Hey guys

Pretty much only come here to check the wind and sell kite gear, but had a few requests from mates and thought this was worthy of posting on the forums

I've re-directed the 2020 Winter travel budget to a Fliteboard Pro and when I finally received the Skydio 2 drone imported from the US the kite season was done, so only recently put the motion tracking to task over water and here's the result:

12 minute raw, ungraded follow cam footage at Woodies on Sunday.



This is after about 12ish hours of ride time on the eFoil. I am on the cruiser wing for a bit of added stability so I can push some buttons on the beacon for the drone which is on a sleeve on my forearm. Averaging around 25kph for most of the shot

Also looking for expressions of interest to try some tow foiling. PM me if you're in Perth and keen to have a crack

Any questions let me know, they are both very cool bits of tech!

Wow that drone is super cool great footage . Thanks for the share .

Sooo cool. Didn't know you could get the Skydio shipped to Aus. It follows you so well - heaps better than a Soloshot and that's doesn't even need to fly as well.

Great video.
Paularity- do you launch the drone first, then enter the water? If so what battery life can you expect and will the drone return to your takeoff location / home automatically and land? Thanks

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jt737 said..
Great video.
Paularity- do you launch the drone first, then enter the water? If so what battery life can you expect and will the drone return to your takeoff location / home automatically and land? Thanks

On website 23 minutes battery. Hmmm you would want to be close to the break. I wonder if you can paddle out 400m then press launch when you see a set coming

Lovely vid

i have the fliteboard pro. Very cool.

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Casso said..
Sooo cool. Didn't know you could get the Skydio shipped to Aus. It follows you so well - heaps better than a Soloshot and that's doesn't even need to fly as well.

Well officially they still only ship inside the US. My girlfriend is from LA, and I did a day one pre-order. They sold out Batch 1 in 24 hours and the demand was overwhelming by the sounds of it. Since they are based in California they obviously had a bit of a supply bottleneck so it took about 4 months to finally get it over here.

I'm waiting for some more batteries to arrive as they only opened up shipping again last week after their factory being closed for months because of COVID

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hilly said..

jt737 said..
Great video.
Paularity- do you launch the drone first, then enter the water? If so what battery life can you expect and will the drone return to your takeoff location / home automatically and land? Thanks

On website 23 minutes battery. Hmmm you would want to be close to the break. I wonder if you can paddle out 400m then press launch when you see a set coming

Correct. 23 minutes hypothetically, but in practical use with it being quite active and over water I am usually getting about 2/3 of that ~16 minutes and landing it with about 20% in the tank to be safe. And yes, I launch and land from the beach first

So with the motion tracking it has 6 cameras which map the surroundings for obstacle avoidance and the main camera on a gimbal needs to 'see' a person to track them. Getting half submerged in the water sometimes messes with the signal and it gets confused. When that happens it follows the GPS of the beacon until it can visually pick up a person again.

The beacon is essential, but limited. It unfortunately doesn't have a return to home function, only when using both the app can you do that and even then I don't think you can command the drone to do so through the beacon.

Skydio just had a big firmware update which extended the tracking from 40ft limitation to 140ft and added a few more 'skills' to the beacon too like how it orbits me at the beginning of the shot.

This is a great example of it doing some crazy acrobatics!





I've just been scoping a few new spots to foil and I'll put an edit together soon

Quick clip of some crazy water clarity and fun little rollers at Wedge Island on Saturday. The focus was on the 'dronie' skill where the Skydio zooms up and out and then back down while still tracking for more panoramic shots

Wow that's cool. Good work on the Fliteboard Pro and the drone does a great job. That clear water in the last video is amazing. Do you mind if we share on Fliteboard Instagram?

Wow that looked insane what a crazy good foil spot

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Piros said..
Wow that looked insane what a crazy good foil spot

Does not look like that very often One of the windiest spots on the coast Great wingding spot.

Nice shots from the drone.

Why do people feel the need to name spots.


Maybe it's just me but I really just don't see the appeal of the efoil.
Kind of like the modern-day jet ski.
Fun for a little while but not worth the expense, each to their own though.
At least they are not noisy and smelly.

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vide said..
Wow that's cool. Good work on the Fliteboard Pro and the drone does a great job. That clear water in the last video is amazing. Do you mind if we share on Fliteboard Instagram?

