consumer drone video

FPV means first Person view, also RPV for remote person view or just video piloting, a method of radio-controlled vehicles control from the pilot's point of view. Thanks, Wikipedia.

NURK FPV uploaded this video to YouTube. I noticed it tonight on smalldeadanimals.

If you're not quite appreciating why this flight is so awesome it might help to go through comments to the video on YouTube. It blows the minds of FPV enthusiasts who wouldn't dare a fraction of these maneuvers. Usually pilots are so concerned with crashing their expensive quadrocopters they merely go up and circle around for simple aerial views, carefully gingerly managed, while this guy flies right through bridge trellises, tightly between two tall pines, down ravines, then noticing a train he flies the length of the train then back flipping side to side over the train, back and forth, up and down, front to back, up to the conductor who slams shut his window, back down the train, between train cars as it's rolling, underneath the train, landing on top of the train and inside a boxcar through bridges then back over the bridge, then back home to the drone pilot who turns out to be regular somewhat heavyset dude with a beard wearing short pants. At the end he shows a small green drone bashing through a paper sign that he made, most likely the one used to make the video, one not so expensive to risk on such a hazardous spontaneous flight path.

I said all that in an email to someone I haven't seen in a year and within two minutes I received a return email saying "I saw this video a few days ago."

This is Nevada. But the whole thing reminded me of a camping trip a long time ago in Colorado with a group that Toni was involved with. I had nothing to do with the planning of this trip. I had no idea where we were going. I just went along to a campout. I went along to shut her up so she'd stop nagging. Everyone there was a stranger to me but not to Toni. It was a large group of people. Some of them were her coworkers.

We went up to the mountains somewhere packed into several cars. The drive up was rough mostly on unpaved road with a lot of washout wending and winding. Finally the road stopped and opened up to a large flat area, a field where all of us set up our tents. 

Then in the evening after we ate and the drinking started in earnest, we noticed across the river in the distance a long train approaching unusually slowly. Then from the opposite direction we noticed another train approaching.  Both trains were moving achingly slowly. We had no idea why so slowly that far out from civilization. It looked for all the world to all of us as if the trains were destined to crash into each other right in front of us. We could not see there were two sets of tracks. The flattened area extended beyond the river. A good place to have double tracks for trains using the same rail line.  It just happened that they passed each other right in front of this flat area. None of us could believe what we were seeing. We were all going to witness a train crash right out there in the middle of nowhere. 

And today I'm dismayed in recalling this because like so many other  incredible things like this that burned into my memory as outstanding impressionable things to behold until the day that I die, were I to mention it to any of the involved parties they very likely will not recall it because they're always so drunk all the time at things like this. That was the whole aim of the trip from their point of view, to go out and party heartily, drink heavily, and get totally smashed. Alcohol is a terrible thing. I suppose it's a fantastic thing for creating memories but the problem is you cannot remember them. And that there's what you call a paradox.