I just received 3 AXN 800kV motors, 3 SuperSimple 18-20A ESC’s, 3 Turnigy 302 gyros and 1 HK 401B gyro. All these items will be used in a project I hope to start on soon. Anyone care to take a guess on what it might be?

Want to know precisely how good your RC link during a FPV flight? This is even a better way than displaying RSSI, it’s a “lost package indicator” for any OSD that has an RSSI input. You only need a capacitor, a resistor and some soldering skill to make it happen! In this guide I will show and describe exactly how it’s done and how it works. After this guide I hope no one ever finding them selfs flying unknowingly beyond their RC link’s range.

Click here to read the guide

Pehw, I just finished up a guide to making a crash-proof, light weight, small,aerodynamic and efficient antenna for video transmitters.

It’s called a quarter-wave lambda antenna and I’ve been using it ever since my first FPV FunJet flight.
I also written a guide explaining how to tune a DIY antenna to get the absolute best performance.
Click here to read the guide

Today I got my 200th Youtube subscriber!
Wohoo! Congratulations David! Yay!
And to think that it was only three months ago that I got my 100th subscriber. Thank you, all of you that have subscribed and to all of you that visit this site regularly and post comments. It’s guys like you that made me create this homepage and invest my time. Without you this hobby wouldn’t be any where near as fun as it is. So thank you once again!

Another thing to celebrate is that the Winter Solstice is today. Which means that from today the days will only get lighter and longer again here in Sweden. But to be honest it doesn’t really matter when it’s -18°C (0°F), which is was earlier today, even if it was light enough when I get home I probably would have stayed inside. Lucky I got a lot to build!

Good guesses everyone! The content of the mystery package was a complete FPV setup. I will be building this FPV setup for a friend from www.fullkontroll.se. In return I get a Starmax A-10 twin ducted fan ARF airplane. I hope to be able to finish this build in the two weeks of vacation we have from work now around Christmas. A list of what was in the package can be found after the “Read More”




Read More...

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. I’ve been working overtime nearly every day at work for last one and a half week. But today I have a little teaser...

This enormous package just arrived. It’s 1.3 meters high and weighs quite a lot. Anyone care to take a guess what it could be?
The answer will be reveled very soon...

In episode #118 of ATTF Diggs and Jamie talks about my latest FPV video.
Jamie calls it — "The coolest FPV video I've ever seen before", he particularly liked the part in the ending when I fly by the tractor.

It's funny to hear them trying to pronounce "Dadde".

They start to talk about it at 19:50 into the show.

You can download the episode here: ATTF #118.MP3

A big thank you to all the guys at ATTF!



I was also mentioned on the show a while back

My comrades... The days are getting shorter and shorter in this dark country. We now got less than 9 hours of daylight a day. Another bittersweet piece of news is that I started working here in Hjo. It's nice to get the money but I am now away the all the 9 hours when it's light outside. This means that I can't fly during the weekdays any more... And I won't be able to update the blog as much.

I will still continue to build when I have the time and fly during the weekends, and this blog will be updated, just not as often as before.

On a sidenote, for those who are interested in the progress of the Simple OSD. I can report that I've now tested it extensively and shall soon start with the review. Stay tuned

The FunJet lives to see another day! I crashed it a fortnight ago, but all it took was some boiling water and glue, now it's even hard to see that it has been crashed! Multiplex models are the best ones to crash.

After the crash both me and the wife thought that the FunJet was finished. But now it flies just like it always has; awesome.

I got the chance to try out the SimpleOSD Ultralight Edition from Flytron after the remained.

I'm glad to say that it works just fine. I hope to test it out some more soon.

Me and the wife was out taking some more photos of the FunJet in the air. The Funjet flies excellent in the wind and everything seemed to go well until...
Read More...

My time lately have been devoted to writing the review of the Multiplex FunJet. I enjoyed writing this review. It's really an awesome airplane, both for normal and FPV flying. I hope you all find it well written and informative.

Multiplex FunJet Review

After a weeks wait the package from Hongkong finally arrived.

