The General Drone-Related Thread

Just thinking about the whole thing and comparing it to base jumping/urban exploring, they know they shouldn't do it, but they do it anyway, partly for the thrill and partly because they know it's illegal somewhat. if it were legalised fully, half the thrill would be gone.

So what legislators should do is legalise the whole lot and relax the regulations, it will make drones look not so cool, therefore less "incidents", reverse phycology.
 
Dave1 said:
I agree that it will be difficult to implement any system now, but government being government it will implement a draconian knee jerk reaction of some sort.
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Like banning handguns after Dumblane for example !
 
We could make it illegal to fly airliners into tall buildings too.
 
I notice that drones are banned over a large area (Purley to Haringey to Windsor) this weekend. Wonder how many know?

The drone that nearly hit the BA flight was over Richmond Park, which is quite a few miles from Heathrow.
 
I noticed a camera-equipped drone fly slowly up the lane past our house yesterday about 8m away from the building at 10-15m height,

Am I right in thinking that the rule is still thou shalt not fly thy drone within 50m of a building or a person, be thou licenced or not?
 
st599 said:
The drone that nearly hit the BA flight was over Richmond Park, which is quite a few miles from Heathrow.
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The drone flying field at Richmond Park is a fair way south of the flight path. Flights are pretty high at that point too. It seems a bit funny from there
 
st599 said:
I notice that drones are banned over a large area (Purley to Haringey to Windsor) this weekend. Wonder how many know?

.
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The ban is for Obamas visit and covers everything (including kites) that flys below 2,500'. Love to know how they'll enforce thar
 
Serendipitous Sid said:
I noticed a camera-equipped drone fly slowly up the lane past our house yesterday about 8m away from the building at 10-15m height,

Am I right in thinking that the rule is still thou shalt not fly thy drone within 50m of a building or a person, be thou licenced or not?
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There is no license. A drone can be flown closer than 50m if the person or building is under the operator's control. Also the distance is reduced to 30m at take off and landing.
 
"Building, STAY!" See, it's under control! ;) Then again, a week or so ago, there was a mahoosive building coming down the road towards me! Luckily it was preceded by an escort vehicle who waved what little traffic there was into a lay-by so the lorry and load could get past.
 
Here's a short film i made yesterday using my Phantom 3 Pro, I'm reasonably happy with it, trying to get my head around editing in premier pro but will get there eventually!
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g14IGMFHrmY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
boyfalldown said:
The ban is for Obamas visit and covers everything (including kites) that flys below 2,500'. Love to know how they'll enforce thar
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You chuckle, but when we were kids, we thought it would be a jolly wheeze to build a great big kite whilst on holiday in Skeggy, and to fly it as high as we could, using fishing line.
Bear in mind the legal max height at which you can fly a regular kiddie kite is 60m (didn't know that at the time).
Took us an hour to reel out all of the fishing line, by which time the kite had disappeared from view, but now took 2 people to hold - such was the pull.
The low pass by 2 jets, and a stern talking to by a couple of Lincolshire's finest made us see the error of our ways.
We made the local evening news! :D
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Here you go, this is how to embed it.

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Thanks. I've posted it elsewhere on here also. What do you think by the way? Personally I'm not happy with the speeded up opening shot but the rest isn't too bad for a first rough cut.
 
boyfalldown said:
The ban is for Obamas visit and covers everything (including kites) that flys below 2,500'. Love to know how they'll enforce thar
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Obama flew into Stansted not Heathrow. Maybe the ban is de to someone having a birthday party not far from Heathrow.
 
Muzzieman said:
Thanks. I've posted it elsewhere on here also. What do you think by the way? Personally I'm not happy with the speeded up opening shot but the rest isn't too bad for a first rough cut.
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There are some nice shots, I especially liked where you rise up in front of the one with water cascading down then see the expanse of water at eye level.
For best video it's all about trying to plan your path along the lines of tracking shots.
Keep everything slow and smooth - or edit out the jerky bits ;)
Try to avoid anything at all repetitive and if possible the whole thing is usually best kept to 3 minutes or less - even if that means more than one short video.

Youtube analytics show how most viewers only watch the first 30 seconds or so then click away if it does't grab them.
If it isn't somewhere you know or in some way visually stunning we all have limited patience now that the novelty of 'good' aerial video has worn off.

As the genre matures aerial clips become shorter and increasingly just useful add in part of a longer video.
 
