FPV Racing

[Diviner]

We are probably the only guys in the country who every weekend have a set pylon race course. Slowly we are getting our equipment tuned and learning / timing our runs. Each weekend we get closer to our goal of racing on a consistent time table.

Here are the courses we have defined for our 6 permanent pylon sets.



What is nice about a set course is you can track your progress from week to week. It also makes it easy to compare setups. But in order to fairly race, you do need a specification. The slightest bit of difference can easily affect laps times. We are setting up 2 classes; 450 and 250.


Some Vids
[ame]http://youtu.be/Ub1kGHGmOq0[/ame]

[ame]http://youtu.be/nwZyebc0kmM[/ame]

Current best times.

Little Slalom x4 / Paul "Rocket" / 1:28.4 / 4s-1280kv SS-hq cm 8"
Pretzel x3 / Gregg "Diviner" / 1:28 / 4s-1400 SS-hq cm 8"
Giant Slalom x2 / Gregg "Diviner" / 1:34 / 4s-1400 SS-hq cm 8"
Five Eights x1 / Gregg "Diviner" / 1:07 / 4s-1400 SS-hq cm 8"

Still a lot of tuning work to do as 3 of us prepare our 250's. New equipment / setups every weekend. I suspect it will be another month before everyone has a setup they are comfortable with.

It has been far more challenging than I first thought.

1) Find a place to set a race course Ie, can't do it at public places or flying fields.
2) Find guys who fly
3) find guys who fly MRs
4) find guys who fpv
5) find guys who like to compete (lots of bixler types and AP jockeys, but not the racer type)
6) find guys who can show up on a regular basis who are not noobs
7) find equipment that doesn't break under stress
8) design course that can keep us challenged
9) have weather that cooperates
10) get people to agree to a quasi spec
11) find a pylon "solution"
12) get people to field charge so they don't go home after 4 flights
13) get people to have a backup machine so they don't pack up on the first technical issue
14) figure out how to do lap timing by yourself
15) get people to fly in acro/rate mode


edited: removed any mention of flight controllers.

[setishock]

What's wrong with DJI controllers?

[Diviner]

in acro mode at high angles and full throttle, they become unstable. I don't know personally, but others who have them all stated this to me. I don't know anyone who flies aggressively in acro mode who uses a dji (or any gps assisted controller).

In fact, most aggressive fliers are not using any flying "aids" such as KK self level. They teach bad habits as you are not flying craft, but controlling the controller so to speak. A must for learning fpv, but just like ditching training gear on helis as soon as possible, try ditching flying aids as soon as possible if your goal is aggressive flying.

All the aggressive pilots I respect are flying either kk's, mutliwiis, or naze32. All around $30.

[setishock]

If you're close to the ground at high angles on any bird you stand a good chance of auguring in from loss of lift. Despite whatever controller. It's aerodynamic physics at play here not the flight controller.

[Big Island Guy]

Sounds like a heck of a lot of fun, especially with cheap to crash, little 250 size birds

[setishock]

Yeah it sounds like a fun thing. Sorry about getting defensive about DJI. I fly it cause it's plug and play or pray as the case may be.

[Big Island Guy]

I'm just not a good enough pilot to discern the differences when the envelope is pushed hard. I know I've never out flown any of my Nazas, so the issue is sort of moot for me. I must say though, that having just set up my first KK controller and test flown it today, it is a joy to set up and flies great right out of the box on my little Spanky 250. Cannot be beat for the price if you don't need GPS stuff.

[TommyBear]

I fly my multi in manual mode and there is no discernible difference between DJI Naz and KK.
On Atti mode, the KK is the best value for money ones can buy.
On GPS RTH, if you program it correctly, flyaway is a thing if the past.
Nice course design for the FPV racing, I will try that on my FPV 250.

[Diviner]

How do we time our runs when we are alone?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Method 1) External Flight Timer such as talking timer & reprogram TX timer as a stopwatch assigned to a switch.

Pros:
> Talking Timer talks each minute with a count down the last 40 seconds which helps to remind you if you haven't started the timer.

Cons:
> Can't get lap times, just run times.
> Hit a switch when flying hard.
> mounting external timer device somewhere

-----------------------------------------------------------
Method 2) Smart phone app with voice activation
such as voicewatch for ios
Pros:
> can get laps times and run times
> no other switches to hit

Cons:
> others sounds can trigger lap counter such as wind noise, motors, other people cheering you on.
> mounting Smart device somewhere

--------------------------------------------------------------
Method 3) OSD with battery warning
Pros:
> No need for second timer, just use the stopwatch function trigger by a switch to get run times

Cons:
> Visually pay attention to voltage or setup a low voltage warning (minosd)
> voltage can sage significantly under stress giving a false low battery warning
> more equipment to setup and maintain
.
.
.
.

