partisan39

We had a great time last Saturday at Maxwell Park in Anaheim for the EGGSTRAVAGANZA 2023. Love Anaheim and my church, Victory Anaheim, teamed up with Magnolia Baptist Church, Iglesia Magnolia, Sandals Church Anaheim, JMH Anaheim, Anahiem PD and Anaheim Fire Department & local community groups and volunteers were part of this outreach to the residents of our area with live music, games, and the Easter Bunny himself leading the crowd to fields of thousands of treat filled easter eggs which were eagerly swiped up by the sea of kids. I was officially on our security team with my church providing air patrol support from my drones. My flight footage came from my DJI FPV aircraft monitoring my flights through my 1080p video goggles and got a unique aerial perspective from the team members on the ground. I got blessed to be a part of it. ~ William Flying39

Once in a while, I bring my drone to church. I did this Sunday at Victory Anaheim and had a little fun with the video footage I shot. It was a nice day in Southern California and we were outside afterward for a little fellowship. Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! ~ William Flying39

We have had some good rains this year here in North Orange County. The last good storm came through a week ago and this time I charged up my battery on my H-100 remote control boat I got on Amazon for $25.00. It's pretty quick for a cheap boat. Late in the afternoon, we had a good downpouring and I timed it perfectly about the time I expected the rain water to come down the street that connects with mine and the water was up to the top of the curb. More than enough to run my boat full throttle without scraping the rudder on the pavement. It was still raining when I shot this on my DJI Osmo Action camera mounted on my cap. Sorry for the occasional umbrella blocking my camera view. Not much editing on this movie and I used most of the footage I got. Overall, I had a blast boating on my street and my neighbors got a kick watching me going by with a rooster tail flying down the street. Good times indeed. ~ William Flying39

A friend of mine mentioned that he was working on selling a house in Huntington Beach. I brought three of my aircraft with me, the DJI Mavic 2 Pro, Mavic Air 2S and the FPV. We started out at Meadowlark Golf Club and I went up to take a look. After that, we drove up to the neighborhood and I flew over the house for sale and got some video and stills. Then he wanted to head to P.C.H. and over to the pier. I took a couple of flights and then we went down Main Street and I flew the neighborhood a bit. We had to go back the next day and I got the high flyer shots he wanted instead with the Mavic 2 Pro. I had so much footage that he didn't use so I put this little project together. We had been getting clobbered with rain this spring but we had a couple of nice sunny days. I'm not sure when spring rains all became "Atmospheric Rivers" but the last one was a bit of a dud around here in the North O.C. I don't have to watch the cars or water my lawn for a bit. We sure needed it. Happy St. Patrick's Day folks! ~ William Flying39

We got a little break from the rough weather in the first weekend of March, my firewood was dry for the fire pit out back and plenty of food and two of my kegs on the patio and 3 cases of my bottled creations on ice in the coolers. A couple brand brewed creations for my friends to sample. The Brewing39 End of Winter Beer & BBQ was a hoot!!!!I I want to thank my friends and family who showed up to my little together for BBQ and cold beer.

I got a call from a Brother if I could help him capture from aerial shots over the church for a renovation they have planned? I said I'd be happy to do it, so I showed up with my aircraft and equipment and we met up. It's always much better to take the one with the vision up with me and have him show me what he had in mind. The DJI FPV is ideal platform to do that with 2 sets of video goggles, for my copilot. We had a great time flying together. The Lord bless the brethren over at Knott Ave. ~ William Flying39

My friend Victor is the solar advisor who was installing a solar panel system on my nextdoor neighbor's house over the weekend. I was asked if I would go up and fly the installation process. It sounded like a fun little project for me. The installers got a kick our of my low altitude fly by passes. They did a good job on the installation and it looks like a solid system. My job is to try to capture what I see from above. It was a perfect Southern California day to fly. It was a perfect day for an installation and everything came together. ~ V2 William Flying39

My friend Victor is the solar advisor who was installing a solar panel system on my nextdoor neighbor's house over the weekend. I was asked if I would go up and fly the installation process. It sounded like a fun little project for me. The installers got a kick our of my low altitude fly by passes. They did a good job on the installation and it looks like a solid system. My job is to try to capture what I see from above. It was a perfect Southern California day to fly. It was a perfect day for an installation and everything came together. ~ William Flying39

I generally have pretty good luck with E-Flite RC aircraft. They are a good quality product and I own quite a few of them. This poor thing showed up right around Christmas and I had so many things going on with my family and the holidays. I am a huge fan of the UMX Timber. I flew my original a bunch, repaired it when needed it and got my money's worth out of it when all was said and done. The airframe was finally retired and will end up being the guts another aircraft in my "top secret spare parts mini warehouse of E-Flite parts" to build something else that will fly. I have a quite a few discontinued older models I can choose from. I had one good flight of the UMX Timber X. It was late in the day and I got impatient and opted to fly it without figuring out the flap system. I believe that my battery got loose on my second flight and I was so low and when I got distracted talking to the guy walking down my sidewalk, flying over my house, that was it. I was in the Mulberry tree. On my last flight, I was distracting again talking to my neighbor across the street. He is a sweet kid and asks lots of questions. I wasn't paying close attention to my aircraft and didn't get to drop down low enough to clear the cable of death that crosses the street and the trees that magnetically draw all flying things to rest in their branches. I stayed out of the trees, but when I looked back at the poor UMX Timber X, I was committed to impact. That was it. Another quick shout out to the fine folks at Asurion. This airplane was insured and after the claim was filed and the damaged aircraft was returned to them in exchange for a $169.99 Amazon gift card which was promptly "reinvested" into a new purchase. This time, a 2nd UMX Twin Otter. I have one to fly, and the second will be "re-purposed" for the electronics for a custom UMX B-25 Mitchell bomber which should be much better than the original aircraft. I got plenty of spare parts for those in stock. After that? I'm looking at my UMX B-17 Flying Fortress protect. I have a things to figure out on that one. William Flying39

I was about an hour too late from the high water mark when all the flooding rain water was up past the curb and making its way to the sidewalk around the corner from my house. It's a rare treat in my city and I wanted to make the most of it. A couple of years ago, the rain water was up to the curb and I had plenty of water to run full throttle down the street and never met the pavement. By the time my battery was charged up, much of the water had run its course and headed to the Pacific Ocean. I decided to risk it and run my little RC boat where the water was not so shallow. I had to mount my DJI Osmo Action camera on my cap ands tried my best to keep the umbrella out of the view of the camera. I ran aground a few times and had to wade out to nudge the little boat back into the relative safety of deeper water. It was a little sketchy at times but I just felt like being a big kid for a little bit which I am known to do at times. The boat survived my little stunt. Next time I'll take it to the park at Cerritos and let it run full throttle without the perils of concrete curbs and rough pavement. William Flying39

I had just been tinkering with a brand new set of DJI Goggles 2 on my Avata drone and flew back down my street. The fun little touch was my neighbor and her son in front waving as I flew by. ~ William Flying39

I was having some issues with my FPV video goggles this afternoon. I put the new DJi Avata away and determined to work on it tomorrow. I broke out the original DJI FPV drone and got the aircraft to transmit video to both sets of goggles so I could take a passenger up with me. It did not take too long. I had couple of friends who wanted to go for a little ride .... so that's exactly what we did. ~ William Flying39

As those of you who know me, I love brewing beer! I brewed a lot in November. I got busy getting ready for my last Brewing39 Beer Sampler on December 3rd and then the Holidays. I looked at my brew logbook and my last batch was brewed on November 22rd. The big keezer in the garage was full with 8 kegs for my guests and heading into the holidays. Now it's time to get bottling some of my beer. I got plenty. My new brew that I brewed on New Year's Day is batch number 210 for me. Last year, I brewed a festive dark beer that I called simply Christmas Cheer Beer. I get creative with naming my beers at times. Some are named for certain events, holidays or sentimental things to me. Others are named after my being a history buff. This time, looking over the ingredients and what I was aiming for, I kept it simple. New Year's Cheer Amber Ale is what I will call it. It's brewed on a domestic 2 row base. I also added a pound each domestic white wheat malt, Viking Cookie malt, a pound of flaked corn and flaked rice, a pound of Morena pure cane sugar and 1/2 a pound each of artisan Mecca Grade specialty malts, Opal 22 and Opal 44. I went with English Challenger and East Kent Goldings hops. I used one of my stand by go to yeasts, Nottingham Ale yeast. How will it turn out? We will found out. There should be a bit of taste of shortbread cookie, along with hints of cocoa and graham cracker with Opal 22 malt. The Opal 44 is a caramelized toffee malt. The white wheat malt also give you a soft mouthfeel. The flaked corn can also add a sweet aspdct to the flavor to the beer. The hearty Nottingham ale yeast should take care of most of the sugars. It should be a strong beer to my calculations. About 8% ABV like a Double IPA. I will update the progress on my Instagram feed. My plans are to have another Brewing39 BBQ Beer Sampler in early March. Here's to 2023 being a great new year to all of you. I have a few more ideas for recipes. I'll keep you posted. ~ William Brewing39

For some, it's been a year of more deep valleys than mountain tops. We all march into the unknown of the year ahead. I reflect back on the different emotions that I felt when I shot this footage. One of longing to be close enough to feel the ground shake and not being able to be there and another of the thrill and a bit of anxiety when you're too close to the incoming artillery in your airspace. My expensive aircraft flew back safely without a propeller blown off from an exploding shell. I don't think that I will risk it again. May 2023 be a new year of hope and many blessings for all of us. ~ William Flying39

I was talking with my neighbors from the old neighborhood next door to my folks. I offered Wayne a six pack of my cold beers for Christmas. He insisted that we break them open and sample a few. Then they brought out a bottle of wine. At that point, I thought it best to brreak out the DJI Mavic Air 2S and fly the holiday tradition of a fly away dronie shot before things progressed too much! It was nice catching up with them! Sorry for the delay in getting this edited and posted so late. It's still December! ~ William Flying39

Every year, I show up for Christmas Eve at my folks place in La Palma. It's two whole miles away from my house. I bring my little dog and something that flies with a remote controller. This year it was a DJI drone, my Mavic Air 2S and two RC fixed wings, aircraft with LED lights so I could fly in front of the house. I brought a UMX Night Vapor, a very delicate little slow flyer and my UMX Ultrix that has a very elaborate set of LED light strips installed in the leading edges of the wings. I thought it would be fun to fly them both on Christmas Eve. Our guests had left for the night and it was just my sister and my folks so we went outside to the front yard. Not long after the little Night Vapor took flight like a butterfly, flying slow, it went dark. The battery connection was less than secure when I plugged in the new battery into the plug. I decided to fly anyway. My mistake. At least I glided back down onto the street and not in a tree or a neighbor's backyard. I recovered the Night Vapor and and plugged in the battery again to the plug and th lights came back on, controls worked normally and back into the Christmas Eve night sky I went. After the 2nd safe flight and landing of the Night Vapor. I flew the UMX Ultrix which is a lot more peppy. It zipped around the sky and over the rooftops. Since there are so many trees on their street, I didn't have a clear path to land on the grass front lawn of anyone's yard. A small tree in my neighbor's yard stopped me on my final approach and no damage to the aircraft. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and wish you all a blessed, healthy and prosperous 2023 ~ William Flying39

Around the holidays, I tend to buy little flying contraptions and try them out. Hopefully, these basic reviews of these products might help some of of you before you plunk down your money on Amazon and buy one. I've had mixed luck with budget RC helicopters. This Syma S-100 is tiny and definitely an inside flyer or outside only when there is no wind. For the $32 I spent for this, I am pretty happy with it. It only has a built in battery so it has to be plugged in to a USB plug when it's discharged and takes about 25 minutes to fully charge. The instruction manual says the flying time is around 5 minutes, not to 8 minutes that I guessed and mentioned a few times in the movie. For the novice or young pilot, I would risk learning to fly this outside first on a still day with no winds until you get the hang of the controls. Don't let it get too high or fly too far away as I assume the remote signal range is modest. It's so small that you don't want to fly that far away. Syma RC helicopters have a have a good reputation for quality in the RC world and I'm content with the purchase. I am eyeing another, bigger model for a future review. I've had a few hard landings at it's held up OK so far. It includes a spare tail rotor which is good. Looking at the manual, it's powered by a tiny 3.7 volt 70mAh battery.They do offer spare parts should you break something. All in all, this is a decent little micro helicopter for the money. ~ William Flying39

On Christmas Eve, I got home from my folks house and I wanted to do a little something fun. My DJI Mavic Air 2S had several charged up batteries and I decided to go up with the nice 4k video camera rolling and see if I could see anything. On my second flight when I was returning to land, I saw that there was a police car around the corner. They were not there for me but I opted to land and call it a night. I figured that Santa was going to wait until I went to sleep to deliver my presents. ~ William Flying39

It was getting late in the day and I had one fully charged battery left for the DJI Avata FPV drone. Normal Mode is pretty tame sightseeing speed. Sport Mode is more fun! This is the 2nd flight taking my little sister up with me over La Palma yesterday. It's one thing to tell them what it's like to fly these things. It's entirely another animal to have them see exactly what the pilot sees being right next to you in the quick little aircraft. This thing is a hoot to fly. Much better than looking down at even a nice display screen on the remote controller.

I wanted to take my little sister up to for a FPV flight before she flew back to England. I had hoped to take her to El Dorado park and have a more picturesque view of the lake and the trees, but the only window I had to make it happen was yesterday. I have been sharing two sets of DJI FPV Goggles V2's with the newer Avata FPV drone and my original DJI FPV aircraft and not able to have them bind both to the new bird until yesterday afternoon. Once I got it, I packed up my gear and headed over to my folks house. We got to fly over our old elementary school, Steve Luther and our neighborhood. We flew over the railroad track which was a source of adventure when I was a kid. Where we used to go in the spring to catch little frogs. I got distracted with getting everyone in position, assuring my dear old Pops that the "red flashing" button on the backup DJI Osmo Action camera did indeed mean that the camera was still recording our ground footage and explaining how to press the doggy leash brake on Maggie's leash, that I forgot to hit record on the Avata drone when I took off. I realized my error not too long into our flight. After that, you will see my first effort at picture in picture split screen of both our flight and the ground camera footage with occasional cameo appearances of little Maggie who was snapped in to Papi's belt loop so he had free hands. She is a seasoned veteran of my flight crew. I had fun on my two flights with Sylvia yesterday. The old neighborhood looks much smaller than it did in 1974 when we moved in to this house. My mind floods with memories of the many years. It was my sister who bought me my first drone for Christmas back in 2015 and a few crashes before I got the hang of it several years later. I didn't give up. Eventually, I got the hang of it. William Flying39

I can't help myself. When I get in that kid mode and it's around Christmas time, I get a little impulsive and buy a few little toys that I hope others will enjoy. This little E-Bird Butterfly remote controlled bird was $29.00 and after a few reviews I saw, I had to have one for Christmas morning at my folks place. I have experienced Christmas mornings on this circle at my folks house since 1974. My father is the Pied Piper of all felines in the city limits of La Palma California, near diety status to them! LOL I thought that the cats hanging around his place would get a kick out of this flying contraption. They were not around for the first few flights , but the last one? Thy were watching closely. My sister Sylvia was not sure the DJI Osmo was catpuring suitable video at the time to so hit the stop button too soon. These were not the ideal flying area for my little mechanical bird but it was a fun time to try this thing out. It takes abut 25 minutes to charge up the onboard battery in the e-bird, but not a bad buy for $29.00 on Amazon. It takes a little getting uses to figured out the flying characterisics but it brought a smile to my face and my witnesses to my flying preview. Pretty cool little invention.

On Saturday December 17th, our community here in Buena Park California, celebrated our 3rd Annual Christmas Car Parade through two of the big tracts in my city. It was a chilly night but it was great to see my neighbors headed to the parade route to watch! My folks came over to watch from the next city over, La Palma. It was impressive to see the creativity and all the effort that went into all this parade. My ground cameraman accidentally made a mistake onto which setting was record and which was standby so I didn't get much of the footage that I planned to use on this little project. I used what I shot from the DJI Mavic Air 2S and the Avata FPV quadcopter and I hope that I captured a perspective on a special occasion in my neighborhood. Well done everyone! A Merry Christmas to you all! We know the Reason for the Season. Bless you all. William Flying39

It's been a bumpy year for many people, it has been for me and sometimes I just have to stop what I was doing inside my house and take to the skies for a little bit. I remember the excitement of Christmas morning when I was little and flying takes me back there again. The DJI Avata is an amazing FPV aircraft to fly. At first I was a little disappointed with it as I was used to flying my original DJI FPV which is still an essesntial part of my little fleet. The footage they capture is unlike anything I have here. If I am going to fly far, I'll opt for the Mavic Air 2S or my Mavic 2 Pro. If I am going tree topping or down low, definitely doing it FPV. My Christmas Car Parade movie from Saturday is in the works and I hope to capture the exerience with what I put together next. ~ William Flying39

I have a bad habit of buying a new flying toy and then putting it away and never playing with it. This little thing is pretty neat and I tried to fly it once out front a long time ago and almost wrecked it and never tried to fly it again. This is the E-Flight Night Vapor and is a delicate little thing. There is not much to it. Others who reviewed it online insisted that it not be flown in windy conditions. They were right! The little LED lighting on it makes it pretty amazing but only do it on a still night with no wind. I did not have my camera rolling on my night flight unfortunately the first night. I will try again soon. It's a 3 channel so it does steer only through the tail but does have SAFE Select which auto stabilizes when you let off the sticks. Once I figured out how it's flight characteristics and limitations, I enjoyed it. I'll definitely not try to fly it again when there is any wind. ~ Flying39 Aviation

Here's a little something that I put together from Saturday. I didn't get to fly much. My guests started to arrive for my December Brewing39 Beer Sampler Event at my place. I had quite a few of my bottled recipes iced in the cooler and two of my kegs online on the patio. We had great food and plenty of wood for the fire pit. Thanks to everyone who showed and have supported my brewing efforts for the last few years. ~ William Flying39 / Brewing39