Carmen suggested that we try to go out and fly my Nutball, since she hadn’t seen it in the air before. Our local park seemed too small, and Cesar Chavez turned out to be windy, so we did a quick websearch and discovered that the Lime Ridge open area in Concord was popular with fliers, especially on Sunday. So, we headed over there and gave it a whirl. It is indeed a pretty nice area, and there were a couple of other fliers giving it a try (and doing a much better job of it). My own attempt at taking the Nutball up resulted in a couple more snapped props. Sigh. But I did have my little camera in the back, and Carmen shot some video of my launch, so at least you all can laugh at it. Here it goes:
Around video frame 0:25 I thought you might have captured a UFO. Not. I think it was the center of the sun–the video recording chip overloaded and painted the sun black. Please give a little detail on the camera you used and a link to the plans of the Nutball. Inspiring flight. Thanks for sharing.
The camera I used was an 808 style keychain camera which I got for around $8 from Hobby King. As you noticed, the sun went black, it’s not uncommon for cameras of this sort. I am actually pretty pleased with the quality of the video (especially for the price), but I do wish that it had a wider field of view. I probably will eventually get one of these to replace it, the 120 degree field will be much nicer. The Nutball is lightly modified from the scratch build documented here by Josh @ the flitetest blog. Hope that helps, and thanks for commenting!