[Diviner]

I thought this would be very simple. Find a place with trees, map out a course and go fly.



I hit google maps and scouted several places. When I got there I found that there was either tons of underbrush or wetlands.

Typical ama flying areas were certainly out of the question. They want guys flying a pattern. In fact, I talked to several large clubs in the area trying to recruit racers, but airplane guys have no interest. 100+ person clubs and no one flies FPV. That was a shocker.



The places that have pruned trees and no underbrush are parks or commercial office areas. Parks have people which can be hard to see when flying low and fast with goggles on and especially dangerous when flying alone.

Commercial spaces are excellent. They use evergreens which make for soft landings. They also don't have people floating around on the weekends, but do have police patrolling.

Our solution was really a stroke of good fortune. I found an FPV group that flies in a very large open commercial lot. Some of the guys were already FPVing quads so no "sell" job needed. People gather every weekend. The police love us and stop by frequently. But there are no natural trees to do course design. So . . .

I tried pool noodles which are useless. You can't see them until you are on top of them. And they are not tall enough. I tried making flag extensions but the weight just bent the noddles. I bought some used flags but they didn't come with stakes so I had to dig permanent holes and insert pvc tubing. Not a lot of fun with all the rain.

But now that everything is drying out, the clay is like concrete and the 15' feather flags stay upright very well.

I finally found banner_stands_4_less on ebay which had the best deal/variety.
http://www.ebay.com/usr/banner_stand...p2047675.l2559

I can setup in 10 minutes.

The feather banners on the left are what's considered the cheap Chinese ones ($50 with stand). The ones on the right I bought used on ebay ($20 without stand). They are much nicer but sell for much more. The holes have orange spray painted rocks all around so setting up is quick. Total cost was around $250. I was practicing hairpin turns last weekend and hit a flag. No damage to the flags from HQ carbon mix props.



A shot of the FPV flightline. Our common bond is FPV not aircraft type. A mix of AP guys with their expensive rigs, bixler plane guys and at the end are us racers. Lots of different equipment being used for lot of different circumstances. Very educational. Every week we get a few new guys showing up. I have never seen anything like it in the heli world.

[Subaru4WD]

Originally Posted by setishock

If you're close to the ground at high angles on any bird you stand a good chance of auguring in from loss of lift. Despite whatever controller. It's aerodynamic physics at play here not the flight controller.

!!!WRONG!!!

A properly tuned flight control board will HOLD THE ANGLE in acro mode, no matter what. Doesnt matter if resistance, wind or debri knock it off course, the flight control board records to desired angle, and if tuned correctly and operates correctly... will return to that angle and hold it until you give it new input.

A naza wont do it, because the operator does not have the ability to fine tune the parameters. Naza's are known for stability, not for speed.

[setishock]

Originally Posted by Subaru4wd

!!!WRONG!!!

A properly tuned flight control board will HOLD THE ANGLE in acro mode, no matter what. Doesnt matter if resistance, wind or debri knock it off course, the flight control board records to desired angle, and if tuned correctly and operates correctly... will return to that angle and hold it until you give it new input.

A naza wont do it, because the operator does not have the ability to fine tune the parameters. Naza's are known for stability, not for speed.

So you're telling me your open source flight controller can roll to 90 degs and not lose altitude and maintain straight and level flight? With no stick or throttle input?

[Subaru4WD]

Originally Posted by setishock

So you're telling me your open source flight controller can roll to 90 degs and not lose altitude and maintain straight and level flight? With no stick or throttle input?

I guess I misunderstood your original statement. I thought you meant all flight controllers tend to level themselves in flight.

[Diviner]

Captain Gregg and the wisecrackin' Sparky discuss hairpin turns.

[ame]http://youtu.be/QjK0tnBeAe0[/ame]

[jamesb72]

Great info and look forward to more fpvracing tips, not a fan of sparky though, would prefer stick positions on screen.

[Diviner]

Originally Posted by jamesb72

Great info and look forward to more fpvracing tips, not a fan of sparky though, would prefer stick positions on screen.

Sparky is under an exclusive, iron clad long term contract with helicopilot, so we have to live with Sparky for a while.


I was over on youtube last night watching your vids. You are a damn good flyer!!