Cheers vide! Yeah go for it. I have some more footage in the pipeline and I've been speaking to Fliteboard about other things, but haven't sent them anything yet

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hilly said..

Piros said..
Wow that looked insane what a crazy good foil spot

Does not look like that very often One of the windiest spots on the coast Great wingding spot.

Nice shots from the drone.

Yeah I was really surprised when we arrived! It was about 15kn NE and timed the tides bang on.

Quite stressful being that far out from the beach because the water was so shallow I'm trying to fly the drone in to land on the beach and at the same time not have waves dumping on my head with an upside down foil!

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tightlines said..
Why do people feel the need to name spots.


Maybe it's just me but I really just don't see the appeal of the efoil.
Kind of like the modern-day jet ski.
Fun for a little while but not worth the expense, each to their own though.
At least they are not noisy and smelly.

I was the same way about eSkate about 4 years ago coming from a background of racing/shooting downhill skateboarding prior to getting into wind sports

Now the battery tech is getting better and a lot of major longboard brands have come around to it and are developing their own boards

The demographic is different for both, it seems to be middle aged men who have no skateboarding experience wearing full body armour nerding out about motors, rather than grubby teenagers with now fear for whom $2k on a skateboard is crazy money

I get why people don't care for eFoils. Again the price is the main issue people have just scaled up. In this case brands like Lift and Fliteboard are targeting the super yacht crowd (which I most definitely am not!)

Personally, I saw the potential to get as much time on the water as I want while Aus is locked up, as like I said earlier I spend thousands every year on travel to chase the wind

Anything motorised opens up a new world of places to explore and ride. I skate daily also, it's not just bombing hills anymore

Now I've been scoping out places I wouldn't even consider riding or kiting normally

And look at what someone with skills like Keahi can do



Not trying to convert anyone, but if you ever want to demo, give me a shout

Bring it down south we will demo

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tightlines said..
Why do people feel the need to name spots.


Maybe it's just me but I really just don't see the appeal of the efoil.
Kind of like the modern-day jet ski.
Fun for a little while but not worth the expense, each to their own though.
At least they are not noisy and smelly.

You'll be surprised about how much fun and convenient it is. Having been obsessed with Kitesurfing since 1998, I've now almost stopped kitesurfing but get out on the Fliteboard maybe 4-5x per week. Mainly because I just don't have time with work to get the conditions right, set-up, pack-up etc. Yes Fliteboard is my work (and life) but there is something really great about rocking up at the beach, getting it out of the car and riding hard for 40 minutes and being back at work within a hour. Almost regardless of the conditions... And especially when there is no wind. Many of our customers have told us that their Fliteboard is their favourite possession. You couldn't get me on a Jetski for more than 10 minutes. There is no skill involved. There is reward (unless its a Standup Jetski perhaps). This is quite different. And being able to turn any way you want and explore places you can't go with a kite is really awesome. Sure Kitefoiling is probably a more engaging experience. But on the other hand a lot of kite foiling is riding in straight lines back and forth, and it's not really accessible to a lot of our customers. Our typical customer is not a Surf Foiler or Kitefoiler. They have a sport they are passionate about that is less expensive. But for everyone else, it blows their mind to be able to master it quickly and then feel like king of the ocean with full autonomy. But I'm sure that as Surf Foilers and Kite Foilers get older like me, Fliteboard becomes a lot more appealing as a really convenient way to get a fix, explore and try something new.

Yeah nah, I'll stick to wing, kite, Surf/sup foiling thanks.

This is the main reason

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vide said..

But for everyone else, it blows their mind to be able to master it quickly and then feel like king of the ocean with full autonomy.

I'd prefer a bit of a challenge rather than push a button and go.
As I said earlier though, each to there own.
Hopefully, some of the jetski crowd have a go.

Hey Tightlines,
I was with you 100% on the whole electric foil thing, not where I saw myself when I want to be on the water.
However, I had the chance to try one yesterday at Kurnell. James at Prokite Kitesurfing is offering lessons on a Takuma and for a relative newcomer to foiling it was a gamechanger. Just being able to feel the speed change as the board went from slogging to plaining and then foil allowed me to clear up some mental and physical issues that will reduce my walks of shame immensely.
As a training tool, I can see the advantage, if you were setting up to teach people how to foil etc. this is the tool to have, beats behind the boat lessons by a country mile.
Gary