Sea Land Air Paptor H650 XiaXiu 侠秀航模

I mounted the Runcam Thumb onto the canopy with the lens pointing rearwards as I'm always interested in watching how the prop and control surfaces are working.
Upon take off, it's immediately obvious there is some drag and wind turbulent noise audible from our position. Tail flexing is also noticeable from the video.
Video is Gyroflow corrected for lens distortion and locked horizon smoothing.
Would like to know what other onboard view angles are good. Do comment and like, thanks!
00:00 Take off sequence
01:07 Stunt button rolls
02:35 Manual roll (gyro off)
03:02 Vertical climb (gyro off)
04:00 Touch and go sequence
04:30 Low throttle high alpha (gyro on)
06:00 Landing approach
06:18 Lawn mower 🤣

[@redwingrc3270]

Nice video! The H650 and the larger HLK-31 are in stock at RedwingRC.

[@lebleup]

Hey really nice video. Is there any detail you can give on how you set this cam up on the Paptor? Thanks .

[@RCBobOng]

Thank you! My setup is nothing too complicated. I have a piece of fibreglass tape over the top side of the hatch cover (near the plane's COG). That tape has a good wide base upon which I attached double sided foam tape that will hold the Runcam steady with its original mount. For this video, I used a small 1S 380mAh LiPo as power source and tucked it under the hatch cover with tape to stop it flopping around. Whole setup is plug and play. Hope that helps.

[@RCBobOng]

I forgot to add... As the camera's original mount as a very narrow base meant for bolt-on, I glued another piece of thin plastic piece underneath it to widen the base. More surface area provides better opportunity for the foam tape to work. Not crash proven though. 😂

[@lebleup]

@@RCBobOng very nice! I just got a Paptor. It looks like I have a project to add to this new flight experience. Your idea is awesome! Thank you for sharing and again thanks for the videos they are very awesome.

[@RCBobOng]

@@lebleup Most versatile plane I've have and it takes off/lands on almost any surface. There's lot of room in the "cargo bay" for more payload. Certainly more interesting projects are possible! Enjoy!

[@lebleup]

The effect on the image in this video compared to the other two videos flying over the water that I saw; how do you explain the artifact in this one? Is it due to the lower voltage supplied by the 1S battery (3.7V) compared to the 5 V needed that you have as you described attached to an extra BEC that you mounted in the battery compartment as you described on another forum? Also it is very interesting to see how the ailerons maneuver short brief movements to adjust for any wind disturbance or manipulation. The camera images show quite a lot of the function on the tail end of this airplane. Great stuff!

[@RCBobOng]

The artifact is a result of using Gyroflow to perform video stabilisation with horizontal lock. The other 2 videos do not have stabilisation applied, only lens correction for the fisheye distortion. When Gyroflow stabilises the video, it has to crop the edges and corners in order to keep the background scenery in focus. I can either set it to dynamic zoom in (i.e., narrower field of view without crop) or leave it alone (the crop edges will be black). The former is good if you have a 4K high resolution footage which this is not. To get rid of the black edges, I applied "Repeat edge pixels" under the Advanced>Background mode settings. The resulting effect is what you see here. As for the 1S battery, it keeps the camera working until the voltage dips below 3.9V. That's when the camera records weird noises and its gyro data becomes inconsistent. The battery is good for about 10 minutes of recording. With the BEC set up, I can record whole day long, limited only by the flight batteries. 😊 Yes, the onboard footages reveal very interesting detail about the dynamic forces at play to keep the plane flying. I have other footages that show the amount of flexing the wings/tail experience under high G barrel rolls. I always prefer the viewpoint of control surfaces rather than the typical forward nose view. I guess for the same reason why some people prefer window seats on airliners. It's always interesting looking at the wing ailerons and flaps working hard, and then the deployment of engine reverse thruster upon touchdown. 😮

[@RCBobOng]

Having read your comment again, I'm not sure if I understood correctly which artifact you're referring to. 🤣 If you're referring to the artifact on the prop, that's more to do with the 'shutter' speed of the camera. It always happens when under a bright sunny day. Those videos that were taken at the river were done quite late at sunset. Less light equals slower shutter speed, more mesh up of any movement.

[@lebleup]

@@RCBobOng Yes that is what I observed. Thank you for the explanation. Now on the smaller battery opposed to the BEC bd, which method do you prefer on supplying 5 V that is derived from the “battery balancing plug” to the camera? That plug is located on the “ mother bd”? On the other hand, the battery supplies less than 5v to the camera? I believe the battery is 3.7 V? Thank you for the knowledge and experience sharing.

[@RCBobOng]

I prefer to have the separate BEC board supplying that 5V. As much as possible, I try not to use the power from the plane's receiver board in case I mess up the servos. The battery balancing plug is the white connector on the battery lead that you will connect the stock charger to. I have to get the female side and solder a pair of cable to it. The other end terminates with the red JST male plug, which will connect to the JST lead coming off the BEC. You can google around and should look for something like this: www.ebay.com/itm/225249131826?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=TsaqCyq1Scq&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY The 1S battery working voltage is from 4.2V to 3.3V. The camera requires 5V, however I've tested it to be working properly down to 3.9V.

[@lebleup]

@@RCBobOng excellent information! It’s amazing how quickly this Paptor elevates to high altitude. Mine came with a 3000kv brushless motor. The recommended spare they show during purchase of the Paptor is only 2300kv. I ordered a replacement on the parts breakdown list, but it doesn’t show the kv value in the parts listing. We’ll see when it arrives. I always like to have spare parts on hand. Salt water in my area can be a problem.

[@swede5209]

What kind of camera? Mine Raptor just came in the mail today.

[@RCBobOng]

It's a Runcam Thumb powered off a small 1S lipo battery. Have fun with the Raptor!

[@swede5209]

@@RCBobOngThanks. I have a NorthStar, Skipper and now this Raptor. They just all fly great. Nice airframes.