World Scenic Flights by HeliGraphix

As some of you have noticed the last post was written on a Friday, not Thursday! This tells you two things: First, we have TOTALLY lost track of what weekday it is – we do not have any breaks and it is one rush all day long. Second, contrary to what's written in the brochures there's self-guided tours through the Changdeokgung Palace site on other weekdays as well! :-)

Yesterday we walked to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the second best of the five major palace sites in Seoul. We had a look at the buildings and open spaces and finally explained at the tourist information what we'd come for. The woman there was very understanding and guided us to the responsible office; unlike in other countries every palace site has its own office. The people there liked the WSF project as well, but – like a number of times before – next door were some government buildings, and this was special security zone. Thus no flying permit. (The picture below was taken the first day - it is great, but like explained we do not have anything on video.)



However, the tourist office advised us to drive to the culture park right in the city center. There would be houses in typical Korean architecture style, plus we'd have a wonderful view of the Seoul Tower. OK, board a taxi and off it goes through the usual traffic chaos.
The site was nice but too small in a way that you always had not so nice parts of the city in the background - the harmony was somehow missing. As for the tower, not the nicest one we'd ever seen, but quite impressive; the only problem was that the sun spoiled the picture. The staff there were nice, a flying permit no problem. We flew one 3700 mAh pack to have at least something on video; the shots are quite ok but nothing compared to the Great Wall in China or the Taj Mahal.
The shock came right after landing: The 3700 mAh batt pack was ballooned as well! Hell, if the batteries continue dying at this rate then we lose one pack per flight!

What next? Well, there is three kinds of landmarks suitable for WSF. The first category is cultural monuments, in this case one of the famous palaces. The second group would be world-renowned technical structures, e.g. the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. This leaves the third category, characteristic landscape or natural formations.
Okay, if the palace thing absolutely doesn't work, then let's go for the Seoul Tower! But similar problem like in Kuala Lumpur: No space for flying within the city! Most of the ancient settlements and towns were built near rivers: For one, this offered the possibility of agriculture and second, it was the gate to the world and enabled people to trade. Seoul, too, is divided by a mighty river – and that's exactly what we headed for next (don't let's talk about walking on highways with R/C helicopters …)!



It was quite cold and a firm wind blowing, still the flights were successful and left us with some good shots; we think they will look cool in the final film. After landing one of the Korean spectators fell over the helicopter and broke the vertical fin. Annoying, but not a problem – back in our small pension I replaced it by a new one.



Both Saskia and I are reasonably well again. The major problem now is another one: Our Flight Power battery packs. After the river flight our fourth and last pack showed signs of ballooning, too! We did not have any problems with Flight Power packs until the WSF project started; but it is fact that even though they haven't seen more than 40 cycles each, they obviously cannot cope with the fast changing conditions of WSF flights.

Rainer Hacker is one of the greatest guys we've ever met - if you have a problem with motors or battery packs, he'll do his very best to solve them for you. We got pretty much most of our batteries through him (Hacker Motor GmbH) - very unfortunately, we cannot reach him at the moment! They're on a trade fair and do not check their emails or answer the phone.

We talked to Nicolas Kaiser and Steven-V as well as our old friend Andrew Palmer from New Zealand (he'll be flying over to Australia just to meet us there - simply great, isn't it, and we'll talk about that once in Australia). All three of them are currently trying to locate 12s battery packs and checking alternatives. The situation is serious, but we're confident to find a durable solution.

Like mentioned earlier: As of now it is unclear what causes the ballooning of the FP packs and there is a chance it would have happened to ANY brand. BUT: You have to see our situation, too! We have flown half around the world and are fighting our way through a world-unique and very demanding mission. All our battery packs are dying like flies, and the project is at stake! So we have to do something FAST and NOW! Any thoughts/comments from you are welcome, too.

Right now we are minutes from boarding the plane to Australia; the flight is 9.5 hours, and we'll continue from there. Stay tuned!