Unmanned Aerial Systems – A Beginners Guide
An Introduction To The UAS Industry – Training, News and Comment
You have to watch this video! Its only 90 seconds, but its hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0GBeOnxA4M
The lengths people will go to, to create funny videos always amuses me. Videos that involve a DJI Phantom, attacking two jokers with Roman Candles, and scoring a hit on them both, is just taking it to the next level of amusement!
I guess now is a good time to say, don’t try this at home, but would you anyways!?!
Hahaha
Thumbs Up Jokers!
Earlier i wrote a short piece, on the potential release of the new DJI Phantom 3.
It got me thinking, if the DJI Phantom range is the most widely recognisable and purchased consumer UAS, how many UAVs actually been sold world wide?
I set out to write this post, expecting it to take me 20 minutes and just link through to a few relevant web sites. as you can probably tell, this hasn’t proved as simple as i first thought.
Actual figures are hard to find. I recently wrote about 3D Robotics, there top chap, Chris Anderson estimates 500,000 UAVs have already been sold in the US. he predicts 3DR will turnover $40Million this year, which equates to over 53,000 units. accessorises not included!
Bloomberg state that Amazon in 2014, were selling in excess of 10,000 UAS units a month.
http://dronelife.com/2015/01/24/drone-sales-figures-2014-hard-navigate/
(I would suggest you read the ‘Drone life’ article it is extensive and far more informative than my report)
200,000 a month in 2014. Thats over 6500 a day, last year.
So how many of these are DJI products, clearly the market leader in consumer UAS.
It has become somewhat ubiquitous of late to read another article of a UAS being flown somewhere it shouldn’t, and 99% of the time, its reported to be a DJI Phantom.
So just how many DJI products are there in consumers hands. Well from my research i have yet to find an accurate figure for DJI product sales. I did manage to find this quote from an article in later 2013
DJI does not release sales figures, but Mr Mortimer (Gary Mortimer, editor of leading international industry website sUAS News,) estimates that when the Phantom first launched in late 2012, the company was selling 8,000 units a month.
He believes there has since been a significant jump in global sales.
“In Europe, I know they sold more than 6,000 units just in Switzerland,” he says.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-14/chinese-made-drones-programmed-with-no-fly-zones/5388356
In 2012 8,000 units were selling a month, you can bet this figure is closer to 25,000 a month in 2015. At least that in fact!
If anyone has more detailed sales figure for UAS consumer purchases, please let me know.
TU
Not sure this is the kind of thing I should be posting, but i’m honest, and this was always meant to be a guide and diary, of my introduction to the world of commercial UAS flying.
I crashed my Phantom 2 Vision Plus.
Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. Ok, it wasn’t necessarily a crash, more of a drop from a height. Yeah it was a crash.
I know exactly what i did, and i had planned for it, but i wasn’t expecting it to do what it did (and i need to point out i was in the middle of a desert field, so not one was at risk!).
I wanted to see what would happen if i lost power to the Controller. Its a sensible thing to be aware of, so i decided i would turn off the Handset and see what the Phantom would do.
I hovered the Phantom in front of me, about 10 feet away and about 8 feet from the ground. I turned off the controller. The lights on the Phantom stopped flashing green, and flashed yellow. It then went up into the air on its own accord to about 15 – 20 feet. It hovered there for about 30 seconds, then i switched the controller back on. After a few more seconds the lights flashed green, and then for some reason, a reason i will never know, i moved both sticks down and in, and turned off the Phantom. While it was still up in the air……
It fell almost straight down, the right side landing on a raised mound of grass. The Phantom was fine, but the Camera and Gimbal, not so much.
As one side had hit the ground at a slightly funny angle, the Gimbal had detached from the underside of the Phantom from one of the four attachments. This resulted in the Gimbal hitting the ground at an awkward angle, and actually bending the Gimbal arm.
I took the Phantom home, gave it a clear, watched a few youtube video on DJI Phantom Gimbal repairs, and then removed the Gimbal and Camera from the Phantom to inspected the damage.
