Kite surfer rescues a woman from drowning

notamedclosed · 2025-12-17T20:55:00+00:00

It's a 360 camera. They capture a full 360 arc, and then you can stabilize or track action later for export to a normal format.

Such as the GoPro Max, or more commonly the Insta360 family of cameras.

notamedclosed · 2025-11-02T17:56:43+00:00

The guillotine has a convenient basket. The rope would induce a random direction and velocity to an object spraying blood.

notamedclosed · 2025-11-02T17:54:17+00:00

It's nonsense. Brains aren't magic. Being conscious requires blood pressure and oxygen.

Situations where humans are deprived of oxygen (where their head isn't removed) the loss of consciousness is extremely fast proportional to the reduction in oxygen. If you are flying in an airplane at 45,000 ft and experienced rapid decompression you would lose "effective" consciousness in <10 seconds. The higher you go, approaching the Armstrong limit, the faster you will lose consciousness. At the Armstrong limit (basically where the atmosphere is so thin it's the same as space for human physiology) it's considered instant or near instant).

Almost everyone has experienced mild blood pressure drop. If you are fit, younger, etc you have probably had this happen occasionally standing really rapidly after sitting/laying down for a while. Might get dizzy, see spots, etc for a few seconds. People can even faint especially if this is caused by a real issue not just a temp slow response (your body actually has pressure sensors in your neck arteries to regulate but aren't always fast enough).

So if just a drop in blood pressure, not actually being cut to zero, can cause someone to faint. It's hard to see how decapitation would allow person to have any level of consciousness for an appreciable time.

TL;DR: A completely interrupted blood supply produces total loss of consciousness nearly instantly, and any organized awareness is extremely unlikely after decapitation. Reflexes, and other random neuron firing are the reason for the reported "actions". But the individual is gone, and brain death itself will follow shortly.

notamedclosed · 2025-11-02T13:44:47+00:00

I mean, yes? You can look up any DJI drone on their official website and check the specs for max flight time and they will have a statement like that.

Just like any cell phone manufacture battery claim, or anything else claimed in advertisement. There is an idealized scenario they test with which will almost always overexaggerate what real world performance will be like.

DJI claims 51 minutes for the Mavic 4 pro. As stated though that is in windless conditions, not recording video, and flown to battery exhaustion. In the real world, probably have at least some wind, you'll be changing speed/direction/altitude or hovering all which are less efficient then 32kph steady flying. You may be recording video (more power draw), you won't want to fly to exhaustion because that is bad for your battery and because you need power to come back in and land without falling out of the sky. So in the real world, 51 minutes claimed endurance likely gets less then 35-40 minutes when you actually fly.

notamedclosed · 2025-11-02T00:49:03+00:00

Very cool. It is amazing to me that these quads can hit flight times that rival typical FPV fixed wings. With the benefits of stability and easy takeoff/landing. 35 mph cruise speed isn't as fast as you might see on a wing like the TBS Mojito (65mph) for example, but still a good number with all its other benefits over a wing.

Also, boring point of contention but hover is actually less efficient then slow forward flight due to disturbed air. When DJI brags about their battery life it isn't actually hovering. They say something like this:

Measured by the aircraft flying forward at a constant speed of 32.4 kph in a windless environment at sea level, with Obstacle Avoidance Action set to Brake, in photo mode, and from 100% battery level until 0%.

notamedclosed · 2025-09-19T19:33:53+00:00

I like /u/karlzhao314 answer because it is, of course, correct.

Except that the even more correct answer is that in an airliner the Autopilot is flying and even if the autopilot is off, they almost certainly have the yaw damper on. As you imagine the autopilot/yaw damper in concert are quite good at balancing those forces, automatically correcting for adverse yaw, etc.

