thers no sun anymore its so cold i cant take it the voices wont leave me alone
Ha, just kidding.
The first few days were kind of hard but after a full night of sleep and and starting class, things are better. On Saturday, I went ice climbing with my friend Sam V. It was really good to get out and do something fun in town. My goal is to manage time better so I can go do more things and not get stuck being bored again like the end of last semester. Right now its hard because the VW is down and my truck isn't ready to drive yet.
I did some work on my sled and rode around a little bit in town. I was planning on going riding in summit tomorrow but that fell through. So now it will be next weekend, weather permitting.
My flight from LA to Seattle was at 8:45. Expecting lots of people at LAX I left the hotel at 6:00. By 6:25 I was already at my gate. This quick going at the start of the trip was not to last. After we boarded and taxied out to the run way the flight attendant tried to turn off the cabin lights and one side stayed on. We waited out there while they talked to maintenance guys and we finally taxied back over to the gate. They had to replace a relay which took an hour. I missed my connecting flight and spent the night in the Seattle airport. They gave me a hotel voucher but by the time I got there and got back it wouldn't have been worth it.
Upon landing in Anchorage I was surprised to find snow ...everywhere. I didn't eat in anchorage because we were late getting in and I didn't want to miss my Fairbanks flight. By the time I got to Fairbanks it had been 20 hours. Mom and Dad brought Gus into the airport to greet me and I was shocked by the cold when I walked out the door.
Did more flight tests Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday we did two flights in a row without checking the data. The camera settings were way off and the live preview wasn't enabled so we couldn't tell that all of the pictures would turn out underexposed. We were still having problems getting the camera settings right on day three so it will just be a trial and error process to get it right. Also, we have been using auto focus to eliminate a variable. This slows the frame rate down by about 50% but due to the high winds, the plane is flying slow on the upwind legs so we are still getting good overlap.
We will try to get a Cannon camera running so we can write some CHDK software and hopefully be able to adjust the camera settings in flight via our telemetry stream but that is a ways off.
Tuesday morning we had meetings from nine to one with four AV reps. They were interested in the work the Alaska Center For Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) is doing and will hopefully be a future source of support. They are also working on a high resolution camera payload like the one we are making. I think that is why they were so helpful on this trip. While our payload is not near a final stage, some of the initial testing may have been mutually beneficial. They did devote three employees to help us for three days.
For the last flight on Tuesday, Greg decided to fly the larger lens on the camera. The lens is longer and sticks out past the buffers on the fuselage so that if the plane were to land on it, the lens would be the first thing to hit. We knew the risk and told the pilot to deep stall the plane into a bush so that the camera might be saved. After gathering data for 20 minutes and several approaches, he was able to land the plane partiality on a bush. The camera made it but the center wing took all the load and snapped.
Wednesdays flights were fairly short. The winds had picked up again so we reviewed our photo target strategy. Since we weren't sure if we would be coming back we had pulled all the targets the night before. Instead of placing them along the road we set them out at an angle bisecting two roads in the flight area. In one flight I walked out to the targets and gave directions to keep the flight path over them. On the last flight we had the pilot do a deep stall landing on the ground so we could see where the payload would fail. I set my GoPro to the highest frame rate of 120 fps and got close to the plane hovering overhead in the strong wind. The camera's buffer fills after 15 seconds so I had to start recording after it entered the stall. When it did I took a few steps towards where it would land and held it still.
The camera has a fish eye lens and was shooting at 720p so even though I was pretty close, the video was not very high resolution. I slowed it down and cropped the frame in Premiere; the video is below.
After we packed up and said goodbyes at AV we had lunch and drove to LA. Greg got on an earlier flight so I waited a few hours at Steve's hotel.
When we got to Aerovironment, we had to check in with the guards and show our passports. After getting our visitor badges and going through many locked doors we were kept watch on in the work shop. We have to be escorted everywhere in the building and have to stay together or be otherwise supervised at all times. No photos for this post as anything with a camera was not allowed in the building. It was hard to go without my cellphone all day knowing it was a few hundred feet away in the parking lot.
