Experimental Airlines

Produced from 5 flights over 2 days at Mission Beach and Mission Bay Park in San Diego, California late March 2013. The weather was probably the most amazing I have ever felt anywhere I've visited, though there was a constant 5-10mph wind. I can see why people want to live here! The beach is nice white sand but with a healthy collection of kelp and a pretty constant onshore wind, but the flying is surprisingly smooth. Mission Bay Park has many miles of shoreline, a lot of it with beaches, but some seawall rocks, jetties, marinas, and other features. I looked at a very small section of the whole park, mostly because I had no means of recovering my plane if I ditched it.

I used a GoPro2 on my foamboard scratchbuilt Synapse FPV plane and DragonLink for control. I first flew on the bay side and landed on the beach longways, under FPV sight. The rotors from the houses on this side caused a great deal of turbulence below 150 feet altitude so my video on that side is mostly up high. The second day I flew on the beach side and was able to fly down to about 20 feet altitude despite the onshore breeze because there was no terrain or house-induced turbulence. I landed cross-beach and line of sight because of the people and kelp strewn around the beach. Despite the moment of blindness that happens when I took off my video goggles I found this landing method to be more comfortable in this particular setting with dynamic landing environment (aka: people walking around).

Operating FPV in a beach environment was quite a bit different than am used to and a good learning experience. I know these beach FPV videos are kind of cliche but I had to get at least one under my belt, especially since I live in the desert. PM me with any questions you have.

Thanks for watching!

The music is "Another Day On The Terrace" by Sunlounger.