Went for another flight this morning. I had to rush a bit-because the winds here can go from calm, to crazy high, in minutes. So, I went to a local spot about 3 minutes from my house. The forecast called for wind, and we had some-but not bad.
This area I launched from, was up on a hill, and I was flying towards "ground clutter" in the form of some tree's, and population.
The first flight was only 1000 meters @100 meters, then I pulled back, and did a 180 at around 600 meters. Had solid clear video, throughout the entire flight.
2nd flight, I rotated the aircraft after take-off, so the VTX antenna was completely blocked. I started to get a little snow at around 360 meters @25 meters. I didn't really go any further because I wanted to make 1 more flight, and the winds were already picking up.
3rd flight was Flight #200 for me!!! Launched, hit Atti mode, and hit 20.2m/sec(40+mph!!)......got out to 1100 meters fairly quickly-solid video signal. At around 1160, I was at 103 meters, and added some throttle. I noticed a delay between the command to add throttle, and the engines revving up. At 1166 meters @104 meters, I hit "Fail Safe"....crap!! The phantom continued until 1171 meters(my new record), stopped, did a smooth right 180 degree turn-and in the turn, video only momentarily dropped to snow, then returned.
I had clear video throughout the return, from that distance!! Also-I couldn't disengage F/S until I reached about 660 meters, and, my speed returning was only 8m/sec......
Now to be fair-this distance test was not in my normal testing area. This was towards a park, golf course, condo's etc. So, my thoughts were-that I need to be at least another 50 meters higher. And, I think I may already be at the limits of my Futaba Remote.
At one point on a flight, I turned the aircraft so the VTX was away from me, and got this weird, double-vision/color shift. First time I've seen that. Perhaps the new antenna's will help clear that up a bit.
But, as of now-my limit is in the 1100 meter range, at 100 meters altitude. I did have a very clear line of sight to the aircraft.
I also noticed that once past that distance, the remote reacted very sluggish, just before going into Fail Safe. Also, I've never tried turning the aircraft around, past about 700 meters at that altitude.
Once the winds die down(probably next week), I'll try another couple of long distance runs at higher altitudes. But then, I'll shift my attention to video signal, at different altitudes and distances-to see where it's lost, hopefully before I lose R/C signal.
I wish there was some way to boost the transmitter power of my Futaba T8J remote-because right now, it sucks.
