I recently decided I wanted to build a hexa and ran across the "SIX" on Hobby King.
The price was definatley cheap enough and the way it was laid out looked very similar in construction to my Hover Things HT-FPV quad.So, I put it, a couple of the NTM 2826-1200's, and a couple of Turnigy Plush 25's in my shopping cart. (I already had four at home from a quad that I decided not to build)

The glass quality seems very good and everything fit quite well right out of the box. The only complaint I have is from one piece of incorrect harware. One of the spacers for attaching the top plate to the lower one was wrong. (see following posts as this will also be a build log as I progress along.)

I recently purchased one of the Hobby King Hi Def "Wing Cams" while searching for something lighter and with a narrower field of view than the GoPro Hero.

With a FOV of 120 degrees on the WingCam compared to 170 degrees on a GoPro it fit the bill nicely. It's also considerablt lighter than the GoPro.

The wing cam weighs in at 1.5 oz. with the velcro strip I use for attaching it The GoPro HD Hero comes in at 3.4 oz. for just the camera.


The wing cam features 4 different resolutions for recording. 720P 60 (60 frames per second). 720P 30 (30fps) 1080P 30 (30fps) and Full HD 30 (30 fps)

After you finally figure out the "chinglish" manual that can be down loaded from Hobby King, it's operation is fairly simple and straight forward.

Video quality is acually quite good when you take into consideration the big price difference between the two. A new wing cam is barely 1/3 the cost of a new Hero 2.


I liked the camera well enough to create a Youtube video on the setup of the camera that's much easier to follow than the manual when it comes to making the basic setup.

Note that you will need a monitor (TV) that will accept a HDMI or TV/AV input to make any changes.

Wing Cam Setup (6 min 17 sec)

I've also done another clip for comparisons of the different capture settings. Flying with my Hover Things FPV quad it looks as if I need to do a little better job of balancing my props, but will eventually get all the "jello" effect taken care of.

Other than that, I'm really very impressed with the video quality. This video starts at the 720P60 setting, then to 720P30, followed by 1080P30 and Full HD30. It's a little longer than I originally intended at 7 minutes long but it takes a little over the anticipated 90 seconds on each setting to get up to altitude, make a pass or two and back down again.

Hobby King HD Wing Cam Resolutions Comparison.wmv (7 min 18 sec)

I was fortunate enough to attend the NAMBA 2011 FE Nats hosted by the Waveblasters in Fort Pierce, FL last week. Other than the 3 hour drive each way to get there and taking about a week to recover from it had a great time. (one for the bucket list)

I arrived on June 1st for the open water practice day then stayed in a notel overnight to run in the P-Mono class on the 2nd. Placing 3rd in the 1st heat, 2nd in the 2nd heat and getting a DNF in heat 3. (guess I got a little over zealous and wound up rudder side up on the 2nd lap) That gave me an 8th overall out of 15 in the class. I drove back home after the races to finish prep on my other boats and spend a couple of nights at home before driving back on Saturday to run 2 classes on Sunday.

Saturday was spent shooting tons of video and Sunday's racing netted me a 3rd overall in 1/8 scale hydro and 2nd overall in S-T Mono. (No, I'm not a great driver and my boats are not that fast. There were only 5 boats signed up for either of those classes. Only 4 actually ran in the 1/8 hydro and only 3 in S-T Mono)

Below is a small sampling from the vids I shot while there.

2011 FE Nats Sampler.wmv (2 min 37 sec)

The entire collection can be found in this thread. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1449884

About a year ago I never would have thought I'd be adding boats to my blog. I've been a "jet junkie" since 1st coming to RC Groups.

However, as fate would have it I bought a little rc boat about a year ago and have since gotten totally addicted since I now have 6 running and a couple more small ones in the wings. Still not sure of just what the hook is but do know that FE boats are the one thing I've found to be more demading on batteries than EDF's.

Going to start with my latest since I was really proud with how it came out. A 50" Expresscraft Thunderbolt cat powered by a pair of Castle/Neu 1717's. Turnigy 180 marine esc's X 2. 6s 5000ma 30c lipo x 4 (6s 2p per motor). 23 pounds when loaded with batteries. The full build thread is here on RCG for folks that like lotsa details. .

This is the maiden video. Actually the 2nd portion of the run but the 1st one didn't count as it was on a 5s 1p set of batteries that would barely get it on a half plane. They were just used to check for any leaks. Runs out pretty nice on 6s 2p though.

Expresscraft Thunderbolt Electric Twin.wmv (5 min 11 sec)

PS: With the way blog entries work here I suppose you will have to check the comments to see the rest of the fleet as it gets added.

Edit 1/28/11 Had to come back and add the SAW pass GPS runs from last Sunday.

...Continue Reading

Finally finished up the scratch build of my double sized Tigershark Delta just in time for a maiden flight the day before my birthday. The RC Spirits granted me my birthday wish and I was able to bring it back home intact.

TS-DeltaL.wmv (4 min 58 sec)

I like my little Chrysler aircraft carrier so well that I decided to make it a blog entry. I've removed the rear seats and build a second deck inside. It works great for hauling lots of planes. It transported 8 jets to the Ocala EDF last December. A couple of those were pretty big ones, too.
The self contained charging staion is something I'm kinda proud of too. Face it folks, you just can't beat "rednek injuneering".