FPV on a Heli

[Grimmer04]

I have been thinking about doing FPV on my helicopter. Already doing AP so mounting a TX to transmit the video is no big thing.. As I thought about it I see the need to have telemetry so you can better tell if your flying straight and level. I just now thought also about how you would know the position of your tail? I see some challenges in doing FPV on a helicopter. Anyone already doing it? Thoughts, advice?

[Grimmer04]

I have been thinking about doing FPV on my helicopter. Already doing AP so mounting a TX to transmit the video is no big thing.. As I thought about it I see the need to have telemetry so you can better tell if your flying straight and level. I just now thought also about how you would know the position of your tail? I see some challenges in doing FPV on a helicopter. I see some of you are already doing it? Thoughts, advice?

[short fuse]

Your spotter should be able to tell you if it's straight and level, since he will have it in VLOS at all times.

[Grimmer04]

That is maybe 60% true. I know from spotting for others while filming, even with binoculars it is hard to tell. Especially when viewing the side of the helicopter just how the ship is lined up. I was more wondering from the pilot perspective (as I have not tried this yet) if you can tell where your tail is. I know from the filming I've done that you can kind of see in the video if your straight.

[jolyboy]

Its easy. Get a decent OSD and you'll have a horizon line. Then if you want to land tail in, fly up to the landing site with the camera facing you, hover, then spin around 180°. Its much easier if you have loiter or position hold.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[ignaceous]

Like others mentioned, OSD. You can still do without it but it might take a lot of getting used to the way your hardware is set up and calibrating yourself to it. A simulator that does FPV helps too. I use Real Flight 7 and occasionally play DayZ and fly the helis in FPV mode only, which helps with depth perception a lot, since you either fly the damn thing straight or get yourself and your buddies eaten alive by a horde of zombies.
In addition, having some part of the helicopter within the camera's FOV (I have my camera mounted underneath the landing gear and 10% of the top of the screen is reserved for the bottom of the canopy) is very critical because it will let you know if the camera has shifted for whatever reason, letting you know that you can no longer trust your usual estimate of what angle the tail might be at.

Hope this helps.

[JCLs]

Here is my 550 rigged for FPV. Flying old Align APS system but mine does work very well.

[Tomstoy2]

Originally Posted by JCLs

Here is my 550 rigged for FPV. Flying old Align APS system but mine does work very well.

Attachment 621988

That is really sweet!

So, looks like you got her set up to launch those rockets besides?

Gives me ideas for my trex600.

Been doing the "dark arts" for a hell of a long time now, but never with one of my srh's.
If your camera is fixed then tail position is a non issue. Attitude isn't hard to discern either, nor the need of an osd, though it's nice.
Ask anybody who flys a quad 250 with a cc3d. Only thing to really consider, I think, would be that things happen real fast when things go bad with a srh. Best to dumb down her until you're comfortable.
A decent fc with recovery, like Skookum, would really be handy.

There's plenty of vids of people doing very decent 3d with an fpv srh. Main thing before opening your wallet is do your research.

Really like that heli!

[PA Flyer]

[QUOTE= I just now thought also about how you would know the position of your tail? I see some challenges in doing FPV on a helicopter. Anyone already doing it? Thoughts, advice?[/QUOTE]

That is for me by far the biggest challenge of learning to fly my heli with fpv. Unless I'm in fff it's very hard for me to tell if I'm crabbing somewhat sideways in the wind and fff eats up real estate too quickly for the area that I have available to fly in here in NE PA. If you live somewhere where there is wide open spaces to fly I think that it would be much easier.

[dexterous]

Here's my solution for FPV on a Blade 450X:








The home made "orientation boom" gives me a much needed reference point so I can tell where I am going and what the orientation is. Without it, I found it extremely hard to fly FPV on a helicopter.

Here are a few more details:

https://www.helifreak.com/forumdisplay.php?f=296

[JCLs]

I did this over 2 years ago and still fly this rig. Uses Align 3GX and Align APS and always has worked quite well.

[Newfie Pilot]

Here is mine...

Traditional Heli FPV 3.5 km (8 min 26 sec)

[StraightUp]

nice flight but why was the heli bobing or porpoising ?

[Newfie Pilot]

Originally Posted by StraightUp

nice flight but why was the heli bobing or porpoising ?

I believe it is a limitation of the FC at that speed...

[flat tire]

It needs the PID controller adjusted. You can try tweaking it yourself if there's an option. Look up PID controller on wikipedia for the info you need.