 From Orlando, Florida, it's FPV Late Night. Tonight, our special guest is Captain Uno and your host, Cappuccino. Thank you, I gotta go back here. Thank you. Welcome to tonight's episode of FPV Late Night. I hope our comedian is ready. Tonight, we have a special guest which you might recognize, and his name is Ladriv. Let's hear it. What's the deal with PDVs? They don't even distribute power. They distribute current. If you laughed at that, you're a nerd. I am a nerd. So you know the difference between power and current. What else? We just relocated the whole company to Florida. I don't know why you didn't say that bad. Oh, come on. You wouldn't be invited to sit down. What's up? That's the thing. Yeah, if the comedian is good, they get invited to sit down. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. You know what, you did pretty good, but you're going to have to exit through the curtains. I think we're going to cut this out. No, it's going in. It's going in. You missed. Okay, while you're exiting, I'll go ahead and announce our guest tonight is a good friend of mine and a local to me in Ohio. Well, about an hour away. His name is Captain Uno. Let's hear it for Captain Uno. Fixing our curtains and everything, man. How's it going? I'm sorry. I'm not good at that stuff, anyhow. He made me breakfast this morning. That was amazing. He made me sausage and eggs and two pieces of toast. Did you enjoy it? Yes, I did. Thank you. You're welcome. We're welcome. Yeah, so you're going to die later. Yeah, we. So we met almost what three years ago. I would say maybe four. Yeah, I do believe so. Yeah, and you were on an episode of Road to Riot. Yes, I was. That's actually how we met. You got a vortex. Yes, I did. Yes, you still have that. I still do. Yes, I still have that vortex. Yes, it's on my workbench and like my area right there. It's like a memorabilia piece. Why don't you tell us about your perspective of the story and just assume nobody here knows who you are. Tell them why did we find you so interesting? Huh. I mean, aside from your. That's hard for me to speak for you though. Maybe for the fact that, you know, I was flying drones with one hand. Yes, you heard him flying drones with one hand. Better than, well, this hand. Better than I can with two. It took me a long time to learn how to do it. Quite a few months. I had a lot of people support me, push through. I didn't have anybody to go answer a lot of questions to like how you fly one handed. So I kind of really had to like figure it out on my own. Yeah, I mean, this hobby is hard enough to figure out just how to do it regularly. Right. Yeah, and you had to figure out how to do it with one hand. Yeah, well, there was nobody to teach you how to fly one handed, Robert. So Robert, you're your own teacher and student. So get to work if you want it. Okay, so this was actually here on this trip and adventure. Yeah. So this video here is rather new. It's a day or two. It's literally, I think like yesterday, right? It was a rip. Yeah. So I mean, you got a move coming up here where you went over the tree and I mean, you got inches away from the branches and you did. What do you call that? It's like a front flip. It's like a front flip right over the tree, I do believe. Yeah. I don't think there's any names for half of these moves anyway. Just do them. Oh, I'm sure there's names right there. I love it. I mean, I still, I've watched you fly. Right. I see how you do it and it still blows my mind. Well, this rip right here was actually Jamie. She was talking to my ear like, come on. Oh, she was pushing it. And I was like, all right, you know, I guess I'll do an aggressive rip. I really don't like fly aggressively. So you're showing off for Jamie. I guess so, maybe. I was showing off for the whole crew. I don't get to fly for like Dribb and David Scrooge or any of the other wonderful pilots, Jeff and Jamie and all those guys that were with us. It's wonderful. It's kind of like you rise up to the level of skill around you. I think, you know, even if it's, yeah, I think it has a lot to do with, I don't know. It just gets the adrenaline pumping. My best move was with you under the bridge. Well, your best move, your best luck move? Oh, yeah. I don't remember that day. It doesn't matter. No, it was. You know what? That was luck. Robert, I'm going to take that back. Actually, yeah, I actually kind of had a lucky fly with one hand, so I ain't got a lot. No, that is truly a skill. Thank you. And how do people normally react when they see you flying? Do you ever have people like watch through the goggles first and then they meet you or then walk over and see you flying and they're like their mind is blown? Well, see, there's a very high level of skill in the pilot community in my area throughout the whole industry and community. I mean, all the new people coming in back from when, like when I was watching Chad Novak and Sharpew and Tommy and all those guys when your first hardcore group of rotor riots, which really got me part of my inspiration. You know, it's like, oh, man, you're going to be able to fly like some of those guys, Robert. You know, they're like