Yesterday afternoon the FedEx guy dropped off my repaired Inspire 1 – and just as luck would have it, southern Delaware got smacked by a couple of potent late-day thunderstorms. So I had to wait until today to take her out for a test flight. After 11 weeks and two round trips out to LA, what’s another day? Pffft.
There was a decent gusty breeze… maybe 10-12mph – enough to make it slightly interesting. Did a number of pre-flight checks while still on the ground; confirmed all settings in the app were where I wanted them to be. Twice. Checked rotors. Checked gimbal. Triple checked IMU numbers. Double checked app and firmware versions. Checked horoscope. Said a few quiet words to the sky gods…
And everything worked correctly! Had to update some battery firmware and do a compass calibration but that was all she needed to get in the air. I haven’t been that fidgety since my first flight way back in January but after a couple of minutes in the air, the trust and confidence started to come right back.
Took her up about 150 feet, did a few quick pans to test the gimbal horizon (which stayed a lot more level than it ever has in the past). Didn’t experience any video dropouts/blackouts and can wholeheartedly recommend the iPad mini 3 over the Nvidia Shield (better battery life and just feels snappier). Very, very happy so far… now I just need to go find some interesting things to film 🙂
