My First QuadCopter

Just recently I acquired a new quadcopter – a WL Toys 959. Total cost to me was about $75.00 and I ordered from Amazon.ca. I picked this because of the low cost and the fact that it came with camera that can do both photo and video and it was relatively inexpensive.

First attempts at flying the quadcopter proved somewhat crash prone, so I ended up reading the manual and checking out some YouTube vidoes on quadcopter flight. Most informative was this YouTube video on Vortex Ring State and how to deal with it (thanks to colleague Joel Martinez for the tip). I have a video of my first flight – it’s nothing fancy I just wanted to take off, hover, and then land.

The batteries last about 10 minutes, which I guess is typical for a quadcopter. I will have to order a few more batteries from Amazon.

The camera itself mounts to the bottom of the quadcopter, but it never seems to want to stay there. I used a piece of scotch tape to help keep the camera attached to the quadcopter. You turn on video by pressing the silver button to the left of the antenna, but you have no way of know if the camera is on or off except by looking at the bottom of the camera. If it is recording then there will be a read blinking light. For some odd reason I don’t seem to be able to take any video at the moment. I did manage to take one video – the quadcopter is taking off, hovering, and then landing. Nothing fancy at the moment.