This is my first time flying the WLtoys V303 Seeker quad in the dark. I didn't go too high, just hovered a bit above the house. I do like the bright red, blue and green lights - makes it quite easy to see even at height, and tell the orientation.

The GoPro Hero 3 Black doesn't do a particularly good job at night, mostly due to its sensitivity and limited dynamic range. I tried to bring up the "solid black areas" as best I could, but there's a lot of noise in there... so I applied smart noise reduction as best I could, but there's only so much that can be done!

As I wait for some extra batteries to arrive (not enough flight time to make a trip somewhere worthwhile), I continue practicing flying the quad in my backyard. This time, I take it up early on a hot, hazy morning... for what turns out to be a number of spins around the horizon. Alas, the tall trees on my property make it tricky to go anywhere and maintain line-of-sight, and at the height this morning, it's so small it's easy to forget its orientation. FPV needed, for sure!

When I built my first radio controlled nitro-powered car many years ago (a Thunder Tiger with a glorious paint job), I wanted to create a site to share content on: tips, tricks, news, videos, whatever. Sadly, that didn’t happen back then... but now that I’m expanding my hobby horizons from RC cars to quadcopters with cameras, I figure it’s about time I make use of this nifty domain!

And so, today I’m very pleased to activate nitropia.com - a name I registered way back in 2000... and plan on using a lot more in the future!

Right now, I’m just starting off with an inexpensive quadcopter I bought direct from China – the WLtoys V303 Seeker, which was (at the time) the cheapest GPS-enabled model I could find, and thus one that wouldn’t blow the bank if (when?) I crashed it. But now that I’ve had a taste as to what these puppies can really do... I’m hoping to get into proper FPV sooner rather than later!

Here’s a quick look at some footage from my second flight, available in 1440p: