DRONES ?

I am always afraid I will damage it,or it will not come home. I always "stick fly" mine and in 3 years I have had 2 instances where the communications got screwed up and I had to use the panic button (RTH, return to home) to get it back to me.
Don’t know about other manufacturers but the DJI drones have a setting where if they lose contact with the remote, they’ll fly to a certain height, return to the launch site, and land by themselves. I believe from what I remember reading, the newer ones will even alert you to when you need to start returning home to ensure you have enough battery to make it. I know mine even takes a picture of the takeoff site upon launch and can land on it automatically even if the site is moving (such as the case if you’re on a boat or something).
 
Don’t know about other manufacturers but the DJI drones have a setting where if they lose contact with the remote, they’ll fly to a certain height, return to the launch site, and land by themselves. I believe from what I remember reading, the newer ones will even alert you to when you need to start returning home to ensure you have enough battery to make it. I know mine even takes a picture of the takeoff site upon launch and can land on it automatically even if the site is moving (such as the case if you’re on a boat or something).

Yes the DJI has the ability to RTH if the battery goes low, loss of communications, etc.

More than one owner has had their drone go AWOL when the calculated battery requirement to return home was defeated by a strong headwind the drone was not able to overcome

More than one has drilled itself into a tree when the RTH kicked in and the ascend to XXX feet then return to the "home" point... the problem was the drone was under a bunch of trees with a 90 foot canopy, and when it tried to go to 200' as the first step in RTH if ended up destroyed as there are no sensors on TOP of the drone, and even on newer drones the sensors only function in tripod mode.

The funny stories are guys that tried to use them on cruise ships, the RTH was set to the take of point and not the current location of the controller, then add the magnetic interference and RADAR domes.... and more than one did not make it home.



There was a guy who is a member here, but not active, that bought a brand new drone, took it outside (in class B airspace to boot) never set anything up, the drone took off, and then it took off... so somewhere in Medford there is a drone on a roof or tree..... but that is not the worst, his wife knew it had arrived and rather than admit he lost the brand new $$$$ drone, he bought a second one and had it sent to a friends house next day delivery.....

The amount of technology built into a DJI product is amazing, but like many private pilots, people start getting dependent on technology and when something goes wrong they don't have the skills to recover.
 
I haven't been following drones lately.... what are the rumors for what they are releasing on the 27th?

I bought the Mavic Mini last year, would not work, was on with online tech support for 3 hours until they finally agreed that it really doesn't work. I had to return it. Sad.

@Prepper It’s not rumor, but mavic air 2 is being release on April 27. Improved camera and more fly time.

I have a Mavic Pro for a few years. it works for me.
 
I never use RTH function and I always cancel my RTH warning. If the drone operator using too much technology, the chance of losing the drone is more. As a drone pilot, you should be aware all the vital info from the screen.
 
one or two years ago we built a pneumatic mortar launcher from a 5 gal pressure tank and solenoid and some PVC piping. The payload was a go pro + parachute.

Granted it's not a fag drone, but it was quick, silent, no detectable radio comms and very accurate on trajectory. I got some awesome pics of neighbors etc. This is the future. There is no reason to hover for f***ing hours trying to get intel. With drone laws going to be more restrictive, your chance to fly and return before vans come find you, will be very short.
 
DJI has already provided the .GOV with a device that lets them see all the drones in the area it is set up in.

 
I just bought a DJI tello two weeks ago from Best Buy. Figured it was a good, cheap way to learn to fly. I already want to upgrade to a mavic mini for the camera and the range, but I am glad that I didn’t buy the mavic as my first drone. I almost lost the tello two days after I bought it when I ran it into a tree high up. Luckily my kid has a good arm. I’m amazed at how much better I’ve become at flying the thing after practicing every day the weather allows. There’s a great third party app that adds to the restricted range of the tello, and gives it a really awesome return to home feature. Once I’m completely comfortable flying it I.e. I move the sticks in the direction I want the drone to go every time, I plan to upgrade, but I’m having a lot of fun learning with the little tello.
 
Are there any decent drones not made in China?