The camera payload fit in the Puma after a little filing and dremmeling. It was really great to see it in the plane taking pictures and remaining stabilized when we rolled the plane. After we ate lunch we drove out to the test range and did some flights.
The wind was really blowing so it was cold up there and flying was a little harder. The first flight went well except we didn't have the camera focused right so the photos didn't turn out well. Everything else worked thought. However, the landing on the second flight was a bit rough and the 3d printed payload broke in two places. We spent the next two hours in the shop after we got back working on it to fix it and get it ready for Tuesdays flights.
After we left AV, we stopped at Greg's friend's house and had dinner with them. Really nice people. We talked about Alaska and UAVs and then had a game of pool before going back to the hotel.
We woke up and took the bikes to Los Osos area for a last ride over Spooners Cove. Tim, Scott and I rode 10 miles. I think we made good time but I was the slow one. My ass still was sore from the last ride so that's my excuse, (strangely, this didn't make it better) haha. Good ride, lots of down hill at the end. Crashed twice on the way down, but nothing bad though.
Made it!
After eating our post-ride lunch at a Mexican restaurant, I cleaned up and packed for the bus and train ride to Camarillo. The bus ride was uneventful but the train was fun. It had been a while since I had rode on a train so it was nice.
After my cab took me to the wrong Hampton Inn and got to the right one, I still had to wait an hour for Greg and Steve to get there from Fairbanks. We are all down to do camera payload testing on a UAV with Aerovironment in Simi Valley.
Went to Hearst Castle today. Pretty incredible. Lots of very old art that was purchased and moved here in the 30s.
Afterwards we went and saw the elephant seals
Dinner that night with Tim, Sue, Scott and Pam at Mo's BBQ in downtown SLO. It was pretty chilly but we walked around a while and saw the mission that was founded in the 1772.
I went with nick today to a UAS design class at Cal Poly. Nick is now teaching the class but they had a guest speaker from Boeing talking about aircraft structure. In brief, aircraft are extremely complex and one system would take hours to talk about; there are many systems...
After the class, Nick introduced me to the professor that leads the class. He took me to their lab where the students build the planes for the AIAA competition. They have nice digs there, haha. Lots of tools, space, tables and even a dust room. A nice rack with carbon fiber and kevlar sits next to a stack of assorted foam pieces.
Thanks Nick, I got a lot of good info from that visit.
When I got to Tim's, Tom and Loraine as well as Ruby and Pam were there. (Nice to see you guys). Later that night this photo was taken:
I have been putting off the blog because I haven't finished the rough video edit yet. I will post it soon but just have to do picture for now.
Tim and I went to the dive shop and I bought a wet suit. Its an AquaLung 8:7, 8mm on the body and 7mm on the legs and arms. We went to Tim's rental and picked up the ladders since we would not be there for a few days. As soon as we got tot the house we started packing our gear and checking regulators, BCDs, lights, tanks, etc... By eight in the evening the car was packed and Tim had all his work done, so we head off to LA.
Gear Check.
All the gear loaded in the car.
We got to LA pretty late and crashed at Brian's house. We had to drive to long beach at like 4:45 in the morning to catch the boat to the island. After I made a navigational error in the crazy streets we had to rush to get to the boat in time. We made it and loaded all our gear onto hand carts, which we would pull all over for the next two days on the island. The trip across was nice as we left in the dark and got to watch the sun rise. At one point we were on the crest of a wave and could see the sun. And when we dipped into the trough it was gone below the horizon, giving us two sun rises.
Queen Mary
After we got our gear off the boat and trucked over to the hotel it was 8 am. We had to wait just a little while to get in our room but we dropped off our non diving gear and headed straight to the ocean. The room was pretty small; two beds a tiny bathroom, and a small kitchen with three chairs at a table. But we were there for the diving and the room was just a place to crash at when we weren't out.
At the Hermosa Hotel. Ready to dive!
