Drone choice for walking and riding...

[briantrumpet]

Second training flight of the day. Still not gentle enough on the pan action (it's the most visually obvious in any case), but at least I got a bit more confident at flying by watching just what was on the screen and letting the drone get 200-300m away, and trusting it wouldn't drop into the river. I guess it's a bit like riding a bike down fast descents - you just have to trust the machinery, or you'll just be jittery with your hands on the brakes the whole time.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Nice work! And cracking scenery Gromit.

 

[briantrumpet]

Nice work! And cracking scenery Gromit.

Thanks. Work in progress. Could have gone lower to get more of a whooshing sensation, but then would have lost the shapes of the river. Another time I could start lower and then ascend... Of be nervous about doing it the other way, as I don't think it works submerse more than once.

It's quite fun planning a single take video, though doing a few bits and sticking them together would be a useful thing to learn to do back at base.

Haven't worked out where to do the next flight. Need to stare at a map and rack my brain.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Thanks. Work in progress. Could have gone lower to get more of a whooshing sensation, but then would have lost the shapes of the river. Another time I could start lower and then ascend... Of be nervous about doing it the other way, as I don't think it works submerse more than once.

It's quite fun planning a single take video, though doing a few bits and sticking them together would be a useful thing to learn to do back at base.

Haven't worked out where to do the next flight. Need to stare at a map and rack my brain.

Yeah, water resistance looks to be low. I noticed the holes around the blades that leave the motor coil windings open to the elements.
You must have almost too much choice of where to fly. A nice problem to have!

 

[briantrumpet]

Yeah, water resistance looks to be low. I noticed the holes around the blades that leave the motor coil windings open to the elements.
You must have almost too much choice of where to fly. A nice problem to have!

I'm sure there are loads of places, but I'm being very careful to check the official no-fly areas, and thinking about sight lines and trees. Also where there are not-private areas suitable to fly from, and where I won't annoy people. Today's later flight was completely drowned out by the noise of the river.

 

[briantrumpet]

Here's today's effort - terribly unadventurous, not least as if I did anything more than taking it vertically up and spinning it around, I risked being over houses, which is a no-no. But quite pleased, as it's a view of the chateau which is impossible otherwise, and the view from there is quite nice. Didn't mean to stick this particular piece of music to it, but it'll do as a toe-tapper.

 

[briantrumpet]

This was just a try-out of the pull-back function - there are a few, including boomerang, vertical 'rocket', circle, and ascending spiral, but you've got to be very careful of potential collision features (you can stop it at any time, but obviously you need to be able to see the thing, and in tree-ey/hilly terrain, there are a lot of potential hazards.

 

[briantrumpet]

Today's panorama, taken on my way to do some shopping at Lidl:



I think I need to find some relatively flat and obstacle-free locations, either here or in Devon, to do practice on moving shots fairly close to features without risking crashing the drone, to build up confidence. At the moment, I still feel very tense even with a simple shot like this, sending £250 up in the air and potentially up to 500m away and 100m up. Even though I know the technology is very good for the thing making its own way back to me, it still feels weird remote flying such a tiny thing so far away with just a mobile phone screen to see what it's up to.