First ever building dive - 15 storeys of yikes! šŸ˜

Videos by FPV Drone
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This was my first ever attempt at a building diveā€¦ so I chose a subtle one to start of with! :face_with_peeking_eye:

Been aiming to do this one for a while now, but wanted some clear sun and a very quiet early AM. It was fairly breezy tbh and I was flying a tiny light weight thing so it was jelly legs quite a lot of the time tbh! The ground comes up so fast it takes your breath away. Shall definitely be returning for some more practice goes! :sunglasses:

This is the fairly new / mildly controversial hotel in Milton Keynes that overshadows Campbell Park and is the tallest building for miles around. The original MK city ordinance stated that ā€˜no building shall be built taller than the tallest treeā€™ but this sadly seems to have been quietly scrapped in the last few years.

This isnā€™t really a spot for 5" free styling tbh (well, not within the rules anyway!). I was flying the tiny112g Diatone Cube and took off / landed from the public car park. Itā€™s also by the entrance way to the multi-storey car park, hence making this an early AM adventure before it opened for the day. Tbh much of the centre of MK is awesome for whoops / tiny whoops when the weather is calm and thereā€™s no one around. There are so many little archways / paths / tunnels etc. to explore.

Not sure about adding to Dronescene. :thinking:

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15 storeys of yikes! :grin:

This is quite possibly the best topic title Iā€™ve seen :rofl:

Yeah, best not, eh :slight_smile:

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Yeah. I did think it might not be a brilliant idea!

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Nice dive, but what a fugly building. I can think of some naughty things to do though, lol, with such an ugly building and a drone. The Mr Steele video with the stickers comes to mind. :stuck_out_tongue:

I honestly donā€™t go to Milton Keynes much nowadays. Went to the bowl once to do a Bryan Adams concert load out, long ago and drove in and got lost looking for fuel a couple of years back. But itā€™s somewhere I tend to avoid, due to the crap road system that makes Bristolā€™s road system look remarkably sane.

You know Iā€™d add it to dronescene, put a warning on it.

I think if I was doing it, with maybe a bigger (3") quad, iā€™d have launched from the green (park?) space on the other side of the dual carriageway, done a couple of dives and scarpered. A 1 Pack rip and bail scenario. Probably done it on a Sunday morning when less people/problems are about.

Most of the ones I did up here over summer were tower blocks that border on to park land. You can take off from a few places go about 100m and hit a tower, dive it a few times and head back. But they are only about 12 storeys high. I would love an epic Burj Khalifa type tower to dive down, but nothing like that exists in this country, well maybe that monstrosity in London that someone free climbed the other year, but London is sketchy to fly in. But given all the stupid drone rules that seem to be making this hobby more and more illegal, maybe a time will come when it is irrelevant whether you do anything illegal because the act of flying is itself illegal, in which case i get first dibs on diving Tower Bridge.

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Yup - fugly for sure, a lot of locals are less than impressed tbh.

Sadly the lovely park opposite is Campbell Park and is Parkā€™s Trust landā€¦ who have an extremely Luddite view of drones (unless you want to pay them Ā£1500 for a one-off commercial license, in which case theyā€™re more than happy to take your cash :face_with_raised_eyebrow:)

I was flying from the public car park and MK council have no rules around drone flying per se (I checked with them!) I was also very much under the 250g limits. Pretty certain it could still cause some raised eyebrows and unwanted interactionā€¦ hence the early AM sortie.

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Early AM is the best time to fly. Less numptys knocking about. Unless you are flying somewhere that is off the beaten track, in which case it matters less.

For city flying itā€™s always early AM or maybe late PM. Some places, like well lit car parks (above and below ground), can even be flown at night if you stay low (Tesco tend to have well lit car parks that are perfect for this sort of thing, especially the big super stores). Iā€™ve whooped around in a couple of the local stores late on, but only in summer, itā€™s too bloody cold at the minute, unless you sit in your car with heater on. :wink:

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Tell that to my teenage flying partner. Early morning does not exist to himā€¦ Mind you Iā€™m not overly keen on getting up early myself.

(Christ that delete button is twitchy!)

