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At long last I got my new X-Ufo a couple of days ago. It was returned to Amazon the first time around, because only 3 of 4 motors worked. The one I just got didn’t work either, unfortunately, because the gyro was defective on arrival. Anyway there’s hope, because I took the gyro from the old ufo and replaced the faulty one, and now it works.

This means I have a spare ufo, but not for long. Because, in the beginning of September I get my X-3D board. It is a purely electric gyroscope that doesn’t have any of the constraints of mechanical gyros. I’m really looking forward to this, as it should improve the experience tremendously - with practice you can even do loops. And it’s possible to customize the settings through an USB connection to your computer. You just have to watch some of the “Piezo in perfektion” videos by the people behind this board! Very impressive; can’t wait.

Some weeks ago I bought an “X-Ufo” which is kind of a remote-controlled helicopter with 4 rotors. It’s great fun to fly but it takes a little practice to control it in the beginning, and the ufo inevitably takes some hard crashes. It’s for indoor and outdoor use, but I learned after chopping a couple of my plants that it was best to keep it outside. Unfortunately that requires next to no wind.

A couple of days ago some friends visited, and one of them got the idea to mount a mobile phone with a camera underneath the ufo. This resulted in some quite funny videos, some of which you can watch here. The phone survived, but at the end of the day, the ufo didn’t fly that well, so there’s a new one on its way. I can always use this one for spare parts.

Next thing, if money and time allows it, will be replacing the batteries with some larger capacity ones - the flight time is about 5 minutes currently - and a gyroscope replacement if possible. The gyroscope sitting on it is mechanical, and when the ufo is tilted more than around 20 degrees, it looses track of what is horizontal, and the ufo will crash. It appears it is possible to mod the ufo by replacing the gyroscope with a custom “piezo” module that has no mecanical parts and provides for better control. In fact “LiPo” (batteries) and “piezo” appear to be the buzzwords over at the X-Ufo forums. My German isn’t very good, but hopefully we’ll be able to get some hints from that source.

Click one of the pictures to the right to see some pictures and videos of the beast in action.