[setishock]

Have you tried just a banking turn to get around the pylon? Come in banked hard, up high and dive down in the turn to maintain or gain energy. Flatten out at the end of the turn and climb a little to set up for the next turn.
Drifting through the turn to me requires you to maintain being flat while drifting through the turn. Drifting looks fancy but a high speed banked turn will get you in and out quicker.

[SeanM]

I agree with trying what Seti is suggesting, but the gains are still questionable. Going in fast for a banked turn will require a longer flight path than making a true hairpin turn, but the speed you maintain may be all that matters.

[Diviner]

Originally Posted by SeanM

I agree with trying what Seti is suggesting, but the gains are still questionable. Going in fast for a banked turn will require a longer flight path than making a true hairpin turn, but the speed you maintain may be all that matters.

I usually start higher so I can see the pylon better and dive a little.

Don't confuse a hairpin with a tight radius or a sweeper. With those you bank hard and fly through the turn as you both have suggested.

A lot of people think MR pylon racing is just like Red Bull airplane stuff. It isn't. They can't brake. The oval, little slalom, and perhaps pretzel are similar to Red bull stuff in that they are speed oriented and have a mix of slalom, sweepers and tight radius turns which would be flown just like an airplane. But the other 3 layouts have more hairpins and closely set tight radius turns. Going fast with an airplane style bank will cause you to fly way off course.

At speed you can only make a certain turning radius. No different than a race car. I treat hairpins like a tight funnel for helis. It is a high banked sideways turn. That way you can see the pylon.

The hard part is knowing where the pylon is at and also where you are going. If you treat it like an airplane you can't see where you are going as you will go too wide if don't shave off speed. Traveling the shortest distance is usually the fastest way. For example, look at the middle section of the Giant Slalom. Some of those turns come at you fast. It requires different entry speeds of hairpins. If you go too fast you will entirely miss the next turn.You have to control your speed. And going wide costs over 2 seconds per turn in lap times. Keep in mind we are running 1400kv on 4s. Things are happening pretty quick.

Another (new) challenge has been turning in earlier and banking quicker to avoid the overshoot (overshoots can cost up to 2 seconds). Again shortening the distance traveled. In car racing its called hitting the apex too early and you end up running off the track on the exit. With MRs, there is no way to easily correct if you screw it up by turning in too early. You just run into the pylon. It just happened last weekend and I tried to punch out and ran right into the top of the pole. I could hear the metal "ting" from across the field. Ouch.

But when it all comes together its magical. You carry good speed through the turn, don't have any unnecessary travel, your squared up for the exit without any rudder then just feather the throttle. You gain altitude so you can see you next turn while still having the nose down to accelerate forward.

Its a balance of distance traveled versus acceleration time. We are just starting to study different techniques.

What has helped immensely though is switching from 2.8mm to 2.1mm lens. Increasing the field of view means you are not guessing nearly as much as to where the poles are at. This "not seeing" where you are going is not something I am used to in other forms of racing. Soon I will be putting my servo gimbal back on and experimenting with headtracking.

It has been a ton of fun taking my old hobbies of car and ski racing and seeing which techniques apply. One technique universally taught is to look far beyond your next turn. Well, you can't do it with MR as your nose is down a lot. If you ever watch a video, see how much time is spent with the camera facing down. That is how you know the guy is ripping. If you always can see where you are going, you are coasting. The old saying in racing is there is no coasting. Your either on the throttle or on the brakes. For MR braking requires throttle, you are either always on the throttle or on the throttle.

But we will be experimenting all season. The beauty is the course is permanent so we have benchmarks. And we are out there every weekend trying to figure it all out. Fun.

This is where I am maintaining a diary of thing learned.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...5#post27878536

[Diviner]

Originally Posted by setishock

.Drifting through the turn to me requires you to maintain being flat while drifting through the turn. Drifting looks fancy but a high speed banked turn will get you in and out quicker.

A quad should be able to fly sideways (drift) as good as flying forwards. It is just a square with rotors at the corners. It doesn't have a front. Also, it isn't a really a drift. There is a high bank angle, but the bank is the nose down as opposed to traditional left or right side of an airplane.

A tri is a different story of course.

A comment made by one of the airplane guys was he wasn't use to using a rudder. He doesn't know how to yaw. Airplane guys never fly sideways. Heli guys fly sideways and use rudder all the time. That is why we get frustrated at the lack of yaw control. We are used to 600 degrees per second. MRs are a fraction of that.

I fly at an angle all the time primarily because for my machine it is easier than trying to control the yaw with high throttle. I am just compensating for the lack of quick yaw control.