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● LIVE · 14 ms 4000 m 125 mph ↓

What if the whole drop zone could watch live?

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SKYLIVE

The jump.
Live.

Real-time video from freefall.

The problem

Today the ground sees
just a dot in the sky.

Spectators, the waiting crowd, her own team — they follow her jump with the naked eye. The footage arrives only after landing. The moment itself stays invisible.

The idea

What if the ground could see the jump through her eyes?

Until now the footage was always late. We bring the view from the jump down to the ground — in the same instant. Not as a recording. As the present.

The system

Two devices. One live picture.

Its own radio link, no internet. The HDMI cable goes straight to the big TV in the waiting area.

Part 1

The Sender

The product

Rides the GoPro mount.
Transmits 4 km — with margin.

Looks like an action cam — is a 1-watt live transmitter. Camera, radio and swap battery in one printed housing: four off-the-shelf parts, no soldering.

Hands on

It takes itself apart for you.

3D view needs WebGL (graphics acceleration). Static view — on the project page the real CAD model spins.

Drag = rotate · scroll = zoom — the real CAD model explodes & reassembles on loop. Colors = part coding: door blue, lid orange, small parts green.

The radio heart

The transmitter.

Camera picture in, radio signal out: 1 watt, ~14 ms, 4 km+ with margin. Lives on the upper floor, thermal pad against the housing wall.

⬡ Real off-the-shelf part — HDZero Freestyle V2 · color = part coding

The eye

The camera.

Nano format, wide angle. The lens looks flush through a window in the wall — nothing sticks out, nothing snags a canopy.

⬡ Real off-the-shelf part — HDZero Nano 90 · rendered from the original STEP

The energy

The battery.

A 3S LiPo on its own floor — below the radio, thermally separated. Charged externally, swapped in seconds behind the side door. Rails hold it in place in freefall.

⬡ Real off-the-shelf part — Tattu 3S 300 (45 × 17.5 × 15.3 mm, measured)

The radio link

The antenna lies sideways. On purpose.

✕ Antenna pointing up (default)

The doughnut radiates sideways all around — but straight down is the hole. And straight down is the drop zone.

✓ SkyLive: rotated 90°, on the wall

Axis horizontal through the wall → the doughnut stands vertical: full power down to the DZ and to the horizon — the cable never points up.

The omni sits captive against the housing wall — no free-standing stub, nothing to snag. A T-piece clamps its cable as strain relief.

Made visible

This is how it radiates.

The ring is the radiation pattern of the sideways antenna — stood upright so the drop zone always sits in the maximum, however she turns in the air.

Architecture

Every part has its place.

Lid · M3 inserts

Antenna · sideways on the wall

Camera · Nano 90

VTX · 1 W radio

Battery · lower floor

Door · swing noses + 1× M2

Buildability

From parts to sender.

Body ONE printed part — both floors Battery 3S · its own floor Door flush · 1× M2 VTX 1 W · ~14 ms Camera Nano 90 · flush lens Antenna sideways · doughnut to the DZ Small parts T-pieces + XT30 clamp bars

The dimensions

GoPro format, upright.

72mmWidth

57mmHeight

39mmDepth

Standard GoPro forkits own printed part, mounted underneath — fits any helmet mount.

Barely bigger than a GoPro — holding a true 1-watt radio, the antenna and an all-day swappable battery.

Cooling without moving parts

The airstream is the fan.

No fan, no sensor, no power spent on cooling: 45° louvers in both walls, the chip hangs on the housing wall. In freefall the 125 mph airstream flushes through — on the ground low TX power, full power only in the jump.

Chip temperature (design calc) airstream cooling

Calculated, not claimed — the bench test is the next step

Ready all day

Battery swap in seconds.

1 · One screw

One M2 on the tab — seated in brass, not in plastic.

2 · Swing the door

Swing noses at the bottom hold it — it can never drop.

3 · Swap the battery

Empty out, charged in, door clicks back.

The door sits flush in the wall — a plug in the housing contour, nothing stands in the airstream. Several batteries charge in parallel at the ground station.

What it unlocks

One sender —
many stages.

Competition

Public viewing

The championship live from the air — on the big screen on the ground.

Tandem guests

Live for everyone

Family, friends & the waiting crowd watch every jump live on the TV — premium instead of waiting.

Training & safety

Front-row seat

Instructors & examiners follow student jumps live from the ground.

Show

Live attraction

Freefall as a live picture on any event stage.

Made possible by the sender: 4 km range with margin · ~14 ms — effectively real-time · GoPro mount · all-day via swappable battery · legal on an amateur-radio license.

Context

Why not just DJI or GoPro?

	SKYLIVE	DJI O3 / FPV	GoPro
Live picture to the drop zone	Yes, in the open	own goggles/app only	—
Onto a big screen / TV	Yes · via HDMI	encrypted → no	—
Range	≈ 4 km	a few km	Wi-Fi ~50 m
Latency	~14 ms	~30 ms	n/a (recording)
Legal on ham license	Yes	gray area	Ja
GoPro format on the helmet	Yes	no	Yes

SKYLIVE14 ms

DJI O330 ms

Blink of an eye~100 ms

The picture arrives before you blink — a blink takes about 100 ms.

