I am happy to report I received the following email…
David Bott,
My girlfriend told me this morning that where she is currently employed a drone type helocopter had crashed into there dust collector system!!
I had to go check it out….Long story short I googled the name on inside along with xaircraftx 650, i saw 68 videos on youtube matching my search results.. On the youtube page it had a link to Outside Our Bubble and thats where i’m at now… Ray Yoder is the business owner and he asked me if i could get in touch with you so you can come pick it up…
Hopefully this will help.
Phone for Ray is (removed)
…It was one amazing email to have received to say the least. Even though the X650 is broken, I do have at least the parts back that I can reuse. And even better, we have the video of it’s travels.
The Yoder family was wonderful and they all came around not only to see the X650 , but the video taken from it.
Below is the video of the flight. But before you choose to view it expecting to see the crash at the end, it was not their. The GoPro clipped off the last 15 seconds of the video when it crashed to save the file. But the video itself is a nice flight over Amish landscape. And you will see, 160 feet was the right choice in height. :) I also added text comments throughout the video. It’s 11 minutes long and covers 2.5 miles over Amish country side.
In the mean time when I did not think it would be found, I did start to build another UAV. After all, we have quite a number of people following us and I wanted to be able to continue the videos. (And it is a lot of fun and we meet a lot of people.) I had a kit I ordered over a month ago so I pulled it out and spent all day last Sunday building the new X650Pro unit. I was able to build the frame, mount the flight controller, program it for flight, and even had it’s first test flight. So, we will be back in the air soon. Below are the photos of that process.
All in all, thanks to everyone that commented. And yes, I am currently looking at GPS trackers. :)
YAY!!!! I am so happy for you! I hoped this would be the outcome. What an interesting story you now have to tell. I can’t watch the video now because we’re in a state park with crappy signal, but I’ll be sure to check it out this weekend. I sent you an email back – hoping we can figure out how to meet up sometime!
Hi David and Brenda, the youngest at RVFEST 2010 in Goshen, Indiana! You sure do make many days much happier for me by following your adventures. Outside Our Bubble is fine reading – thank you for shareing your experiences. Many entries bring back fond memories – looking for the perfect motor home (there is no such thing!) and experiencing all of the disappointments! You may remember, we are driving a Tiffin Allegro Bay FRED 37QSB and we love it. Many thanks for including us in your distribution list. LTA, Les and Jean
It’s Fun to build if you have all parts already…. By the way, what controller are you going to use?
Hi Alex…
I use a Futaba radio and the fight controller is a DJI Wookong M in the new one. The one that had the journey had a DJI Naza.
In two weeks we are going to Oregon. Last Year in Arizona I did a lot of flights without any malfunctions of Naza, but for now I’m scary to fly. Back to old version, all looks fine, but who knows..Have another quad with APM 2,5 , but it’s going as spare .
I’m going to take my glider Pulsar 3.2m with attached camera GoPro on top
I did a couple of test flights. Looks no bad.
Next Year European manufacturer of gliders Pulsar is going to release special glider for FPV, so it will be Fun to fly with autopilot.
What great news, hats off to the Yoder Family, it’s so nice to hear about good families who choose everyday to do the right thing, I know it may not seem like something extraordinary, but it is…..thanks. And to David, this is the beginning of an uphill trend of good news, good fortune, and good blog posts…..G
AMAZING………………………..
I am so happy for you David i was praying that you would find someone who found it and you would get it back..
Mike Isn’t it amazing how prayer works and how God is concerned even with the little things? I prayed too.
I enjoyed that very much. So relaxing with the music. Good for stress reduction. Glad to see there is a happy ending after all. Good luck on your future travels.
Wow.. Talk about luck… At least the tide has turned a bit for you. Thanks for sharing!
That’s great news! Glad you were able to recover the video and now have your spare parts back. Keep up the flight videos!
I’m so glad you were able to retrieve it. How awesome that the person tracked you down on the internet and was gracious enough to contact you. I was going to suggest a GPS tracker but saw that others did. Love you guys!
I keep my cell phone # on mine. Keep up the great videos & blog!
Long live AVSForum!
Wow, what a great video and story. A unique way to see the country side, too. I love that RV park, just beautiful. How do they keep the grass in such good condition with the RVs driving on it?
Glad you got it back!