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4wd said:
There are some nice shots, I especially liked where you rise up in front of the one with water cascading down then see the expanse of water at eye level.
For best video it's all about trying to plan your path along the lines of tracking shots.
Keep everything slow and smooth - or edit out the jerky bits ;)
Try to avoid anything at all repetitive and if possible the whole thing is usually best kept to 3 minutes or less - even if that means more than one short video.

Youtube analytics show how most viewers only watch the first 30 seconds or so then click away if it does't grab them.
If it isn't somewhere you know or in some way visually stunning we all have limited patience now that the novelty of 'good' aerial video has worn off.

As the genre matures aerial clips become shorter and increasingly just useful add in part of a longer video.
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Thanks for the comment, i have had the rising shot over the dam in my head for a long time and am really happy with that. I have since done a few more edits and the video is looking a lot better. The main issue i'm having is getting used to using video editing software. I come from a background in music production so the cut and paste area of editing is very familiar to me but things like adjusting exposure and colour correction are done slightly differently to how I'm used to in lightroom and photoshop, they are obviously the same concept but performed differently. Its a steep learning curve but one that i am relishing. the other thing i have picked up is to not give up on a shot, i.e. don't bottle it, keep the shot going and you will probably get what you want or at least something close any hesitation ruins the whole shot!
 
So all those acres of stories written the past few days - which gradually omitted the 'believed to be' part will be getting revised? - thought not..
 
I suppose airline passengers should be grateful they introduced the plastic bag levy last year...
 
All we know now is that it was "believed to be a drone" but "might have been a plastic bag". MIGHT still have been a drone though.
 
Nod said:
Exactly! Although the pilots might.
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Possibly. I know it sounds like an odd thing to say but I know from flying light aircraft and gliders it would be quite hard to identify or see something that small when your workload is high as you come into land
 
boyfalldown said:
In short, no one has a clue
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I think you might be underestimating the skill of the BA pilots, after all they are high key trained observers.

Many of the current fleet of BA pilots are former RAF pilots and used to looking out for very small fast moving objects snd reacting to them.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
I think you might be underestimating the skill of the BA pilots, after all they are high key trained observers.
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You'd think wrong ;). Without detracting from their abilities there are large areas you can't see from a commercial (or any other)aircraft

A genuine question. Have the pilots said publicly what they hit (the Met has) but I can't see the pilots saying that anywhere. On your observation thingy you don't overfly Richmond Park on the approach to Heathrow. Even on the Southern runway you're a mile or so north of it so some reporting somewhere isn't very accurate. There is also part of the park you're perfectly entitled to fly in (subject to the normal height and distance restrictions)
 
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Muzzieman said:
Thanks. I've posted it elsewhere on here also. What do you think by the way? Personally I'm not happy with the speeded up opening shot but the rest isn't too bad for a first rough cut.
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Great footage of my favourite place in the whole world.
If you look closely you might be able to see me struggling up Win Hill with a heavy tripod :)
 
Well can finally report that with this latest firmware I now have a working P3P again, though it really doesn't seem to fly as stable and as true as it used to before I made the mistake of thinking a firmware update was a good idea :lol: :lol: :lol: as evidenced by the fact I managed to crash it into my garage wall on its first test flight smashing a nice new set of props I'd opening up just for the it's long awaited return to the air...hopefully the next firmware will see a full return to service...that said actually used it today something sort of useful performing a check on our village church at the request of the warden to check for nesting birds...
 
MWHCVT said:
Well can finally report that with this latest firmware I now have a working P3P again, though it really doesn't seem to fly as stable and as true as it used to before I made the mistake of thinking a firmware update was a good idea :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: as evidenced by the fact I managed to crash it into my garage wall on its first test flight smashing a nice new set of props I'd opening up just for the it's long awaited return to the air...hopefully the next firmware will see a full return to service...that said actually used it today something sort of useful performing a check on our village church at the request of the warden to check for nesting birds...
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Did you calibrate the IMU after the firmware update?

I updated my P3A, put it in the fridge for a few hours, set up my leveling table and calibrated the IMU after removing it from the fridge.
 
Rob 80386 said:
Did you calibrate the IMU after the firmware update?

I updated my P3A, put it in the fridge for a few hours, set up my leveling table and calibrated the IMU after removing it from the fridge.
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I did yes, but will give it another go see if it makes a difference, just glad to have a 90% back to normal quad
 
MWHCVT said:
I did yes, but will give it another go see if it makes a difference, just glad to have a 90% back to normal quad
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You need to calibrate it when it is cold, the colder the better, it will help with levelling and reduce warm up time.
Make sure your table is perfectly level too.
 
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