The sender at a glance

Everything that counts.

4000mExit altitude

200km/hAirstream in freefall

14msLatency — effectively real-time

4kmRange with margin

1WTX power · ham license

72×39×57mmGoPro-close, on the helmet

Part 2

The ground station

From the sky to the TV

The journey of the picture.

From her as a radio signal to the antennas, on to the monitor — and via HDMI onto the big TV. 14 milliseconds from the jump to the family in the waiting area.

What arrives on the ground

Live on the
screen.

A monitor on a tripod catches the signal through several antennas — always the one with the strongest picture. Daylight-readable, with a sun hood. Via HDMI the same picture runs straight to the big TV in the waiting area.

Senderin freefall› RF · 4 km5.8 GHz · 1 W› Antennasmultiple beams› Monitor+ recorder› TV at the DZvia HDMI

Bodenstation mit Live-Bild auf dem Monitor

Antennas · zenith + all-round

Monitor · live picture

Power-Station

Stativ

Field-ready

Set up in
minutes.

Antennas

Several fixed beams cover zenith and horizon — no tracking, no gap above the station.

Recording

An external recorder captures everything — instant playback after the jump.

Power

A power station for the whole day — no wall socket needed at the DZ.

A real jump — followed live

Boarding

Honestly calculated

Range — with margin.

Distance: 4.0 km Link-budget margin: +20 dB

Solid — comfortable margin

Free-space link budget at 5.8 GHz / 1 W. The ground station listens on four antennas at once — 2× X²-Air patch (13 dBic, 150° wide), a helix (13 dBi) and an omni — and switches to the strongest one frame by frame (diversity). Versus a single omni, that adds up to ~11 dB (datasheet gains, free space): at 4 km about +20 dB of margin remains for body shadowing & multipath. (drag the slider · switch the antenna)

● RainThe link loses < 1 dB over 4 km — almost irrelevant. The limit is visibility, not the signal.

● Clouds / sunNo effect at 5.8 GHz; a sun hood handles monitor glare.

● Wind / gustsUncritical for the tech — the limit is jump operations (VFR), not the sender.

The whole system

From the helmet to the living room
of the drop zone.

›

Both halves fully engineered — the sender printed, gated, improved through review.

The road

From concept to the first official tests.

✓

Concept + CAD

Three sizes fully engineered; every part passes automated print gates.

2

Prototype

First print done — external CAD review fully incorporated.

3

Bench & first jumps

RF, thermal and fit tests, then internal practice jumps.

4

Official tests

First real, official tests — 2026 season.

SKYLIVE

Be part of it.

Jumpers, tinkerers, drop zones — let's build the front-row experience.

Appendix A · RF link

The link budget, done properly.

Free-space path loss (Friis) at f = 5.8 GHz, d = 4 km:

FSPL = 32.44 + 20·log₁₀(f/MHz) + 20·log₁₀(d/km) = 32.44 + 75.27 + 12.04 = 119.8 dB

Received power = TX power + antenna gains − losses − FSPL:

P_rx = 30 dBm (1 W) + 1.6 dBi (TX omni) + 8 dBi (RX beam) − 1 dB − 119.8 dB ≈ −81 dBm RX sensitivity (HDZero) ≈ −90 dBm → margin ≈ +9 dB

Zero margin (free space) only at about 11 km. The 4 km are deliberately conservative — the ~9 dB buffer body shadowing, multipath & polarization. Plus the sideways TX antenna: the drop zone sits in the doughnut maximum, not in the dead zone. And that is the single-antenna math — the 4-bay diversity ground station adds up to ~11 dB on top (see “Range”).

Method: Friis / ITU-R P.525. Conservative values (omni TX, unfavorable body attitude).

Appendix B · Thermals

Why it works without a fan.

Dissipated power at 1 W RF (~35 % efficiency): Q ≈ 2.5 W. Three paths, all unpowered:

1 · VENTS: 45° louvers in both walls — stack draft on the ground, flush-through in the airstream (dynamic pressure ½·ρ·v² ≈ 1.8 kPa at 200 km/h) 2 · WALL: VTX on a thermal pad against the 3 mm wall → the housing itself is the heatsink 3 · ALTITUDE: at 4000 m it is ≈ −10 °C — the environment helps

Operating discipline instead of electronics: on the ground the chip transmits at a low setting (HDZero manages its own power), full 1 W only in the jump — where the airstream cools more than any fan could. Graceful: HDZero throttles itself on over-temperature — worst case less picture, never a defect.

Design calculation, honestly labeled: the bench test (roadmap step 3) verifies it.

Appendix C · Manufacturing

One printed part, tested like software.

The housing is one single printed part (ASA, 3 mm walls) plus door, lid and small parts — no glue, no seam across the housing.

Every export runs through automated gates: watertight mesh · wall-thickness analysis (thin-wall detector) · overhang/support check · collision and assembly checks in CAD

The first prototype is printed; an external CAD review (SolidWorks) has been fully incorporated — including a fracture analysis on the real part and the radii & check rules derived from it. Three sizes share the same proven design.

CAD checks ≠ field test — hence roadmap step 3: bench, fit, jumps.