What do I need to reach the clouds

[h0tr0d]

Best advice is to wake up Early! The clouds almost always seem lower at ~7:30 AM here. Keep in mind the humidity will most likely be higher and video transmission range will suffer especially if you use 2.4 or 5.8 video.

I like to check this website to find out where the cloud base is going to be...it's fairly accurate. Just swap in your local airport code.
http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/laun...=K11R&state=TX

Have fun! (These were at 1200-1400ft AGL)

View this video on YouTube

[MatCat]

^^
Great advice above... Where I live (Northern Cali on the coast), we are in a somewhat isolated weather bubble, and it is predictable as can be, and the dynamics are the same everywhere...

Early in the morning before the sun comes up all the moister is lower to the ground, the cloud cover is lower, and humidity is higher because of it, as the sun comes out and warms up the air (hot air rises), it evaporates moister causing humidity to lower while the cloud base rises, clouds are pretty much like giant lava lamps in our atmosphere

Now going back to my micro-climate I live in... I am surrounded by mountains to the east (about 1300' altitude on the first ridge, and about 2000' on the second ridge behind it), because of this and being close to the ocean humidity is quite high at all times, in the morning it is almost always overcast with a cloud base of around 300 to 1000 feet in altitude (I am only 10 feet above sea level where I live and fly), usually this cloud base will have risen to about 1400' to 2200' by around 12:30pm, sometimes as late as 2pm, at which point they will usually be nice fluffy cumulus perfect for FPV, though a lot of times too they will be wet clouds which I don't fly in :P.

Obviously because of how my climate is, morning is a horrible time to FPV for cloud surfing, and often horrible period because of the low cloud base, so I usually fly around 1pm until up to about 7pm (at which point the sun gets annoying), which is nice because it means I usually get the best timing for thermal activity (though because of the 65 degree average summertime temp!) it's usually too cold for me to get great thermals. Now if you live in an area with a usually higher cloud base, mornings would be the best time to reach them low, but you will have NO thermal assist, but you will have calm air usually. Noon is best if you like to thermal but will also get more wind.

[GreenAce92]

I made it! Today storm clouds came in. Man! So foggy! Could barely see anything.

Scary without OSD however with flaps down I just float around at high altitude till I fknd an opening, then fly through.

Ahhh the thrill!

[v9climber]

Best way to reach the clouds is to Start FPVing and understand the limitations of your equipment. You could get into the clouds with a 2.4 system, I have done it several times on my gliders well before I started FPVing. I would concentrate on your video system link as it will require more tweaking then the control system of the plane.

[GreenAce92]

Is there some kind of overlay-osd technology that would show a wire frame of the ground below in some bright "night-vision" green?

This way when you're in the clouds and you can't see shit, then you can see a rough outline of the coast line / ground line with the instrument

I was kind of scared and was even more scared after dropping out of the clouds and realizing I had drifted at least 1000' from my starting position

[BloomingtonFPV]

RVOSD. It at least has an artificial horizon. Maybe this isn't what you were asking.

[GreenAce92]

Well any sort of technology that would assist in cloud flying. Not even sure if we are technically supposed to be in the clouds to begin with.

Not entirely on topic but I always wanted a human-used proximity detector, you know... somebody's running full sprint at you about to drop kick you in the back of the head, you start hearing this "BEEP BEEP BEEP" you turn around and save your Hippocampus.

Maybe FPV planes should use the same tactic.

[McCleary.11]

Awesome clouds today! About 4500 to 5000 ft...


View this video on Vimeo

[SecretSpy711]

I'm finding that I have a growing desire to have an FPV rig that can reach the clouds any day of the week without breaking a sweat (read: can do it without thermals). Today I flew my Deep Reaper to 6,000 ft AGL and I still had not reached what seemed like (from the ground, anyway) low clouds. Colorado has really high clouds all the time and I'm tired of it! Anyway that's about the time when my low battery alarm on my groundstation started beeping, and my flight batteries were getting low as well, so I returned to earth. Took forever to get down, but I was still disappointed. You guys in Florida and Louisiana have it easy!

I was considering maybe a SkyHunter (website claims it can carry 25,000mAh?), but thought I'd ask around to see what other planes might be a possibility? Something that won't break the bank (too much). And no flying wings... I'm tired of the constant yaw wobble.

[SecretSpy711]

Did I say 6,000? I meant 400 ;-)