A water pipe broke saturating the soil which eventually gave way causing the void under the house. We donated our time and technology to give the owner a view of the damage. There was really no safe way to access the hill side in this area. The Observer is flown with virtual goggles allowing the pilot a "front seat" view and making it possible to precisely fly into close quarters without danger. We hope our efforts will be an aid in helping to save this house.
This footage was given to Fox News and used in their coverage of the story.
www.myfoxla.com/story/22069038...
The Observer has been a 2 year R&D project. The original goal was a three rotor design for hobby remote control sport flying. The mechanical design was working fine but the flight control board would not perform properly. I sought out the help of Mike Barton in the United Kingdom, to write new code. Over several months of trial and error Mike perfected the code. The stability was so good that the next logical step was to install First Person View onto the model. FPV is a method where the pilot flies the model while looking at a live video looking out the nose of the model. The design was a natural for FPV flying so the Observer concept was advanced to carry a HD recording camera. The model unique tuning along with a custom mount eliminates vibration into the camera. The Observer grew from a hobby model to a tool to affordably see into places where it is difficult or dangerous.
The Observer specs;
span rotor tip to tip 32"
length -- 29"
weight RTF -- 1200g / 2.6lbs
speed 0 - 35 MPH
flight time per charge - 12 minutes
designed by ;
Aerial Images
San Bernardino, CA USA