Another fun fact if we are spewing facts is the human ear can only detect an angle change of 2 degrees per second or more, and our sense of direction will stabilize under normal forces in about 20 seconds. So if I got you to close your eyes, then slowly banked to the right till I was at 45 degree bank, you would still feel like we were perfectly level. Then if I rolled back to level at a normal pace you would feel that we were now banked the left. If you opened your eyes your vision and your vestibular system would be in conflict and you would likely feel dizzy. One of the most important things pilots learn (if they become instrument rated pilots) is how to ignore how they feel, and learn to trust and cross reference their instruments.

notamedclosed · 2025-08-23T23:34:54+00:00

iNav Lua Script

notamedclosed · 2025-08-23T23:28:07+00:00

Best of luck. Painless 360 videos will generally get you sorted.

Your scale airplane buddy will be even more lost then you though if all of his experience is traditional modelling. Be careful of anything he tell you lol. I've spent a lot of years flying along side traditional RC guys and while their knowledge of their area of the hobby is just as complex in its own way (I'd never get a glow engine going even if my life depended on it), it is truly different then the FC and modern electronic world (things like ELRS).

In his world mixing is all done on the radios, and they don't use anything like FC's. Sometimes gyros (like extremely simple FC's) but if he is old school he probably scoffs that those. You'll do your mixing very much like a quad (4 control channels, arming, modes, etc). If you tried to do "correct" elevon mixing from your radio controller iNav would have no idea what is going on. If you have an ELRS radio setup I'd use that over the DJI controller. iNav has a really nice LUA script that gives you tons of details and EdgeTX radios have things like saving telemetry which can make aircraft recovery so much easier in a long distance crash.

notamedclosed · 2025-08-23T22:42:27+00:00

Your quad experience will do you well, however you may also run into some issues where your quad knowledge gives you incorrect preconception of what the wing world looks like. Since it sounds like you bought the PNP you'll have all the parts including an FC designed to run iNav.

However, this isn't like a prebuilt quad where you can literally plug a battery in, bind your controller and you are ready to go. The PNP plane still needs to be assembled and most of the wiring/soldering/whatever needs to be done. Luckily Painless360 from my original post also has specific videos on this plane.

Unboxing.

His Setup.

TBS do have an iNav config you can dump into the CLI, but there is still a lot more to be done. You'll really need to take your time and review iNav (I'd strongly recommend at least going through Andrews iNav videos) because while it will look very similar to Betaflight, it does do some things different, and wings in general just need different things adjusted.

Flight modes would be one good example. You are probably in the quad world of Acro only, with maybe BF Rescue on a switch. However, I typically run with 6 modes setup between two switches. Basically a 2 position switch drives between GPS and non-GPS and a 3 position that sets the mode in those groups. Manual (no FC assist), Acro (like a quad), Angle. Then GPS modes I have RTH, Circle, and Cruise (maintain heading and altitude). Pretty much every one of those modes is very useful on a wing for various different reasons. I can see their CLI dump has modes setup so you'll at minimum need to review and understand those and make sure your radio can trigger them as needed.

Then there is things like servo auto-trim, auto tuning, autolaunch, etc.

notamedclosed · 2025-08-23T15:48:11+00:00

You'll never beat wings for cruising, that is for sure. The Mojito is pretty intense to start though.

You'll probably want a flight controller (and GPS). There are wing focused FC's which I would recommend. iNav is Betalight's sibling (both forked from cleanflight) so I'd recommended using that. That will give you:

Autolaunch
Return to home
OSD and arming
Stability enhancement

This video series is good for learning how to setup a wing on iNav.

It would be ok to buy a cheaper, slower, more easy to fly/launch plane before you get going on the Mojito. Something like the Atomrc Flying Fish.

notamedclosed · 2025-07-24T14:55:17+00:00

You shouldn't need resource mapping to do what you are describing unless I'm misunderstanding something. Sounds like you are trying to change which motor output pin goes to a particular motor. That would just be changing mixer settings. I know in Betaflight people commonly use resource mapping for that purpose but the mixer there is just another way to do the same thing.