I ordered an Imax B6 charger so that I can charge more batteries at one. It feels like a high quality charger. The display is easy to read and it looks to have a lot of features. I also threw in the standard stuff like servos and connectors, like you always tend to do when ordering from Hongkong.

Look what I got in the mail today.

It's a 250 page book about Aerodynamics for model airplanes. It looks to be very well written. The language seems a bit technical but I hope it won't be to hard to read.

A while back I got the two RCadvisor's books in the mail.

I enjoyed reading them both. Carlos's writing style is quite excellent which made them easy to read.

To keep the book reviews separated from the other reviews I decided to make a sub category in the review section called RC Book reviews. There you can find the reviews of RCadvisor's "Model Airplane Design made Easy" and "ModiFly". At the end of each review, you can find links to the other book reviews (ok, only one other so far), so as to make it easier to find them.

Here is a link to the new RC Book review section

Yesterday I went to a hobby trade fair in Stockholm here in Sweden. It was a 4 and half hours drive from where I live, and I had never been to the "Hobbymässan" but from what I could gather from the information on the internet, it seemed to be a quite large event. Even Multiplex was going to be there and show up their new "Xeno" flying wing. Unfortunately the day didn't turn out as I expected.


The Multiplex Merlin. Expected release in 2 weeks Read More...

Today is a big day!
I got my 100:th youtube subscriber! Yay congratulations David, woho!

I also updated the homepage a little today upon request.

• It’s now possible to add comments to all the projects in the projects category.
• I added a search page, which makes finding stuff on the page a lot easier. Just click the little icon in the sidebar on the left.
• I added a FPV Videos page, which has an embedded player with all my FPV videos in chronological order.
• I also optimized some code to make the homepage a little faster

So get started with the commenting on the projects!

In my quest towards getting better efficiency and more performance and flighttime out of my power systems , I decided to build a “Thrust stand”.

This is a great tool for comparing different props, motors, batteries, ESC’s separately but also as complete power systems.
Click here to read the build log and find out more

Since the old modification caused me to loose a plane, I decided to get myself an original antenna and put things back to normal. Today the antenna arrived and after a little time of tinkering it was in place. Now I can start flying again.

After being sold out here in Sweden for quite a while, I finally got my hands on RCadvisor’s two books called “Model Airplane Design Made easy” and “ModiFly”.
The first book is about general model airplane design, covering things like aerodynamics, aviation design history, power systems and more. The other book is about a specific design made by Carlos himself that cost less than 5$ and takes less than a day to build, it explains all decisions made and journey to the finial design. If the books are any where near as good as RCadvisor’s calculator they will a treat to read. I’ll report back to you all what I think of them as soon as I’m finished reading.

A couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a GU-365 3-axis flybarless stabilizer. I been wanting to build a tricopter for quite a while but the cost have kept me from taking the plunge, but now that I’ve got a 3-axis stabilizer that might work, the cost would drop enough for me to justify buying the rest of the parts.

But I didn’t want to chance that the GU-365 might work so I asked a friend in Denmark that have loads of tricopters to try it out for me.
Unfortunately the results of the testing were not what I had hoped.

- “It was out of control like nothing else I've ever flown, and it was FAST, I gave up counting the rolls as I gave everything I had in pilot skills to get it down in one piece...”

This means no tricopter for David, at least not for now...
Hmmm, might put it on a plane...

Click on the “Read More” to get read the entire flight testing and watch a video of the tricopter in action Read More...

Ever since the Assan modification of my Futaba 7C I’ve wanted to be able to use the same antenna on both transmitter modules. And now, finally, I got my hands on a U.FL to SMA pigtail. Here is the result:

Looks nice doesn’t it?

More pics after the “Read More”

Now I need some good weather to do a range check. Read More...

Click here to watch in 1280*720

In this episode I cover some of the basics in LiPo batteries, like cell-configurations, mAh, C-ratings, the 80% rule, balancing and among others.

In the end of the episode I overcharge a LiPo until it explodes to show what can happen if you leave the charging unattended, here are some pictures of the inferno:

More pictures after the “Read More” Read More...

It’s the XGY-1000 from AEORC.com and it’s going to be my first official review for FPV-Community.com. It looks quite nice and I hope to be able to try it out soon.