As you can see from the picture, it is quiet bent, however the Camera still works fine, gives clear pictures and can be still controlled through the App. The issue is the Gimbal itself.
I decided i needed to call an Authorised DJI Repair Center. I gave Heliguy a ring but was quiet disappointed with their customer service. The chap i spoke to just told me he would send a repair form via email, to complete and send it back. I was quiet surprised that he never even asked what the issue actually was!
So i called Quadcopters instead. I got through to a very helpful chap (i want to call him Lee, but i might be wrong!). He asked what the issue was, what had happened. I told him all. He suggested that in all likely hood the Camera and Gimbal would need to be replaced, as they are complete units and DJI do not sell the parts separately.
We spoke for about 15 minutes, he suggested that i contact DJI directly, which i did, this morning.
DJI where also, very helpful. The guy i emailed asked me to send him some pics, i did. He came back very quickly to say it would need to be sent to them for repair, he would send me out a form to complete, package and post the Camera and Gimbal to them in Germany. The repair would take between 15 to 20 days at a cost of roughly £200.
Not bad. Not great. It would be nice of DJI to sell the parts of the Camera and Gimbal separately, as i quick google search illustrates. There are a lot of Phantom Vision 2 Plus users posting videos, pictures or comments on forums about damaged Camera units and how expensive a full brand new replacement can cost. Heliguy are currently selling them for £496. (Which really is half the price of a brand new system. If you can pick up a second hand one for £700, your almost better buying an additional system. At least then you have a working camera, spare battery and spare Phantom, should you ever break that too!) I have also seen them on ebay, from Hong Kong for about £350.
So i have boxed up the C&G and will be posting it first class tomorrow. I shall report their findings, costs, repair time etc as and when they get in touch.
Until then, i looks like i’m going to use these next few weeks to practice manoeuvres in preparation for my Flight Assessment.
Thumbs Up!
Heliguy Camera and Gimbal – http://www.helipal.com/product_info.php?currency=GBP&products_id=11698&gclid=Cj0KEQiAiamlBRCgj83PiYm6–gBEiQArnojDxYOJItnWrmFuMnm3iB_-IzAKaCaJB0xjnmP4nwsYboaArM68P8HAQ
The title is absolutely no word of a lie. The DJI Inspire 1, inspired to complete my BNUC-S Pilots Licence and use UAV’s, for commercial purposes, not just for long range Selfies
Here is a piece of kit, that puts a what has been the privilege of a rich few, into the hands of normal people like me. And most likely if your reading this, you too.
Ok how will it compare to DJI S1000 with top of range Gimbal and Cannon 5D Mk3, well, it mostly likely produce the same quality pictures and video, but unless your Hollywood, will that matter?Secondly the Inspire 1 is coming in at around £2700 for dual controller kit (needed if you ask me) and maybe buy a few batteries at £150 each. So all in all around £3500 to shoot in 4K HD 30fps. Not bad, considering the S1000 plus essential kit, you wont see much change from £10,000. I cant imagine it will be long before a comparison video is posted showing an Inspire 1 Vs S1000 running a 5D or a Lumix GH4, on youtube.
Anyways, the whole reason i wrote this post is i came across this short video, showing how ‘easy’ it is to fly an Inspire 1 indoors. If flying the Inspire 1, is as effective as it appears, i can see so many business opportunities for something like this!
There are a good few videos on the Inspire 1 on youtube, but for the most part these tend to be promotional or from known Photography bloggers. What i really want to see is a ‘first time flight’ video from a ‘normal’ (like us) to see how they get on. Ive found flying my Phantom to be fairly straight forward, and i’m hoping the Inspire 1 will be more of the same.
Cant wait till next year, when i will most certainly (as long as there are no major firmware issues) be purchasing my very own DJI Inspire 1!
Till then, Thumbs Up
Unmanned Aerial Systems - A Beginners Guide 