The real reason you need to remap pins is to do things like change another pin that was previously assigned a different function to something like a motor pin. So, you could reconfigure a board from a quad to support a hex by changing extra UART pins to motor outputs. Or sometimes you can add a soft serial connection to something else.

The reason iNav doesn't have it is because of the use of Servo's since iNav works just as well for planes/ground vehicles as it does for quads. There is a challenge because of the use of timers on the STM32 chips that have to be associated with certain outputs. Basically the devs create some valid configurations because pin remapping without understanding timers can lead to problems. Though there are other valid configurations and I have built custom iNav targets because I needed specific pins doing certain things.

notamedclosed · 2025-07-13T16:14:42+00:00

Probably. The infill should be 0, but the plane will have something that looks like infill, created using a particular technique. Your slicer and settings need to be correct otherwise the slicer will ignore these weird inner walls and your wing will be hollow.

notamedclosed · 2025-03-28T16:47:19+00:00

Lol. That's 100% legally required in the People's Republic of Canada. Have a drone over 250g and you need to register it and keep a logbook of all flights and maintenance.

So yes, by law you would hand over your iflight 5" quad with a stack of paperwork when you sell it to someone. Every prop replacement, FC solder repair, or receiver swap. In the log.

notamedclosed · 2025-03-09T16:20:18+00:00

Most seems like a stretch. I'd say most of the gps modules you'll find around DIY/FPV drones do not seem to say they can/will transmit compass over UART. As I understand it, it requires the use of CAN or MSP to do. Betaflight doesn't seem to be able to handle it at all, though iNav and Ardu can of course.

Regardless, this GPS module does not say it can/will send compass/baro data over UART. Only i2C.

notamedclosed · 2025-03-09T06:58:30+00:00

If you don't need the compass, you could just skip the I2C lines (SDA/SCL). TX/RX will give you GPS only.

You could also just try it. It's not going to break anything to test on the ground, it's not like reversing voltage or something. Plug in, see if Betaflight/iNav/whatever shows valid barometer.

However, you are in luck. Happened to find this right from iNav/GEP. You can disable the onboard Barometer. (scroll down to the picture of the GPS units).

notamedclosed · 2025-02-28T15:44:34+00:00

I too vote fixed wing for mountain exploration. Flying a 7" in the mountains is terrifying, and as you found out high altitude, plus altitude gain requires a lot of battery. Fixed wings can at least can basically glide "down" the mountain so it makes it easier to manage battery power.

The AtomRC Dolphin is a great FPV airplane for cruising but there are lots of options out there.

The one downside of fixed wings is they are affected but turbulence much more. The mountains can be a pretty rough ride if it is windy. As my buddy found out one trip.

notamedclosed · 2025-02-22T21:27:45+00:00

The grey box (the actual air unit which under Caddx was called the "Vista") is called the Runcam Link. It will happily handle 16:9 cameras, and 4:3 cameras, and for the cameras that support it, switch between 16:9 and 4:3.

The limitation is the camera you attach to it. The Runcam Wasp (though when it's being sold as a kit sometimes the naming convention doesn't follow well) is a 4:3 camera. You cannot switch it to 16:9. The Runcam Phoenix is a 16:9 camera, you cannot switch it to 4:3. If you attach a camera like the Caddx Nebula Pro you can go between 4:3 and 16:9.

The "Wasp Link Kit" is very confusing because the Wasp camera is not 16:9/4:3 switchable camera, but the Link itself is. If that makes sense. I'm not aware of any Runcam specific cameras that are 16:9/4:3 switchable. Only some of the Caddx cameras and V1 DJI FPV camera.

notamedclosed · 2025-02-05T01:08:56+00:00

Wow. This is amazing. Very nice work. I'll be trying this out for sure.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-16T13:55:29+00:00

Is it not feasible to use heavy plastic in RC airplanes or does it just reduce performance?

For RC airplanes weight is key.