Yes, the Skydio 2! For me it’s a better drone than what DJI currently has available. I do a ton of out door activities - biking, dirtbikes and atv’s, snowmobiling, boating and other water sports. I wanted something that could capture my activities with little interaction. Users of the Skydio 2 are primarily drawn to is ability to pilot itself and avoid obstacles like nothing else in the market. The drone will follow me through trees in dirt or snow without hitting a branch and can keep up and not get stuck, it’s unbelievable. Controller options are mobile device, beacon, and regular controller. I use all 3 depending on what I’m doing. Hit up their website. Happy to answer questions. I love it!
 

Attachments

  • 3F53A23C-6288-4234-825F-526F368875F6.jpeg
    3F53A23C-6288-4234-825F-526F368875F6.jpeg
    303.8 KB · Views: 15
Are all these drones from China?
can you buy an American made one?
You want American made? Want to fly?
Used is obviously a lot cheaper...
 
You want American made? Want to fly?
Used is obviously a lot cheaper...

the only Textron consumer product not available for employee purchase at a steep discount is a Cessna aircraft.... trust me I asked.

But we did get 40% off our new golf cart.....
 
Pretty much settled on picking up the DJI Mavic Air. Been wanting one for thr past couple years. Decided on the fly more option with the extra batteries and charging station. Plenty of youtube info online with a few really good ones for actually learning things about it plus dedicated websites.
 
Yes, and no. Photography drones usually utilize a camera on a gimbal that allows Pan Tilt Zoom. So, with these, if you kept the camera level facing forward (which actually isn't true, as going in one direction or other (for example forward), you're slightly tilted in that direction, so the camera would be slightly facing down) you would have FPV (first person view) more or less. And as you get used to it, you start moving the camera around while flying. There are also drones of all sizes (pocket to large) that have fixed cameras that are installed specifically for FPV, including tilting the camera to look into the direction you're flying.
I never was much good at piloting RC stuff. Can you fly these drones in "cockpit view" like you'd fly a virtual plane in a flight sim?
 
When you get it , read the instructions, use beginner mode to keep it close to you as you learn what the different buttons and joy sticks do, them move on to Tripod mode, then regular mode, then Sport or fixed wing if it has it.

A GOOD memory card is a must, a higher end one that will write fast, you are trying to move lot of data onto it at one time in movie mode.

Read and understand how the home point works, as I said above, at least with my Mavic Pro when it goes into RTH mode, the first command it executes is to climb to a preset height you enter, so if you are flying under something, and you hit the RTH or it self executes, don't let it fly up into a tree or wire.

Although you can legally go up to 400' above ground, or the tallest structure near you, it is real easy to have the drone fade into the background, so DJI_0704.JPGbefore you go flying off at 400' make sure you know where it is in the sky, that your home point resets every time you take off, and know how to look at the map and tracking to fly it back by camera view and the path it took to get out to where it is .
 
Mine was delivered yesterday afternoon. I had watched many of the beginner set up tutorials on YouTube and bookmarked the in depth ones. Those will help when trying to set up. They go through set up step by step right from the box. There's other videos on learning all the on screen functions. Then theres the vids of learning to fly and all the camera settings. Theres a ton of them but a lot are kind of quick and not in depth. I managed to get my first flight in and kept it about 10-15 feet from me just doing small circles and landing and take offs. It's going to be fun going further out after getting confident with flying close to myself. I had put on the prop guards just in case. It's incredibly stable compared to the small indoor livingroom quads.
 
That would be the FPV stuff. Drone wise, it’s very much less forgiving. And the good goggles aren’t cheap.

You can not LEGALLY fly a drone with goggles on, the requirement to fly VLOS is based on your eyes being on the drone, and Goggles prevent you from keeping the drone in Visual Line Of Sight.

You can only see what the camera shows you, not what is going on outside the limited field of vision, and if you have ever had a Helicopter come in to your operational area you'd understand how important it is to see the big picture.

Can you fly with goggles... sure all day long, but if something goes wrong the FAA will be the ones asking the questions.



they did ID the drone pilot from the wreckage of the drone, they traced the serial number:


The picture below was the 137th picture I took with my drone, after I dropped down to below the treetops after hearing the helicopter, the picture was taken at 77 feet AGL with the camera tilted up

DJI_0137.JPG
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom