partisan39

I was pretty bummed out that most of the classic cars at Silverado Days this year were driving away by the time I got into the air flying my new DJI Avata FPV drone. I got up and looked around and still found a few of them and noticed other residents of my home town eating and going on the carnival rides. This place brings back memories for me. Some really good and some bittersweet. I would have drove down my 1939 Chevy Master Deluxe Rat Rod Coupe or the trusty old 1948 Indian Chief Roadmaster if I still owned them. The weather was not great this year but I just took notice of the families enjoying the day. Enjoyed the time with a few friends and chatted with a gentleman whom I have voted for last time around. This song came to mind. ~ William Flying39

It was a blast to fly the Murrieta Rod Run the other day. Once I was back on the ground in one piece, I hopped on my electric bike and just checked things out from ground level. I had the DJI Osmo Action camera mounted on my handlebars rolling as I checked out the automobiles. Lovely cars and good folks all around. My Pops loved it! I've been bugging him to buy himself another '55 Chevy like he had when he met my Mom long ago. ~ Flying39 Aviation

I was up close to the lovely old place. Flying my DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone and headed back to my position at the Buena Park Mall. The replica of Independence Hall at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park is impressive! Having grown up close by and even had a Kindergarten graduation at this portion of the amusement park is very special to me. It was the place to celebrate a birthday party when you were little. There was the iconic Jungle Island, where we were let loose to run around and play all day. There was also burro rides, another steam locomotive that rode around the lagoon, a riverboat ride and a beautiful Merry Go Round. My old friends who grew up here will definitely flash back to this place. As I fly away from Independence Hall, you can still see what remains of the Jungle Island lagoon. It's bittersweet but it still makes me smile. Thanks to the others who have posted old photos online that take us back in time. I can still hear the No. 340 Live Steam Locomotive at Knott's every day from my house blowing her steam whistle. ~ Flying39 Aviation

I haven't had much luck with cheap RC Helicopters in a while. Years ago, my friend and I picked up some cheap micro r/c helos for $25 a pop and it was fun to navigate around the house but were not outside flyers! These charged by a cable with the battery pack and were definitely limited. They were a little squirrelly but stirred me to upgrade. I later bought a few other budget priced r/c helicopters after decent Amazon reviews but I was not happy with how they flew. I sent them back. One listed it as a 3 1/2 channel which I found curious. I finally decided to try again with this Small Climber FireFox C129 6-Axis Gyro 4 Channel Series. It was $69.99 plus tax on Amazon and included 3 batteries which is good. Reviews mention not flying these on windy days. I agree. You want to fly these only on calm days without wind blowing. My first flight was from my DJI Osmo Action camera mounted on a stiff plastic neck strap mount and it made the video very bumpy when I went to retrieve the downed helicopter. Sorry about that. The next day, I tried again and it flew much better. There was still about a 4 mph wind and a few gusts that knocked me around a bit. It comes with spare blades should you snap one which is a bonus. I did not time my flights but I I can watch my videos and tell when the battery was starting to run down a bit. Overall, I am content with the quality and performance of the the little helicopter and plan to take it out again soon for a more extensive flight test. Fly it and use up all 3 batteries and see how it goes. ~ Flying39 Aviation

I've been a bit obsessed with budget friendly RC park flyers and I've had pretty decent luck with a couple other VolantexRC planes I've owned and I decided to gamble on this little thing. This is little too! 400mm wingspan which is 15.78 inches and 300mm overall length which is 12.99" to us old fashioned folks who prefer imperial measurements. I wanted to see how the 6 axis gyro worked on this airplane. I own plenty of RC E-Flite products and a fan of the Spektrum line but also like to try other brands as I get asked what about what I see on the market. For $75 ready to fly with 2 batteries, I must say that this is a very good deal! It's got an 8mm coreless motor and claims 15 to 20 minutes flight time per battery. I didn't push it until it ran out of battery power but I flew it around 12 or 13 minutes per flight which was plenty for me. ~ Flying39 Aviation

I was flying low and careful for the Rod Run in Murrieta this weekend. Once I got the shots that I wanted, I still had quite a bit of charge left on the battery, so I flipped the switch and put the aircraft in Sport Mode. There is no object avoidance on the aircraft when flying in that mode, so you watch your altitude closely and pay attention to what's quickly approaching in your video display. It will turn on a dime so it makes for some fun footage. This is actually tame to some of the other rides I've taken my friends for when I was sporting an audience wearing a 2nd pair of FPV goggles. Best to be sitting down in a chair next to me. ~ William Flying39

It was a great time for all this weekend in Downtown Murrieta for the Rod Run! They had Washington St. blocked off and the entire street was lined with beautiful classic automobiles of all kinds. Hot Rods, Gassers, Rat Rods and lovely restored classics. They had a great crowd for the event. I was a guest of Lily Kelly Ministries and my father helped as my flight crew and we had amazing afternoon of fellowship and flying my drones for the event. I brought the DJI FPV and Avata drones and tried my best to capture everything going on flying just high enough to avoid any people below and the trees to either side of me. I also rode one of my electric bikes with the DJI Osmo Action camera mounted on the handlebars to capture the ground view as steady as I could. I was thrilled and overwhelmed with all the sights and sounds from the event. It got a little windy later in the day and even a little bit of rain as we packed up. It rained on the drive back up the 15 North back to Orange County. This is my effort to share the day from my video perspective. ~ William Flying39

I texted a dear friend that I was flying the DJI FPV drone in the neighborhood the other day. Let her know that I was gonna fly by. It turns out that they had a water slide in the front yard that day. The first time that I dropped down, my video signal started to really break up I could not see well, so I climbed up again to regain signal and not have the drone return to home. I went back back a second time and I had a better signal. I flew down lower for a little bit, then I climbed up and flew back. It was fun to have them expecting me, flew in to say hello and then I was gone. ~ Flying39 Aviation

This project is very special to me to a most wonderful member of my little tribe for many years now. Levi is an amazing loving dog and was beloved by my Ruth & Boaz. Since Levi was a little puppy, his spirit has been very unique and loving, a gentle presence. He the patriarch of the Tribe now and beloved by all who have known him over the years. 13 years ago today you were born and a few months later, we would introduce you to the rest of the tribe and the rest is history. You charm all that meet you. Definitely, there is none your equal in our little pack. It has been my joy to care for you as the years take their toll. In the sunset of your life. I close my eyes and still see that bouncing baby boy those many years ago. I still see that spark in you.

I was doing quite a bit of flying in the neighborhood this weekend, hoping to see a few military aircraft flying back from the Pacific Airshow in to Los Alamitos Joint Forces Base a few miles up the road. I saw some but it worked out that when I had to land the DJI FPV and switch out a fresh battery, that's when they flew by and landed. I had zero luck capturing anything on my camera. One of my flights, I looked around and saw my neighbor Roger flying his kite. I told him the next time I saw him in the air, I'd come and pay him a visit. He had just brought it back when I flew on over. We went back up and we got to fly for a bit. It was very peaceful to watch it slowly climb. I was eager to get back and see how the footage turned out. ~ William Flying39

My folks and I were talking about heading out to the Pacific Airshow today but last year we got hosed trying to find anywhere to park, I got a $55 ticket compliments of the City of Huntington Beach for illegally parking on PCH for a few minutes with a hundred other cars doing the same thing. Forget it. Pops decided we weren't going to bother as the parking situation is absolutely not up to the size of crowd it will draw. The place was a zoo last year. What a bummer. I will hear and see the fighter aircraft coming back here after the show is over. After lamenting that I would not be there, I packed up my DJI Avata and my gear late in the day and headed to El Dorado park. I thought flying from the center parking lot near the lake would be a good spot to lift my spirits. I'd fly with the DJI motion controller only and I was flying with the stick in my right hand instead of my left. It was a great little escape and the view was lovely. I might go up this afternoon and see if the Thunderbirds or the other aircraft buzz my house like they did last year. I'll make sure to stay out of their airspace. ~ Flying39 Aviation

After being on a mini bike, pocket bike, pit bike, motorized bike binge, I decided that I also needed something a bit quieter that I could ride stealthy without any heat from LEO's or unhappy neighbors when I did my drone stuff or RC projects. I opted for a cheap eBike. I mean .... really cheap! I saw a few online reviews of the 20" Kent Torpedo which is a kids bike. One of the video reviews was from a guy who was my height and weight. I knew it's limitations but I bought it. It's pretty impressive on it's own having only a tiny 180 watt 24 volt rear wheel motor with pedal assist only but it did great on a 10 mile ride at El Dorado park. I was in Level 3 assist and had a little batttery left and as I recall, about 15 to 16 miles an hour most of the way. Originally, I had an Amazon purchased AW Electric 750 watt 36 volt conversion on it but it requires a more stout, expensive battery like a 20 Ah, or get about 6 1/2 miles out of the 10 Ah battery I had that powered it OK. I have some used 36v battery packs and they would shut down not long after I got going. I'm pretty sure that it was the BMS in those batteries. Replacing the front wheel kit with a much smaller 250 watt 36 volt setup actually cost me a little more and I lost about 2 miles per hour on top speed. I have plenty of used Li ion battery packs from 10 Ah to 20 Ah's to choose from which should give me plenty of range with this little setup. You could run the main battery until it quit and then power up the original 24 volt rear motor on the back wheel and pedal assist home another 10 miles or so. Pretty cool! This video is my taking it for a little run to my folks house from my place in Buena Park to La Palma and back home again. Next time, we will add some drone support for aerial shots. ~ William Flying39

So ... the story begins where the young Jedi texted me and told me that he wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle. No experience with a bike with a hand clutch. Rode a mini dirt bike once with a centrifugal clutch. OK. I accepted the challenge. Before we graduated to the X-Pro 125cc Four Stroke 4 speed motorcycle, I had him negotiate my neighborhood, the end of my street with the Avalon 26" Mountain electric bike conversion. Next was the MotoTec 2 stroke 49cc Mini Bike. That one is a hoot to ride. Lots of fun. This was followed by the electric MotoTec 36 volt 500 watt pocket bike. Finally, we rolled out the X-Pro 125 and went through the basics before I fired it up and let him take the controls after a ride around the school where he rode alongside me on the e-Bike. That was going to do the lion's share of training. We had a technical problem with the drone. My DJI Spark decided to drop the RC connection on our first run down the street. Naturally, the drone was active tracking Roger until it lost signal with the RC. My display went dark and I figured that it would try to come back with Return to Home. There were trees in the way as it attempted to ascend to 98 ft and fly back. It met some branches on the way up and went into weed-whacker mode. Thank God it didn't bring the drone down. Eventually, it cleared the trees and I got a visual and I landed. End of drone shots for the day. I had a close call with branches using Active Tracking with the Mavic Air 2S at the park recently as well. It was handy to have my 24" Schwinn mountain e-Bike conversion to first have Roger ride alongside as I rode the X-Pro through the neighborhood. I forgot to mount one of my GoPro Session cameras or the DJI Osmo Action camera on either bike so there is no video footage of Roger manning the X-Pro 125. After popping a little wheelie due to letting that clutch go with a little throttle, that spooked him a bit and gave him some respect for the machine. Roger made quite a few passes down my street before we went around the school and then all the way down to my friends' house on the other side of my big tract. A few stalls with the clutch and some effort to find Neutral and the green light but he got it. Roger got the hang of the Honda clone 125 and on the ride back to my place, I was full throttle on the e-Bike to keep up. As Master Yoda might say, "The young Jedi learning he is .... yes" ~ William Flying39