Tim and I all geared up
Since this was my first ocean, salt water, wet suit, clear visibility dive, and first dive with Tim, we did a check out dive before going anywhere. We swam out to a raft tethered to the bottom and descended to a small clear spot and sat on the bottom. Once there for a minute to adjust we flooded, took off, and cleared our masks as well as practiced sharing air. We explored the kelp forests and sea life for a while more. We surfaced to start our surface interval as we planned to check out a ship wreck. After an hour on the surface we went back down to look for the wreck.
We went down to about 85' but only found a mast and lots of chain from the buoys on the surface. There were some other parts around but the hull of the ship wasn't to be found. The wreck is on a step underwater slope so it could have got washed out in a storm.
After taking a five hour nap we explored the city of Avalon. Avalon's prime mode of transportation is golf cart. The steep hills and crowded buildings reminded me of cities I saw in Argentina. There were stairs and little alley ways and even ladders that connected the streets. After walking around we had pizza and went to bed. We had planned to go on a night dive but the cold temp, wet wet suit and warm pizza persuaded us not to go out at and freeze.
On day two we packed up and headed back down to the dive park. We geared up and did a long surface swam out to a buoy that was supposed to be above the wreck of the Valiant. The Valiant was a 147' luxury yacht that sank in 1930 in about 90' of water. We descended and found it pretty quickly. That was the deepest I have dove yet and I was quite nervous about it.
Despite being stressed from diving the wreck, I did well on air and we had a slow ascent and followed the bottom in to shore, exploring along the way. After a surface interval we did another dive with food for the fish. Also just played around and sat on the bottom for a while watching the bubbles...
After our fun dive we showered with our gear to get the salt water off and went back to the express boat terminal. The ride back went quickly and we waited in LA for a few hours to avoid the traffic before driving back to SLO.
Great Trip!
Had breakfast with Tom and Loraine and then took Tom's truck down to the box stores to do some shopping as I did not bring enough clothes. I cleaned up the clearance sales and got a new pull over jacket for $5 and some other good deals.
My friend Sam Brewer from UAF works down here for Halliburton and we arranged to meet up when he had time off. Sam and I work on the plane for the AIAA competition the first year of Aero Group. I drove up to Paso Robles and got Sam. We talked about school, work, UAVs and oil drilling on the drive back to SLO. When we got back, Loraine said that Tim and Tom had gone on a bike ride and were in the hot tub. After introductions Tim and Sam talked a lot about diving, hiking and sail boats.
A quick side story: I went with Sam on a spur of the moment hike with last spring in Alaska on a quest for GoPro cameras from "space". The quest turned into a survival situation with no food, freezing temperatures and a lack of fuel to keep our wet wood burning. So I know Sam is probably crazy enough to get involved with our hiking group. He is in the area and has similar interests. I hope to see him on future hikes (I hope to get time off to go on future hikes as well).
We had a quick snack and headed off to Bishop Peak to go hiking. Sam has been working near here and hasn't been able to get away to do anything so was glad to get out. We made it to the top in good time and headed right over to the rocks to do some bouldering. We tried climbing on some of the bigger rocks at the top but it was raining and things were getting slippery pretty fast. We climbed (or crawled) out on some ledges to get a good view of the valley below.
After the hike we drove back and talked with Tom while he BBQed two chickens. Good dinner! Andrew went back to LA so Sue says its their turn to have me over. Across the street I go. lol
Got up and went with Tim to work on his rental again. I figure the sooner we get it done, the sooner we will go diving. Got a lot of the finish paint done and helped cut some new boards to replace the ones that had dry rot. We walked down to the corner market where they have an excellent grill with authentic Mexican food and "the best burritos ever" according to Tim. Tom and Loraine came by a few hours after lunch and "rescued" me from my voluntary slave labor, haha. After leaving the rental I went back to the corner store with Tom and Loraine and we got food for dinner.
We drove to the house and put the burritos in the refrigerator and I changed and picked up my camera. Then we headed off to Port San Luis and Avila Beach to walk the piers and see the ocean.
