot tip #1: always leave the last file on the card, be it video or still photo, if you want sequential file numbering. A blank card will always start the number sequencing at YUN0001. Leaving the last file on it keeps the sequencing going.

Hot tip #2: video files will most always max out at 5 minutes and start a new file if the video was running longer than 5 minutes. They stitch together seamlessly in a video editor. It’s another good reason to maintain file sequencing[emoji6]

Hot tip #3: Always stop the video before shutting down the H. Failure to stop a video before cutting aircraft power corrupts the video file. Recovering a corrupt file is an iffy proposition.

 

[FlushVision]

Hot tip #3: Always stop the video before shutting down the H. Failure to stop a video before cutting aircraft power corrupts the video file. Recovering a corrupt file is an iffy proposition.

Yes. I would add that the standard method of recovering a file from a recording that hasn't been stopped before switching off the aircraft...namely powering up the aircraft with the sd card in the camera and start/stopping the recording works most of the time but isn't guaranteed to work EVERY time. If you power off the aircraft before stopping the video be prepared for a possibility that you won't be able to recover it.

End Of Flight check list, anyone?

 

[PatR]

Battery voltage under load at end of flight.

Battery voltage post landing, props stopped.

Stop video.

Shut down aircraft.

Shut down ST-16.

Log flight time and location of flight.

Remove battery.

Check props for damage.

Check condition of landing gear.

Check gimbal dampers.

Install gimbal lock.

 

[Brahma]

Thanks for the tips everyone!