I just finished up a guide on how to get 180° of servo travel. In the guide I address 3 different ways of getting more servo travel. I also give a complete guide to modifying a servo DIY style, using only two resistors.
Perfect for getting a broader panning view! Click here to read the guide

I’ve wanted to get my hands on a GU-365 3 axis flybarless stabilizer for a while, to do some experimenting with. Well I had some luck, a guy wanted to trade one, so I made him an offer. It arrived in good condition:

I have only had the time to do a few experiments but so far it seems to work as expected. It has no trouble arming ESC’s which is nice, since I’m having thoughts about building myself a tricopter. A friend of mine in Denmark that has a lot of tricopters offered to try the GU-365 out for me on one of his machines, so the GU-365 is on it’s way to Denmark.

Since I’m a curious person, I took the GU-365 apart to see what was inside. Click on the “Read More” to see the pictures. Read More...

This weekend I attended the Elefantastiskt event in Karlsborg here in Sweden.

It was two awesome days of RC flying despite the windy weather.

A highlight of the meeting was when I tried dropping a RC converted Multiplex Fox from the EZ-Stick.

I met a lot of great people and had the best of times!

Be sure to read the complete post by clicking on the “Read More” below Read More...

I’m mentioned on the very well known AllThingsThatFly podcast!

24 minutes and 10 seconds into episode #102 Diggs mentions my youtube show episode 1 and episode 2 as “Funny as hell”.

He is also kind enough to plug this site! After that he mentions my Multiplex Blizzard as “... One of the coolest paint scheme I’ve seen yet on a Blizzard”

Click here to download the episode as a MP3

A big thank you to all the guys at ATTF!

Click here to watch in 1280*720

This is part 2! Click here for the first episode!

In this episode I once again try hitting a target with potatoes and eggs dropped from my EZ-Stick. But this time I manage to hit something! Read More...

My prize from the competition on the FPV-Community forums just arrived in my mailbox!

The quality of this pan/tilt unit from GlobeFlight is excellent. The panning servo is located higher that on any other pan/tilt unit I’ve seen for the Twin Star. It’s also possible to look straight down thanks to the different tilt mechanism. All parts are made from glass fiber and are very strong and light. The whole unit weights 60 grams as seen in the picture. Now I only need a HS-81 size servo to be able to test this ting out.

Click here to watch in 1280*720

This was my first ever youtube show! I plan on making goofy stuff and sharing them with you in this fashion, and I hope you will enjoy it.

In this show I equip my EZ-Stick with a bomb drop device, and I try to drop potatoes and eggs from the air on a target.

For those of you that want to make a bomb drop device of your own, here is how to: Read More...

It has been raining on and of for several days now here in Sweden and the weather forecast does not look good; rain for all of next week too. I sincerely hope that they are wrong.

But there is something good in all that is bad; My wife is letting me buy an Aiptek AHD 300 full HD Camcorder for FPV flying! And she is aware that I will take it apart and remove and desolder all components I don’t need, to save weight. I love her for letting me do what I love (and buying expensive toys)

Many people have asked me how to improve the range of their 900 or 1300 MHz video link, so I wrote a guide to making your own whip antenna that can greatly improve the efficiency and range of these systems.
You can click here to read it.

I hope that it can help improve the range for you people that use the stock antenna on your 900/1300 MHz video link.

I was surfing around the various forums and I found that I had recently received a PM from one of the administrators on the FPV-Community forums. Naturally I started reading it; He complimented me on my website and my FPV flying, I was very flattered so I read on, He wanted to know if I wanted to start a cooperation with their site and become a product reviewer for their review section!

I hope this is the beginning of a long lasting cooperation between our sites, and I hope I get a lot of stuff to review ;)

I found a cool forum that is called FPV-Community, I signed up and posted a few threads. The people on the forums were very nice and I liked the forums structure. So I became a regular visitor. They had a competition going where you could win FPV equipment buy simply contributing to the forums. It ended on the 27th this month and I checked out the tread to congratulate the people that had won, and to my surprise I had come in 5th place! I never win anything and now I won a Pan/Tilt setup from GlobeFlight.