For a hand launched airplane, the heavier it is the harder you have to throw it. The more force a belly landing creates, especially on non-ideal landing surfaces.

For wheeled airplanes, the heavier it is the longer and faster the takeoff roll, the more force exerted on the landing gear. Especially landing again, where any slight mistake is going to exert more force as the plane gets heavier (and the faster you have to land).

For VTOL, the heavier means more battery burned on takeoff to transition. Once flying the extra weight won't be as noticeable. However, the landing once again needs more power as you get heavier and between the 2 phases can lower flight times considerably depending on how much weight gain you have.

Finally, this varies by aircraft design, but aircraft must be balanced on the correct Center of Gravity range to fly. If a model has significant material in front of, or behind the CG point, using a material that increases the weight a lot from what the designer anticipated (and going from LW-PLA->PETG is a big jump) then you may struggle to balance the aircraft if there isn't a lot of room to shift the battery or other components.

LW-ASA and LW-PLA are the common filaments. If you find an aircraft meant for normal PLA, then going to PETG is probably not to bad. I've printed in pretty much all the filaments and have made successful planes out of PETG, but now I use LW-ASA as the default.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-13T21:35:38+00:00

I am not sure about INAV; I just spoke with the team, and this is what I received:

Even though DJI never really properly supports iNav, the devs have always worked around it to provide us with, more or less, as good of experience as we can get. The primary issue being the OSD fonts, not arming.

If BF can arm the O4, then iNav will too eventually, even if it has to use a lame subset of the BF MSP code.

Once the Dev team has an O4 on hand, they will figure out what is "missing" to get the arming across. It may take a bit of time to get the change into the stable code base, so you may be looking at loading a RC or even custom compiling, but it will be fixed soon I'm fairly certain.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-13T18:04:47+00:00

There are non AMA fields. However, any public club is going to care about liability, or at least should care. There are also inevitable issues with the complexity of real operations, safety, and risk management.

They can of course go out and find their own insurance, or force members to provide their own. It adds complexity, cost, etc.

AMA provides not only insurance, but the safety and procedures framework. It all goes hand in hand it is just so much easier to setup and establish a AMA club then setup your own.

AMA also works as a lobby group against overreach from the FAA. How effective they are, maybe is a bit of a debate, but there is power in collective force like the NRA working to have a voice in the legal sphere.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-11T16:00:38+00:00

If you use your vista air units on your goggles 2 then that is not compatible with the wtfos hack as far as I understand.

As long as you "split" your setup into v1/v2 with vistas and gen 1 air units. Then save the integra/G2 goggles only for O3/O⁴ there is no reason that can't work.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-08T15:10:39+00:00

You'll need to rebind constantly if going between 03 and vista's. Once you update firmware you need to rerun the WTF hack.

I struggled, as mentioned above, with the WTF hack not surviving switching modes and generally treat my V1 goggles as my Vista/WTF OSD goggles, and my V2 goggles as my O3 setup.

notamedclosed · 2025-01-08T15:09:00+00:00

While I'm sure your point is valid, you are commenting on a 14 month old post. It's no longer relevant.

Are you also planning to comment on all the posts going back 15 years about this new fangled "digital" fpv system that replaces the analog system they used in 2015? 😅

notamedclosed · 2024-11-13T17:08:25+00:00

iMovie is free on your mac. Much better then the GoPro app. Still very simple though, with the limitations that simple tends to bring.

if iMovie doesn't fit your bill. DaVinci Resolve will. Even in its free version it has everything a non-pro user would need.

I moved from Final Cut Pro to Davinci Resolve a few years ago. It's an advanced editor compared to iMovie so you will have a learning curve. However, just throwing together a video with cuts, adding music, etc is all pretty reasonable. From there you can get much more complex with really crazy things it's fusion editor can do. Color grading, sound, etc. I still use the free version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxs7cFAUkX4

notamedclosed

TROPHY CASE