two hands and maybe I'll class you by, you know, a lot of training. So to really compare my style of flying maybe with some of the aggressive styles that they have, I don't know. I'm probably my worst-own critic. So it's like, maybe that's why I don't really promote my YouTube so much because I think my skill level probably where it needs to be to the level of caliber to like what I watch all the time and who I fly with in my local area. What I see with you, like when we were at Rampage, people are really inspired by what you do and it gets people thinking they're like, well, I've got two hands and the only thing keeping me back is fear where you had fear and a physical hurdle to overcome. I think fear becomes the biggest hindrance to learning to fly FPV. And I know one thing that you do is you visit, you visited schools, you've done speeches. Oh, as a matter of fact, I just went to my daughter's, my daughter asked me to go to career day and talk to all of her school about, you know, kind of like what I do or people, you know, their parents' careers and she's like, Dad, man, I want you to go in here and talk about drones, man, and how you're traveling the country and inspired people, man, come on in here, the kids would love it. And I was like, are you sure, honey? Because I know how cruel kids can be and like not all of her classmates probably know that her dad's one-handed or anything like that or has a disability or a challenge. Wait, now were you worried about that? In the beginning, I was worried about it for my daughter's sake because I know how kids are. So I didn't want my daughter to get teased by, you know, maybe her classmates, you know, and I just know how it is. So I don't even want to like cast anything in the future. So was that the case? No, it actually wasn't the case. What happened was I just went in there and made an impression on the kids and I kind of shared with them that all of your goals and dreams, you know what I'm saying? Don't let nobody tell you in point fingers what you can and can't do. You know what I'm saying? Because there's going to be a lot of people. There's going to be a lot of people and a lot of naysayers that say you really can't accomplish nothing in life. And if you listen to them, then I'm going to be honest, you probably won't accomplish anything in life. I would 100% agree with you. So believe in yourself and surround yourself with people that kind of clap for your successes. That's awesome. That's really great. So where would you like to take this next? I mean, FPV is more than a hobby for you. No, FPV is like, it's really like a, it's part of me now. I've kind of like flown RC planes and stuff like that for a while. But the last four years has been a great adventure. I really don't want it to stop. I want to continue to make an impact on people and let people know that, you know, any setback or anything that kind of like happens in their life, it's really only minor for like a small period of time. That setback is like an arrow. It's like the arrow getting pulled back on a bow, the tension. Yeah, okay, bad things happen, you know? I mean, our society has grown to where kind of in a way a lot of people hear the word no or hear somebody say, yeah, you'll never do that or you can't do that and actually believe them, you know what I'm saying? But that tension is what is going to launch you, you know, to your target and where you want to go. So sometimes some people are accustomed to that and sometimes some people ain't. You know, and where I grew up in my area and stuff like that, after my accident, I kind of had a lot of that upon me. You know what I'm saying? I kind of back in the early, you know, early 80s, late 90s, a lot of it was like the lifestyle and the area was a lot of like gang violence, Crips, Bloods type stuff and not maybe just in my area, but throughout the country, you know, like the West Coast versus the East Coast. Well, it's kind of one of the reasons that made me go be a Black Belt martial arts was the fact that, you know... So you're a Black Belt martial art, what, Taekwondo? No, I'm actually a Black Belt in like a multiple disciplines like Muay Thai kickboxing. Oh, wow. A little bit of Jekundo. It's really, I don't call it Black Belt in Jekundo. It's called like phase three, phase four. They go in phases, not belts. And Filipino screamer. I really like stick fighting and knife fighting. You still do that? Every day, I swing my stick every day. It's kind of like the key to being good at anything is... The doctor tells you to eat an apple a day, keeps the doctor away. It's not, oh, I didn't eat apples all week. Let me eat seven of them on Saturday. It's the daily routine. So a lot of people like in martial arts or anything that want to be good at anything, it's not, oh, let me go to the dojo twice a week and spend six hours there and I could be good after 10, 20 years of practice. I think there's a lot of truth to consistency. It's five minutes a day. Yeah. So my stick teacher said, you want to be a stick master one day and you want to be really good? Swing your stick five minutes a day. Well, you want to be good at FPV? Go fly a couple packs a day. You know, so... Robert, I want to ask you a hard question. Sure. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to. I don't have to? No. All right, bye. But you have to stay here. All right. So you've never covered this personally. So this would be the first time I heard it. Okay. You never told me the accident that happened. Are you willing to talk about that? Yeah, I can talk about that. No, it's been like 30-plus years. I expected you to say no, but... No, no, I can talk about that. However difficult it is, I think it's going to inspire somebody. Basically, what happened was this. Wrong association, Joyriden. Just wrong place at the wrong time, car accident. I was a passenger. I was in an accident. It was in an intersection, T-bone. I was trapped in a car. So they had to kind of like, jaws of life me out of the car. Did everybody live? I don't remember. No, everybody lived, but I remember none of it. I'm only really telling you the story I was kind of told because I totally blacked out everything on that. Next thing you know, I'm in a hospital. I'm waking up. I'm like, oh, you know, let me get out of bed. And I got... Well, I couldn't move. I literally, my whole right side of my body was like gone. So you had to learn to walk again? Oh, I had to learn everything. The doctors weren't even sure I'd be walking. Wow. The doctors were like, well, firstly, we're like, Robert, we're not sure if you're going to walk again. And then they were like, well, Robert, man, you had a real bad head injury, man. We're not sure you might be able to compute so well again in the future. So be prepared for that. Well, I would say your reaction time is quite good. No, thank you. Thank you. And then they were like, Robert, oh, one more thing. You're probably not going to be able to use your right arm ever again in your life. Yeah. It was kind of a setback. I kind of cried for like many years, well, really heavy at that time, but many years afterwards. But now it's like, I do things now. I don't even think my able to body hand person can go off and do now. I'm like impacting lives and making differences and just really living a whole different lifestyle now. Wow. It's great. I appreciate it. And I want to thank you for part of that. Thank you. Well, you're absolutely welcome. So something I hope for for you is that you continue speaking, that you continue going out and meeting with people and encouraging them and inspiring them like you do. I think the universe is directing me that way, boss. Well, good. So I think it's going to happen. I'm really glad to hear that. The accident happened. And for many years, I was on a dark road. You know, just doing the wrong things, boo-hoo, Y-Me type stuff. But just doing the wrong things, hanging around the wrong people, thinking the wrong way. And just one day, I just actually was like, I was 29 years old. I knew 30 was right around the corner. And I was just like, hey, if I don't change my life, I'm probably going to end up in prison dead or whatever else. So I changed my life and turned it all around, quit all the bad stuff, quit all the bad association. And really at that point in time, I got involved in martial arts. That's really what it was. Martial arts helped me to beat that old guy out. Get that guy out of there. You want to be a different guy. So that's really kind of what I used martial arts for. So having probably a positive focus. Well, I've seen a better vision of myself at that time. Nice. Maybe it was better from the moment I was and it was still flawed from my vision. It got me moving in the right direction. Even though I still maybe, I've always kind of, I believe in myself enough for the things I really want to do. But some of the things I know that maybe, I always want to do, but maybe might not seem capable now or a possibility now. I kind of pushed him away. So for many years after I kind of left that old lifestyle, I was still pushing where I wanted to go away. Okay. So, you know, I, and then like I met my wife now at 32. And then I was still kind of like pushing things away in my life. And I was like 35 hit. I was just like, man, I'm tired of telling myself I'm not doing the things I've always wanted to do. Right. So that's, that was the like defining moment. So then after that, I was like boom, I went skydiving my girlfriend, my wife now, but my girlfriend at the time. She's like, yeah, I'll go watch you. Then she was like, man, I'm going skydiving with you. And she jumped out the plane with me. Wow. And kind of like it was her first time being on a plane, first time ever that she went skydiving with me. And I kind of like knew her. So that was a special moment. Yes, it was. So shortly after that, we got kind of went skydiving. I got married. I've been ziplining. I've walked across fire coals. I'm kind of that guy that wants to go out and do those things. You walked across fire coals? Oh yeah, barefooted. Really? Yeah, sure, why not? I've never, I don't think I believe that stuff was real. You don't believe, do you believe you're real? I'm not sure. We all have the capabilities to walk across hot coals barefooted. Wait, how does that work? Because if I held a lighter under your foot, I'm pretty sure it would blister. Probably, but see, you've got to leave it there. So the first thing is it's really mind over matter. Okay. Right. I mean, look at the monks, what they do. So do you think like the fear of it is bringing the pain on sinners and the physical pain? Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Yes. And it's just really, you get psyched up and once you're psyched up about it, you're like, man, I got this. And the coals just represent like all the fear in other areas of your life. You just get across it quickly. You walk very fast. Don't think about it. Focus on breathing. Focus on, man, I'm getting through this. And before you know it, you walk through it and you're like done. And then you're like, wow, I did that. So how I can do that? And then you believe in yourself. How many people in the audience would walk across hot coals? Wait, how many people have walked across hot coals? Intentionally? Yes. I'm talking to a man called Kyle. Yeah. He's like, intentionally? All right. No, that's pretty cool. So I kind of, that was my lifestyle. So I went zip lining. Like I said, me and my wife did all these crazy adventures together. Wow. And then we had kids and then all those crazy adventures. That's the craziest. Yeah, crazy. And then FPV, maybe? Yeah. And now it's a new adventure. So what kind of advice, learning to fly FPV is, like we mentioned, it's hard. What advice would you give people that want to learn to fly FPV? Man, there's a whole list. One doesn't simply just get into FPV. Sounds like old age wisdom. Oh, it is definitely. And believe me, I repeated that line after I learned it. Probably my best advice for anybody that wants to get started in FPV, is to believe in yourself and say you can do it first. And then surround yourself with your local pilot crew. Okay. Because a lot of people learn things different ways. So maybe a lot of people don't have access to the internet, but they can learn hands-on. And there's like chapters and crews in every state, everywhere. I mean, I race with multi-GP2 as well as freestyle. So I mean, literally those pilots freestyle and race. So if you can find a chapter or find out where a local pilot crew is in your area, get with that crew. Because those guys are going to want to get you up in the air. And they're going to want to see you be successful in flying an FPV. I definitely see that a lot. I see people excited to mentor people. I think it's connecting with them. Through the FPV community, I meet a lot of new people all the time. Social media. And these new people are like, hey, I'm coming to the Cleveland area. I want to do just the same thing. So I'm like, all right, well, you're in a couple days, man. Come stay at my house. And my wife is like, man, you don't know that guy. I'm like, oh, well, I kind of do. And I got the vibe for it. What do you mean you got the vibe? You never met him. Wait, you have strangers stay at your house? I sure do. Because they're involved with FPV? Yes, I do. Huh. Can I stay at your house? You sure can. Anyone of you guys can stay at my house? I don't care. Can I pick one to stay at your house? You sure can. I'll cook them breakfast too. He will. No, this is great, Robert. I really appreciate you coming out here and talking to us about this. Chad, I'm honored. I'm humbled. And I'm here to serve the FPV. Well, you guys showed me the kindness. I want to return a favor. And everybody's kind of like supported me and said, Robert, man, you're doing great things. Man, get out there and do more. We need to see more of you. And so a lot of people have been clamoring on my YouTube channel. Robert, get it going. Because I kind of wiped it clean a while back ago and then never really focused on it. Wait, you wiped it clean. Yeah, I did. Why? I wasn't happy with it. Well, okay, that's not a bad reason. No, I just wasn't. Because you're forcing yourself to start over. Right, I just wasn't happy with it and nuked it and got rid of all my videos and really probably haven't put up no video in over a year. So this trip is going to be this trip right here. I'm taking my GoPro home. I'm going to have some people edit some videos and probably relaunch and you guys can start, I guess, maybe following. Nice. I think that's great. Tell me about who inspired you to get into this or when you got into it? Who were the most inspirational people? The people that really inspired me to get going was I got to be honest, really my local crew guys. Cleveland Quad Squad, right? Yes, well, the Cleveland Quad Squad was us in a way. My cousin Matt and my longtime friend, Scott Hardesty, H4L, Heisenberg, my favorite freestyle pilot, Ian Pataki, Thrash, FPV. It was just Cleveland Quad Squad was just like me and Matt. He, Matt and Ian and they were in an episode. Yeah, yeah, so it just kind of flooded from there and then they were my biggest inspiration, especially, you know, Matt pushing me. My old friend Scott like, dude, man, we're doing this. Come on with us. They literally kind of like dragged me kicking and screaming to my first race to go meet Paul Atkins, the race