X350P - GoPro maiden

X350P with GoPro 2 hard mounted

Meet Cam and Russ at Ascot this evening to try out some aerial filming. Cam bought along his GoPro 2 and wasted no time 'sticking' it to the bottom of the Walkera QR X350 Pro. Check out the rookie videographer and the 100% un-stabilised footage of the fun we had below.

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X350P - Mode testing

Testing the different modes on the QR X350 Pro

Tonight was a good night for testing the three different (pre-set) modes on my Walkera QR X350 Pro. The three modes are;

1 - Manual; in this mode it is all up to you to control everything about the quad, pitch, roll, yaw and altitude It's a tricky mode to fly in, however it also gives the operator more freedom as bank angles are not restricted and the speed you can fly the quad is much greater.
2 - Position hold; this is a stabilised mode where you can still fly around however the quad will try to hold altitude and is restricted in it's bank angle and therefore speed, if you let the handset sticks go the quad will auto level. This is excellent for learning to fly or for taking aerial footage.
3 - Return to Land (RTL); flick the switch for this mode and the quad will automatically (all by itself) stop whatever it is doing, hover, climb to a preset height of about 10m and then slowly bring itself back to the location that you first turn it on at, it will then slowly descend and land .... it's amazing to watch!

See video below of the three different modes in action.

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X350P - Sunset takeoff

QR X350 Pro ready for a sunset flight 

It was a gorgeous evening so I just had to get out for a training flight at one of the nearby flying fields. Check out the video below.

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X350P - First flight

I couldn't wait any longer for the weather to clear up or for me to have the time to get to the flying field so I decided to have my first flight in the backyard. Some of the rationale was that if it did try to fly away all by itself at least it would have a good chance of hitting a tree, post or piece of play equipment!

I was quite nervous, but felt I had prepared well enough by watching a bunch of YouTube videos (Thanks Bo @ FPVGuy.com) and reading the Walkera quick start guide a few times.

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New Direction

Walkera QR X350 Pro with Devo 7 handset

After many weeks of frustration trying to get the auto-tuning to work on the Skywalker X5 I decided to take a break from it all. I was not enjoying the constant tweaking/testing cycle and longed for a complete working kit with full APM functions.

I decided to look into a new direction, multicopters and in particular the RTF versions that have just recently entered the market. So I purchased a Walkera QR X350 Pro, because it has a great flight time (25min) and also uses the same flight controller as the Skywalker X5 (APM).

Whilst the quad won't be able to cover the same mapping area as the fixed wing, it's going to be a more flexible platform and allow other styles of mapping/photogrammetry, this I am very excited about.

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