Consumer Drone Users!

[Kalli]

Folks - I've gone and picked myself up my first drone/UAS/UAV and i'm keen on making the most use of it - A DJI Phantom 4. 

My purpose for getting one was a simple one - I love my aviation - whole family of flyers, and I was right at the end of my PPL too a couple of years back. But truth be told, it's too much per hour for my tastes, and my life a little too busy at the moment. So I thought i'd combine my two loves of photography and flying, and grab myself a Phantom 4. However whilst I'm an apt flyer of fixed wing, rotary is a relatively untouched world for me, outside of 4 hours in an R22, and messing as a kid with some 'toy choppers' 8 years ago. So i've got a learning curve ahead, i'm sure!

I'm wondering how many out there also use drones for recreational/amateur use, and if you have any tips/tricks for the newcomers. If not, i'll update this thread as I go along the 'Drone/UAS/UAV' journey with any lessons learned, tips I've gleamed, and obviously any photographs/videos showing the exploits. 

 

[JayEmm]

I know a few guys who operate them on a semi-professional basis. I personally don't like them, but you seem like you're probably mature enough to fly responsibly so enjoy it and let us know how you get on

[silverfrost]

Think everybody is pretty cautious of them at the moment as they are always in the press for such things as possibly delivering things in the future or a few months back that poor child who lost one eye when his relative crashed it into its face. Also people are very wary as they can be used to invade peoples privacy.   Fair play to you though i bet they are a blast. 

[Kalli]

7 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

I personally don't like them, but you seem like you're probably mature enough to fly responsibly so enjoy it and let us know how you get on

.....I named it Voyeur 1....

[JayEmm]

Excellent. Your location tells me you're in just the right place for flying unregistered objects too

[Kalli]

Yeah - i'm not planning to use it in the garden.... 

It might be worth pointing out that I'm more than fluent with aviation law, airspace regulations, and being generally responsible. I'm not a 10 year old who's been given a UAS for Christmas, nor am I looking for thrills at others expense. I'm more than happy for folks to post and discuss their worries of UAS, and i'm more than happy to agree that they need to be regulated better and each vehicle to be registered. But please don't assume i'm going to launch a drone into the skies class A airspace, because a forum tag reads 'Gatwick'. I have a Lotus don't you know....I can drive to other places... 

[CocoPops]

I have a Phantom 2 Vision+ (predecessor to the 3 and more recently the 4 that you have).

Flown it a little but overall not used it as much as I would like.

Piece of cake to fly though, as long as you have half a brain, which you do

 

 

[Kalli]

Wales trip with the LDC and Stan the UAS. 

[Alfa2Evora]

On ‎11‎/‎04‎/‎2016 at 13:59, Kalli said:

.........It might be worth pointing out that I'm more than fluent with aviation law, airspace regulations, and being generally responsible.................

......................just a pity somebody else wasn't..............http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/call-for-more-enforcement-as-british-airways-plane-struck-by-drone-near-heathrow-34634870.html

[silverfrost]

Very bad news indeed cant understand some people, it was not that long ago that idiots where also aiming those lazer pens at pilots windows  If seagulls in the turbines can bring a forced landing, imagine what one of these drones can do to one. 

[molemot]

Lasers are still being misused...there have been prison sentences handed down; some chap in Hull got 20 weeks back in February. The problem with all these bits of tech being readily available to all is that the morons aren't excluded... Flying a drone or any other model aeroplane in the proximity of an airport is an offence. Quite a lot of flying fields are shared between model and full size aircraft, and the arrangements are known to both side and there isn't any trouble. The problems come when the aim is no longer model aviation, but taking aerial photographs....then the temptation arises to fly in areas where it is ilegal or dangerous or both. When it was part of aeromodelling, with TV cameras on the models and flying them using video headsets...known as First Person View...it was technically difficult and complicated, thus restricting the sort of people who could do it to those with the ability to deal with and create the equipment needed. The recent explosion of multi rotor drones with electronic gyro stabilisation has removed this, and anyone with a few bob can now get airborne with something that requires very little knowledge or experience to operate...so the idiots have them, as well. They know nothing of the laws governing drone operation and probably care even less. Hence the number of near misses last year, and one strike, so far, this year. 

There has been a similar problem with microlight aeroplanes; I recall reading of a collision involving a sizeable aircraft where a two stroke motor was found embedded in the leading edge...a motor used in microlights. I never read if anything came to light about a missing microlight or pilot, but it wouldn't have been much fun.

Tom's photos are excellent and represent the best of sensible use of the technology.

[silverfrost]

I wonder how many people have flown these things over AREA  51, Normally the only photos you see posted are of the metal mesh perimeter fence 

[JayEmm]

I'm fairly sure they've got a seized Alien ray gun to tackle them

[C8RKH]

The dutch police have been training Eagles to take out the drones. Cool.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/01/dutch-netherlands-police-birds-unauthorized-drones