organizer from Multi-GP out of Akron. I was like, yeah, all right, I guess I'll go. Come on. So I went, I hated it. I literally did not like it. I'm used to flying my planes, six, seven minutes, land what I want, sit back, go back up on another battery when I want. The race is you, on time. Hurry up, be a spotter. Oh, two minutes, and if you crash out in 30 seconds, you got to wait another probably 15, 20 minutes before your next heat again. And after my first race, I was like, man, I hate it. I told Paul, I was like, man, I ain't doing this. I'll never, I ain't doing this. I just, I didn't have no fun. And then like on social media, two weeks literally after the day, I told Paul, I ain't racing, I didn't like it. It was Chad Noah was coming to Akron and gonna stop in in our chapter and kind of fly and give us some race tips. And at that point in time, I do believe he was like the champ that year, like the number one best pilot. Well, he's the first drone racing champion ever. Well, that's what I said. And then Steel was like the top freestyle other than Sharpew at the time, but Steel won a competition for freestyle. It was like number one. So I was watching those guys for like six, seven months up late at night, working the simulator, watching videos, learning how to do this because I want to go pod racing through the trees too. And went out and met Chad Noah and kind of the rest was history for the past four years with the Road to Ride episode and you know, meeting you and following up with you and just really your, your belief in me over the past four years, seeing something maybe I probably didn't see in myself that I see now. Oh, I see now. Believe it. Let's do this. And that's it. That's where it is now. We're here, you know, on this adventure now and wherever it's going to lead. Well, I'm thrilled to have you here and I'm sure all of you guys are as well. So, you know, something we haven't done yet, but I'd like to open up to questions to the audience. Let's see if there's any questions. You know what? Let me get the microphone ready here. Go ahead and say your name and where you're from. Sure. My name is Hector. I'm from Oviedo, Florida. Hey, Hector. I'm a newbie. I guess my question was you were talking a little bit about what it takes to really just get out there and put yourself out there. So, and I know we talked a little bit before, you know, is how, where do you start to find that support network? I would recommend getting on, you know, the Roto Riot Facebook group, you know, maybe associating yourself with some other good FPV groups that want to help you. I have a team of people that like guys in wheelchairs yourself that we can all like give you the pointers that you need to get to where you want to go. This has been really an awesome journey. And try to find your local, try to find your local guys because your local guys are going to look at you and be like, dude, what do we got to do to get you in the air? And your local guys are going to be like, hey, I, these idea and this idea and this idea and they're going to, you know, try to do what they can and I'm going to try to go from a distance, long distance relationship here and try to be like, all right, who's going to in that area that can really hands on help you and help the people you're associating with? It's awesome. Thank you so much. No, you're welcome, you're welcome. Thank you. Thanks for your question. Any other questions? So, I'm Jamie and I'm from Surf City, North Carolina. What I want to know is a lot of people, the people that get to watch your videos and talk to you right now and stuff, they don't actually see how you hold. So, how do you work both the throttle and the pitch roll with only one hand? It's magic. No. You know what, we have it in the episode, right? Hand placement in general. Kind of in a way, we kind of have it a little bit in the old Road to Ride episode. But here, let me get one of these controls. All you guys here, I sit, so I need a platform here because if I have the lanyard hooked, it gets in the way of my controller. But my pinch here between my pinky and my palm here becomes my pinch. Here, I'm doing everything I need to do just by controlling. There's my spread. It kind of works. I'm kind of getting all everything I need. Yeah, you're hitting all the corners. All the corners. With both steps. Now, I don't use no expo. Everything's all center. Very light yaw and I can get like a little yaw is what maybe a lot of people would yank their yaw. It's just a little bit. That's all I need right here. And it gets me to do what I got to do. Thank you for showing me. That's a great question. Thank you. You have absolutely inspired many people. I've seen firsthand and I want to do anything that I can to help move that forward and support you doing that. Well, Jed, yeah, you know, you're like a mentor to me. So thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. I'm really glad to see you now. We're going to wrap up this episode of Late Night FPV. Robert, thank you again. No, thank you, Jed. I appreciate it. Thank you guys all for coming. And we'll see you next time. Woo! And thank you, Taco Bell!