I had family in town so I drove with my folks to Universal City recently. Traffic in L.A. is rarely fun but I opted to mount my DJi Osmo Action camera on the windshield and set the shutter speed for 1/2 second intervals. It made the drive go by much quicker that it took for the 3 of us who made the trek. It was the first time that I had ventured that way in a while. ~ William Flying39

I was happy to join the great folks of the Buena Park Moose Lodge for their Chili Cook Off and bring the latest Brewing39 beer creations to cool the chili down on a hot Southern California September afternoon. I had two cold kegs on tap and a pair of coolers packed with ice to keep my bottled beers nice and chilly. Thanks again for all thirsty folks who helped empty a couple of kegs. We had a great time! ~ William Brewing39

It was a delight to bring my DJI Spark drone with me to help support a wonderful ministry in Murrieta last weekend. Lily Kelly Ministries. Faith and all the folks involved really made it special and the Almighty is definitely do things around here. I was having a little fun here trying to capture the evening with some Honky Tonk music in my head when I was driving up, so I went with it. May the Lord bless the efforts for His Kingdom at this place. ~ William Flying39

I'm not saying that I believe in flying saucers, little green men ... but my neighbors on the next street saw it as well the other night. I have always been a skeptic. ;-) ~ Flying39 Aviation.

This was a fun little project that I did recently with my Pops and my dog, Maggie. On Saturday, I brought two of my eBike conversions to El Dorado park along with my DJI Mavic Air 2S drone and a few other toys. One of the bikes is my Avalon 26" mountain ebike conversion featured in this video. We had some challenges figuring out the ActiveTrack in the DJI Fly app. I used it once in a while in my older DJI Go 4 app with my other drones. We finally figured it out after using up a battery and a half just hovering overhead waiting for me to getting it to lock on me. By that time, I didn't have much battery left, so I had to land again and swap it out for another battery. The 3rd time was a charm. I handed the remote control to my Pops to just keep an eye on the display and I hopped on the bike and hit the throttle and it chased me. I didn't have my speedometer app running this time and I wasn't watching the display on the controller which also displays speed in Kilometers per Hour. I was just looking back to make sure it was still following. We had a good time at the park and this was fun to put together. This Avalon eBike runs great for a budget build and has a pretty impressive range with the 470 Wh - 13 Ah - 36 volt Li ion R5 Shorty battery supplying the Bafang 250 watt front drive motor power which is pretty quick. I've got this bike up 21.6 miles per hour in my neighborhood recently ~ Flying39 Aviation

I've been flying a few year years and it's pretty easy to get jaded when a new drone comes out. My last exciting new purchase was the original DJI FPV drone came out. I still love flying that machine but the new DJI Avata caught my interest but the cost of the whole setup soured me a bit. When I learned that I could use the remotes and had two sets of video goggles that I could use this new aircraft, I went for the aircraft only option. Also added the 1 Year DJI Care Refresh Plan in case things went sideways and I wrecked or lost it. I first resisted getting any spare batteries but that was more than I could bare. I ended up picking up 3 spare batteries. That's enough to enjoy it and do some decent flying with it. My first flight was using the remote controller from the FPV. I was lucky that there was a huge, tall crane in my neighborhood so I flew out to check it out. My second flight was after figured out the binding process with the DJI Motion Controller. I don't use this very much with the FPV so I suppose that I can have two independent DJI FPV drones with goggles at the same time and fly with a friend (who knows how to fly a little bit). I use the 2nd set of DJI FPV Goggles V2 for a copilot in audience mode normally. The new DJI Goggles made for Avata are lighter and pretty slick but I'll hold off before I get those for a while. Overall, I am fan of the brand new DJI Avata FPV drone! ~ Flying39 Aviation.

I've been tinkering with budget e-Bike conversions for a bit when I'm not flying drones and RC aircraft. I've bought a few e-Bike conversions and found that the higher 750 watt 36 volt front wheel drives demand new, expensive 36V 20Ah batteries at $200 to $250 a pop or run my new 10Ah Li ion dead in less than 7 miles. I sourced some used e-scooter 36 volt 10.4 Ah to 13 Ah batteries with 80% to 90% for my projects but the 750 watt 36 volt motors drew too much and after a 1/2 block, they would cut out. I suspect it was a BMS circuit that shut it down when it was at power. I found that a Bafang 26" wheel which is a modest 250 watts at 36 volts ran awesome and I had plenty of range.I have this 26" Avalon Mountain Bike conversion and a 26" Schwinn Drifter Ladies Cruiser using this setup and they draw very modest power and I suspect 20+ miles range at 20+ Miles Per Hour full throttle. At modest speeds like 10 miles per hour, it should have double the range. I've got this one up to 21.6 mph today as the video shows and went 4.6 miles in my neighborhood and hardly made a dent on battery capacity. The other one has got up to 22.5 mph which is awesome! You could double stack batteries or saddlebag them and just switch them out with the plugs and get home after you ran one out of juice. ~ Fun Stuff! I use a simple 42 volt 2 Amp charger to recharge these and you're back in business in a few hours. ~ William Flying39

Sometimes with the grind of the day and adult responsibilities, a man must harness the 12 year kid inside and go outside and play a little. I was just having a little fun with my internal combustion, high carbon footprint toys and let off a little steam and put this together. I keep them all gassed up and ready to go should a friend want to tag along and go for a little ride through my neighborhood. ~ William Flying39

For as long as I can remember, she was there. The Matriarch of my extended family. I can flash back to legion of memories through out my life and conversations with her. In my dark times, it was her faith and her prayers for me that certainly helped get me through. I last saw her the day after Christmas last year. She went into eternity in February this year and we laid her to rest on March 11th. I was in charge of making sure that white doves were released at the grave site. I didn't have much time to plan but we made it happen. I brought my Mavic Air 2S drone but I apologize for the choppy flying that day with my video. I didn't know what to do with this footage. By the time they were released, I had to scramble to find them and avoid the trees. I imagined one more conversation with her about my walk with Christ and if I could play this song for her, a song of men being and doing as the Lord created them to do, marching ahead as a great army, as I imagine when I hear this song, I am certain that she would approve. When we were little, we used to camp at Shady Oaks and play in the San Gabriel River. I will never forget. Take us to the river. ~ William "Tito" Flying39

There was a lot going on this year as our National holiday approached, setbacks and challenges but it made me all the more grateful for the important things.Things that too many take for granted. Having my folks with me, friends, the little place I call home and my nation. Even with all her imperfections and troubles, everyone still wants to come here. Still the envy of all the other nations and like no other place on earth. Land that I love. ~ Flying39 Aviation

After weeks of trying to figure out some electrical issues with my brand new little motorcycle, I was willing to ride it somewhere and risk breaking down and having to get picked up and bringing my little 125cc four speed motorcycle back home in the bed of my Tundra. The good news is the little bike ran fine. Got me home in one piece. The audio for this little movie will remain encrypted in my own little world unless you know my number and can text me or call me and ask for an explanation. Otherwise .... it will remain a mystery. LOL ~ William Flying39

After I landed my drone and tended to the final leg of the BBQ ops, a big shout out to Pastor Dave for all his help, we ate plenty, and then some more, and then it was time to get to the business at hand. We had cold amber bottles that needed to debut for my special guests. After the efforts from back in March at my last Brewing39 BBQ get together, it was time to finally try the two new brewed creations, still named JFK Brew One and JFK Brew Two. They both turned out really good! I was very pleased as we all got to pop the caps and pour them into our sampler cups. I have wonderful friends and their support has been a big encouragement to me. I love when we can get together and do life together. I have another beer recipe in my head. I'm going to get started on it and find out how it turns out. Until next time, .... Lord willing ;-)