I’m so happy. This forum is great and they will have more competitions coming up, so join up and start contributing to the FPV community!

Yesterday was a very windy day but I was itching to fly, so I decided to take my Blizzard that is missing its spinner for a flight.
I love how the Blizzard handles in the wind! After a little while into the flight I flew over a tree line and the Blizzard stopped in mid flight. It just hung there!
- Perfect, I thought, now I can try to beat my old flight time record of 94 minutes on flat ground.
And I did it! 111 minutes in the air on flat ground! But this time it was with only 2 minutes and 11 seconds of motor time. Not bad! I had another battery with me, but my neck said: - Are you crazy!? and I wanted to get home to my wife. Now I feel like trying out sloping with this thing.

I got some time over yesterday and the weather was quite nice so I decided to fly the DeltaD.
It didn’t turn out well...


I have to admit that the designed was flawed. It did not handle good at all in the wind and I smacked it pretty hard a few times into the ground. But I had a fun time nevertheless. After all I “Explore the RC world, one crash at a time”. I think I’ll give this project up as a bad job for now.

It was a splendid vacation! We lived in a house with a pool on the countryside right among wine and olive plantations. The weather was great the whole week and the temperature was above 30°C in the shade during the days with a light breeze. We visited the leaning tower of Pisa and the Dome of Florence among other things.

I also brought the FPV Twin Star and for some reason people thought that I looked funny when I flew it?


Anyhow, here is the video:


I demonstrate the Hat-Tracker in the beginning of the video and I think it works great. This is also the first video with my new Eagletree OSD PRO, it works well but it needs a little tinkering with before I get it just the way I want it.

There was a lot of interference where we lived, as you can see in the video there was a big radio mast not far from the house and there were a lot of power lines near the house. Thats why the video isn’t as crisp as it usually is, and I get a few dead frames here and there. But overall it was an awesome landscape to fly in.

Sorry guys but I’m going on a weeks vacation to Italy. We will go buy car here from Sweden and drive for about 26 hours straight before arriving at the beautiful house were going to stay at. I will be bringing the FPV Twin-Star and I hope to get some FPV video from Italy to show you all.


See you all in a week!

Look what I found in my mailbox!



This has been long awaited! Now I need to hook it up and start fiddling.

I could not stand buying receivers that cost hundreds of times more than the cheep experimental airplanes that I want to fly. So for the same price as a 6 channel Futaba FASST receiver, I bought myself a Assan X8D Hack module and two 6 channel receivers!

I made a simple guide on installing the Assan module into a transmitter.
You can read it here

Today my lovely wife had to study all day for an exam, so I got a lot of time to myself. After doing some chores, I’ve been sitting trying to explain how Antenna gain works, since I get many questions about it. It isn’t the easiest thing to explain, but now I have tried. Perhaps you can get an insight to the basics, I am no expert myself, and hopefully it will be enough for most peoples needs.

Upon request, I just finished a review the V-Mate memory card video recorder for FPV usage.
Click here to read it.

I was flying my Blizzard yesterday, just a recreational flight, no fancy flying. But when I picked it up after the landing i noticed that the front end of the spinner was missing! I searched around the place where it had landed but couldn’t find anything.

I thought I heard a noise just when I hit the throttle at one time during the flight, when I was at the far end of the field, so I went over there.
During the walk I noticed the grass getting thicker and thicker and higher and higher and when I got to the place where I thought it could be the grass was so thick and high that the only way I would find the spinner was if I accidentally stepped on it.
I hope they harvest the grass soon...

Finally! After 10 months I’ve saved enough to buy a new video camera.

The camera I chose was a Panasonic HCD-SD100 HD camera. So from now on all my video will be available in HD!

The reviews of the Multiplex Blizzard and Twin Star II are done!
You can find them here: Multiplex Blizzard review Multiplex Twin Star II review


Please leave some feedback on what’s good, what’s not, what’s missing, etc.

Here is the video:


The reason that I crashed was that the plane stalled to near the ground and I couldn’t save it. Why the airplane stalled is an other story; I wanted to kill some speed before the landing, but I pushed to far.


