After a ton of research on FPV (first person view) video goggles I finally made the decision to go with the Fatshark HDO.  I’m diving into the world of flying FPV quadcopters designed for speed, agility and acrobatics.  This is a departure to the world I’ve been in with large GPS based, auto-leveled quadcopters and hexacopters.

The HDO is Fatshark’s “flagship” FPV goggles. They feature a new OLED display technology which produces more vivid colors, sharper images, and higher contrast ratios than other goggles.

In addition to simply being goggles, they have a built in DVR, cooling fan, rechargeable USB battery, carrying case, and more.

Not In The Box

Not included with these goggles is a receiver. So along with the goggles I chose the Lumenier rapidFIRE diversity module (red part with antennas in photo above). I’ll be reviewing that as well.

I’m in the midst of putting together the best setup and testing.  Stay tuned for the full review soon.

I’ve been away from building/flying for quite awhile. Many factors were involved in my time away from flying, mostly “life” things like kids, moving, changing jobs and so forth. But I’m back in a space with all that where I can dedicate some time to flying and building again. So the first task is to try and get all of my existing drones working again.

I had to do some wiring maintenance before I was willing to try and fly this large, 960 hexacopter. In storage some of the wiring had come loose. So it took me a couple of days of finding old tools, solder, flux and the rest to make the fix. I finished that work off yesterday and did some final props-off checking. I also had to remember how to work my Taranis X9D remote!

I was nervous and had forgotten that the left aileron didn’t snap into a default position, so the altitude of the craft is always touchy, a.k.a. responsive.

I didn’t fly with the gimbal and expensive camera equipment on it yet, just in case. The flight was successful. I did a smooth landing and one more takeoff, hover and landing. I see that some of the LEDs are burned out and I’ve planned to replace those anyway.

I’m back in the air!

Shot in my backyard at Snowbird ski resort!