Sir 2th - Rebirth - FPVManuals QAV400 CC3D

Описание: Short story long...

Wow. What an oddly amazing, full circle type day. My friend tipped me off to a cool location where you can walk out and sit right at the edge of a waterfall. I couldnt pass up the opportunity to go flying. Got there and quickly realized if she went down I wasnt getting her back. Oh well, its just stuff, screw it I'm flying. So I go sit at the edge and get started. It was windy and the falls created a fair amount of turbulence to boot, but it was manageable. The first two batteries went well. I was getting setup for the last flight and was plotting out some different shots that I haven't captured, perhaps something more aggressive. The area was kinda bowl shaped so I decided to do a fast sweeping pass across the falls...

Fast forward to that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when something irreversibly bad, and not to mention expensive, has occurred. My friend could tell by my reaction what had gone down, literally. My first reaction was to run down there and save it before it got really soaked and waterlogged, but then I realized its about a 15 minute treacherous walk to the bottom. So I packed up my now useless gear and we headed down. I wasnt really pissed off. I knew the risks. I was just bummin.

We finally got to the base of the falls. I figured it went down right up against the face of the rocks, you know, cuz thats what I smashed into. I'm a good detective like that. I man up and crawl in. The water took my breath away. I'm guessing high 50's water temperature (aka too cold to go willingly swimming for you non imperial unit using types). After about a minute my body acclimated and I ventured out to where I was guessing it was. Right along the base of the falls was a little edge where you could grab on and not drown (except for the water pounding your head and making it really difficult to take a dry breath). Below that it was deep and black, even in the sunlight. I dove down about ten times along the ridge but saw nothing. After 20 minutes in the water I was frozen, so I gave up.

I told the clan the tale of woe via Facebook. I have a few friends who scuba dive and offered them this once in a lifetime opportunity to do a little search and rescue diving while at the base of a tropical waterfall. They were eager to help, but said it would be a few days before they could make the hour drive with their gear. One of them offered up a full wetsuit and flippers and a mask if I wanted to go look again. I gladly accepted. So we went back a little before sunset, only a little more prepared. The wetsuit made it like bathwater, so nice. Problem was, after the first 5 feet of jagged rocks near the surface it just went straight down. So I went down as deep as I could without chickening out. I dove along the ridge for about 45 minutes. About to call it off, on my way back to shore I made some passes a little further over. I went down and there she was! On her back. I only saw her because the battery pack had come apart badly and the metallic cells were shiny little beacons. I estimate she came to rest about 15' below the surface. I got really lucky since in the area was a little shelf that saved her from going further down, where I couldnt see and would not have ventured. I came to the surface elated. I hoisted her up proudly for my wife to see. There was much rejoicing.

She's a wreck: 2 plates ruined, FPV cam split in two, 4 bobbins sheared, not to mention everything was submerged for several hours. I've dunked Aurora a few times, but they were brief and she was quickly retrieved. Days of warm airflow will be required before I try to plug anything back in. So the moment of truth...the footage. GoPro still attached, memory card in tact...win. Did I mention that, besides the Layer Lens, the camera is naked? I blow a few hours worth of warm air over the memory card and give it a go. Computer recognizes it, there are files...I like. First two flights are on there and they work...cool. The disaster flight file is there, but its corrupted...boo. Google tells me there are ways to fix corrupted MP4's, but with GoPro's it typically cuts off the last 30 seconds of footage. Well, bummer. I give it a shot and it spits me out a video, the black box recording if you will. I keep waiting for the video to cut out around 30 seconds before the crash, yet it doesnt. 20 seconds, 15, 10, 5...crash! Cool, I got it. Not only did I get the tragedy, but that son of a bitchin GoPro recorded for another 8 minutes underwater WITHOUT a case! I could rant about how much I love that camera. I've been trying to destroy it for years, but it just wont die.

Music:
Purity Ring - Saltkin
Remy Zero - Save Me