advice for flying a ghost

[jfro]

I'm thinking of make taking a round lit object with a lcd light in it, wrapping a white sheet around it, paint some eyes and mouth on it, tie the sheet around the bottom of the ball and then fly it for a little Halloween fun. Kind of a floating ghost.

I'm also thinking of hanging it off of maybe 10-15 feet under my x8 or heavy lift quad. This way I can have the ghost off to the side when I launch. Probably some heavy duty nylon fish line to hang it from.

Saw a youtube video where the guy flew a ghoul off of 150ft of nylon line and a hex. I'm not interested in flying 150 ft in the air at night, but it would kill some of the sound a bit.

Looking for any advice on the do's and don't of a project like this. Assuming it's not real windy out, it seems this might be a relatively safe endeavor. Keeping the sheet away from the copter on landing might be my biggest issue. I'd be taking about 5+ lbs of gimbal & camera off my x8.

Any suggestions or experience to share?

 

[Tuomas P.]

Ok, some things that I've discovered...Try to keep the white sheet etc. as far as possible from the props. Taking off and landing with a 1 meter long hanging cloth must be done from a stand or hand. Carefully. Too much wind or too rapid descent will raise the "skirt" closer to the props. GPS seems to be ok even with a big styrofoam skull on top of it...Mine is a small one, built from 450 motors and a NAZA. Looks cool.
Have fun!
TP.

 

[jfro]

Ok, some things that I've discovered...Try to keep the white sheet etc. as far as possible from the props. Taking off and landing with a 1 meter long hanging cloth must be done from a stand or hand. Carefully. Too much wind or too rapid descent will raise the "skirt" closer to the props. GPS seems to be ok even with a big styrofoam skull on top of it...Mine is a small one, built from 450 motors and a NAZA. Looks cool.
Have fun!
TP.

It sounds like you put the sheet over the mr? I was thinking more of towing or letting it hang down 10, 20, 30 or more feet. Hadn't thought of making hte MR body the head and letting the rest just hang down. If I did that, I'd probably do it on a 650 quad. I wanted to have a lit round head, so maybe I'll have to think about that and then maybe wrap the sheet body around the legs with a little extra flowing down from there... That might keep the sheet out of the props...


Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Tuomas P.]

The arms are wrapped tightly in white sheet. Then there are long torn sheet strips hanging from the middle. I glued them together in some spots with hot glue to make it a bit more rigid. Then there is a painted styrofoam skull with LED eyes, and some white LED strips pointing down lighting the sheet strips. Even a chin light for the skull

TP.

 

[Tuomas P.]

Mine in action:

http://youtu.be/RGvbIzPJuT4

 

[jfro]

Mine in action:

http://youtu.be/RGvbIzPJuT4

I didn't have enough time to go all out, but pretty happy with my few hours of work.

Wife did here first attemp at filming a flying object, so it's a not the best, but it works...
Thought I might have some fun handing out candy with the guy flying around, but it's misting now with rain forecast for late afternoon and evening.