Well, at least the damage wasn’t bad, just a crack that could easily could be glued together.

Here is the long awaited Twin Star video! Enjoy!
Click here for the build log of the Twin Star

Woho! Finally I get that extra channel that I wanted. It was my good friend Christian that made me a deal on this T7CP 35MHz transmitter. But I don’t fly on 35MHz so I modified it to 2.4GHz using the “module” from my T6EX 2.4GHz transmitter. It turned out great and works like a charm. And while I was in there soldering I changed the red power led to a purple one, just to add that little extra.

I like the extra programming functions of the 7C.


And since I got the old 35MHz parts left I decided to make an external 35MHz module.

Finally the weather cooperated long enough for me to get some video.
I edited the Blizzard video first and will finnish the Twin-Star one later.
Click here for the build log of the Blizzard.

Enjoy!

Yesterday I did some full-scale studies on an Air-show called “Flottiljens dag”. It was a beautiful day, just the right amount of wind to keep cool and an almost perfect blue sky. I brought the camera and took some pictures when I felt like it, but for the most part I just enjoyed the show. I went with my buddy Christian and his family and we had a blast! If you have not yet been to an air-show, you need to go to one!








These aircrafts were in the show:
SK 16
SK 50
B 17
Helikopter 10
J 29 Tunnan
J 28 Vampire
J 32 Lansen
J 34 Hawker Hunter
JAS 39 Gripen

The good guys Frank and Brian has been kind enough to mention me in episode 57 their podcast called R/C FlightCast again. They seem to like my homepage and my style of posting more pictures than words.

To listen to the show, click here.

Thanks to Frank and Brian!

Today, finally, after over 2 week of bad weather, the wind died down long enough to do the maiden flights of both the Blizzard and the Twin Star.





















I flew the Twin Star first and I was impressed. It flies great! It is super stable in the wind very easy to control. It has plenty of power to! After the flight it was time to maiden the Blizzard. Truth be told I’m a little scared of this beast. My heart rate went up quite a bit when I held it in my hand and gave it full throttle for the first time. I did not even need to throw it, it just left my hand and climbed like rocket. The neat thing with the Blizzard is when you cut the throttle and start to dive it accelerates even more and it keeps its inertia a long time! 8 seconds of full throttle and it’s a spec in the sky and when you dive it makes “the sound”, the wonderful whistling sound that I love. Ahh man that was an awesome maiden flight! It’s nice to pump some adrenaline once in a while.

Thanks to my friend Christian Mogensen for assisting me!

More pictures can be found in the build threads; Blizzard, Twin Star.

This week I have been working on the two airplanes that my wife gave me. Unfortunately the weather this week has been terrible, so I have not been able to maiden either of them. But I thought I would share the work I’ve done so far:

The Twin Star II build log


The Multiplex Blizzard build log


I’ll post more pictures as soon as the weather changes for the better.

It is good to be home again. After a week of snowboarding and only one flight it is nice to be able to get time for the hobby. In the week I was gone my package from china arrived!

Now I can really start building!

I got one flight on the vacation and it was on Sweden’s highest located public road. I have now flown my F1 Hydro over 1000 meters above sea-level.







Now it’s time to start building the Blizzard!

I just want to let you all know that I’m going to the mountains on vacation for a week. I’ll be bringing the AitT and the F1 hydro and if there is an opportunity I’ll get some film for you all. See you all in a week!

The wife and I were doing some errands in the same town as a hobby shop. So I slipped in a comment on that it would be a waste not to visit the hobby shop, and she agreed! I needed some small stuff like some servo cable and a prop. After looking around in the shop for a while my wife says:
-I planned that we were going here so that I could by you some monokote. I want you to see your new planes so that you don’t loose them.

My wife is awesome! I never buy covering since it’s so expensive (At least if you compare it to buying cheep servos from china).
I’m so lucky that I such a lovely wife!

In episode 54 of Frank and Brian’s podcast called R/C FlightCast they mention my build of the Twin Boom Easystar and this site! I’m honored to be mentioned in such a good light by one of the best RC podcasts out there!