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In summer I often just donā€™t go to bed, or take the van somewhere near where I am flying and kip in the back (there is a bed in the back).

Since I have no dependents per se, the only person stopping me from getting up, is me. :slight_smile: But I havenā€™t reached true old age yet, so can still get out of bed early (sometimes).

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Reckon you can dive a tinywhoop?
:thinking:

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If thereā€™s like zero windā€¦ yup. This is on my list of plans too tbh :grin:

That said, acro with a tiny whoop takes some pretty nimble fingers. I need more practice!

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As long as the rates are sensible then technically thereā€™s no reason it should be any more twitchy - since youā€™re only telling the FC to ā€˜rotate at 400deg/secā€™ or whatever. The fact that the craft is physically able to rotate at about 2000deg/sec shouldnā€™t change anything, if your rates donā€™t go that high.

Flying acro on tinywhoops in sims seems straightforward enough. Iā€™ve just not tried IRL since my house isnā€™t big enough and the weather hasnā€™t really been ideal outside.

If anything Iā€™d imagine the lack of throttle response might be an issue - eg coming out of a roll or loop, a very quick throttle blip on a 5" is enough to arrest your descent. I notice on my 3" that it takes almost full throttle and for a longer period to ā€˜catchā€™ the quad in the air and stop it hitting the ground.

A massive building dive with a 20g tinywhoop would be hilarious though :smiley:

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The problem with diving a 65mm or 75mm is the prop guards. It creates all sorts of weird air movement and it doesnā€™t so much dive as fall randomly. Iā€™ve dived a Meteor85, sort of. Down a tower, but the first time it was crazy and was more like tumbling as it fell. Second time I left about 10% throttle on and it was better controlled, although your dive is now a power dive, but itā€™s still technically a dive. I did want to try it at 50-100% throttle, but considered it to be marginally too dangerous, to dive a 12 storey tower at 30-40mph.

The Emley Moor transmitter dive that someone did the other month was on a 2" and that was tumbling every which way, not that Emley Moor is known for calm air movement. I think you need a reasonable amount of weight to dive buildings, just due to the weird air flow you get when air hits a square shape and splits, probably not in an even way, creating weird vortexā€™s. So probably at least 100g and ideally 150-200g. I know on 85mm itā€™s not ideal without some power. On 65mm, you should probably apply at least 50% and if you can increase camera angle, do so, so when you are diving, the quad base is almost flat and therefore all power is pushing down and not partially away from the tower.

Now diving a 65mm down a street light is less random, but still not ideal. Probably because the gauge of the tube is less and generally round, so air movement is less turbulent.

Also the key to pulling out of a dive is to apply the throttle gradually, unless you are trying for a suicide type dive with the aim of getting as close to the ground without hitting it. My aim is to start pulling out at about 8m, with an aim to be maybe 1m from the ground at level, but my throttle is applied gradually from probably 15m, so by 8m Iā€™m at maybe 10-20% throttle and pulling out. I donā€™t want to stop momentum, I want to redirect it.

The other thing(s) it depends on are, well, the whole quad. If you build a quad with motors that generate a full kg of thrust with a total weight including battery of 200g, then it will pull up real easily. if you used even more powerful motors, you might not need to blip the throttle as much. But if you dive something with underpowered motors on a heavy frame, then it might be a 100% throttle to avoid cratering. Everything I try to build is pretty much overpowered. Even stuff like the BNF Meteor85 is OP (2S on 1103 11000kv) and it is hellishly fast for itā€™s size. Light frames, powerful motors, but the trade off is less flight time, but new underwear level fun.

Anyway iā€™m typing too much. :wink:

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Come and dive the spinnaker!

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So much stuff I would like to do down Portsmouth way, none of it related to ships and boats.

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That is genuinely epic - what were you flying? I seriously donā€™t think Iā€™ll ever have the confidence to go that far out over water! :cold_sweat:

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Its just a dji fpv, I live on the coast chasing ships so over water is my default!

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Itā€™s even more impressive to do it on anything that starts with DJI. If you drop it in the water itā€™s not like itā€™s a Ā£200 loss. :slight_smile:

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