To listen to the show, click here.

Thanks to Frank and Brian!

Today my wife and I were cleaning the apartment, and when we were done we had a bag of old stuff that was going down into the basement. So I took the bag and heaved it down the seven staircases to the basement. We have our basement pretty neatly organized so when I opened the door and there were this big cardboard box standing in the way of where I was going to put down the heavy bag. Feeling a little irritated that there was a box in the way I asked my wife:
-What is this box doing... wait a second! Is that?! The airplane!!
My wife is sneaky! And oh so wonderful! I did not expect the airplane until earliest the end of the week.


Which airplane do you think it’s going to be?

I was so exited that I almost felt ill! This is what I saw when I opened it:


She freaking bought me two airplanes! And the two I wanted! She is the best wife EVER! I’m so glad right now!


Now I need to order some electronics from china.

On the evening of the crash of the Twin Boom Biplane I was pretty downcast, and when my wife came home, she could instantly see that something was wrong. So she asked me what had happened. I told her about my day and about the crash and she didn’t even laughed. Instead she look at me and said: - I’m going to buy you a new airplane.

My wife is the best!
That managed to cheer me up quite a bit I must admit.
And I asked what airplane she had planned to buy, and she said:
-I’m not telling, I want it to be a surprise!

I don’t know what airplane she is going to buy but I have been raving on about both the Multiplex Twinstar and the Blizzard and I think it’s going to be one of them.



Oh I’m so exited!

Which one would you pick?

I just posted a review of the Multiplex EasyStar in the Review section.
Hope you like it!

Today I took a trip to the local hobby-shop that is located about 30 kilometers from my home. I bought a 11*7 prop and some balsa. The Turnigy C3530-1100 on 3sA123 only gave me 168W with the 11*7 which was a lot less than I expected considering that the 10*5 gave me 140W. I’ll give it a try and see how it feels in the air.

In the meantime; Care to guess what I’m going to do with these balsa sticks?

It was a beautiful sunset and the weather was just right. This is the second flight after the paint job was finished and I dumb thumb it into the water...

Yet another year of swapmeet/gathering in Skövde is to an end.
This year things were a little different thou, instead of the ”free for all” flying at all times there were a strict schedule.
This had its pros and cons.
I arrived at 11.00 when the event opened. There were a lot of people there but there were no airplane in the air!
Instead there were 3 rc-cars driving around in one corner
-Bad first impression, I must say.
However there were a lot of retailers present which was nice. I bought 2 3s800mAh Loong-Max LiPo’s and a R608FS Futaba receiver at a “nice price”



After 30 minutes the car guys were pushed aside and the airplanes started to come up in the air. I greatly regretted not bringing any airplanes as this space is hugh! and there were only a handful of pilots.
30 minutes later a sponsored pilot came on to the floor with a Beam E4 “450” class helicopter to put on a show. He did a few 3D maneuvers like a funnel and a quite good chaos orb before he slammed the heli into the floor.

After that the in my opinion the most amusing thing of the day took place. A bachelorette party made the bride to be first drive an rc-car witch she managed pretty good, but then they gave her an airplane transmitter.
Now she wasn’t to cocky. But what she didn’t see was that a hidden guy stood with the real transmitter. The plane were a bipe shockflyer, and the guy controlling it made a very good impression of “bad” flying and near misses.
Ahh it was to funny. Poor girl.

A little later the freestyle composition was due. Nothing spectacular in my opinion. One guy has flown the exact same routine 3 years in a row, witch I can remember, to the exact same music. He’s good but come on! And he’s won the last 2 years with that program.

Not the best “Arenan i Skövde” I’ve been to but still worth going.
Next year I’ll bring some models and try to get people to have planes in the air all the time.

I was out on the frozen pond near “Kyrkofalla” church in Tibro planning to fly around with my F1 Hyrdo when the dog showed some interest in chasing the plane.
I took the opportunity and played a little with her.

This is the story of my little brushless boat that I had last summer.







We had some great times...
But now your gone...
Sold, to pay for my RC addiction.

I made the first page:




I do truly look like the king of geekeness.

Now I’m the laughingstock of the town for a while...