An Act of Stupidity?

Skip to about 11.30 and you will see this Pilot fly his Phantom directly over the heads of these Firefighters, not a great idea as they are busy putting out a house fire.

The Firemen are clearly not happy about the Quad flying so close to them, not sure if it a privacy issue, they are annoyed with being filmed, or maybe they are concerned about safety?

Well their solution, is to try to shoot the Phantom out of the sky with a hose pipe! Ridiculas!!!

Skip to 12.01 minutes to see the hose pipe in action.

I know how safe a Phantom is, and there is no reason for it to simply fall out of the sky, and Pilot had demonstrated 11 minutes of relatively ‘safe‘ flying. Had the fool with the hose pipe actually hit the electronics of the Phantom it could have caused a fly away or crashed onto someones head.

What on earth possessed him to do it? I have had a few concerned members of the public approach me when working, unsure of how safe or legal my UAS is, but no one has actively tried to ground it!

TU!

Source – http://www.popsci.com/drone-films-firefighters-gets-soaked

‘Unstoppable’ Fun!

Isn’t it funny, how, when a hobby becomes your job, it can lose some of its fun?

I found this years ago playing basketball, and now, more recently, flying my UAS.

This time last year, any break in the clouds, would have seen me out flying my toy UAS. Now because i’m working and flying everyday, when the weekend comes, i just want a break from the Inspire.

  VS  

Why? well i think its down to my platform; The Inspire 1, it is an awesome work tool….but is it as much fun to fly as say a Phantom or similar smaller rig?

NOPE!!! I sold my Phantom to a friend a few months ago, and didn’t realise how much i missed it. We took it out over the weekend, and i had so much fun with it. Of course it isn’t as responsive or quick as the Inspire, but it so nimble and because it doesnt cost your right arm to buy, you can be more adventurous. If i crash my Inspire i’m out of work for a while!

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0012.JPG

And i guess that is the crux of it. My Phantom was a bought as a toy. My Inspire was bought as a business investment.

Well if like me, you are looking to buy a new UAS for ‘fun’ and ‘weekend-warrioring’, maybe this is what you’re looking for……..

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2017062404/b-unstoppable

Looks cool right? A Tank Quadcopter – awesome! This is at least the forth UAS crowding funding campaign i’ve blogged about recently. And if you are quick you can pick one up for the bargain price of £55! – UPDATE – These have all gone. Next price is £59. Still so cheap. So much so, i’ve just backed them too!

Yay – First time, i’ve ever crowd funded before. I’ll be back with my own personal review in October…. right now they have £19,785 of the required £49,000 total.

TU B-Unstoppable.

http://www.bgobeyond.co.uk/

Police & UAS

How long will it be before your local bobby is using a Phantom to nick your local robber? Well the Police in Wisconsin recently used a UAS to catch a suspect, hiding in a pond. Ha, you cant make this s*!t up.

http://www.cnet.com/news/police-spot-robbery-suspect-with-drone-arrest-him/

With the CAA, recently handing all illegal UAS matters over to the Police, this will only serve to bring more Police attention to UAS. Both good and bad. In my opinion, this will lead to more UK Police forces, seeing the benefits of having multiple ‘eyes in the sky’, utilising them, just like the Wisconsin Police.

Is this a possibility? Are the Police be required to adhere to the same rules as Hobbyist or Commercial UAS Operators?

Surely it wouldn’t be fair to suggest they are used for Commercial use. Though technically the ‘Pilot in Command’ gets a salary for flying the UAS, but he is a Police Officer first and foremost.

Ultimately, were finance is concerned, using a small fleet of UAS, say 5 Inspires and 10 Phantoms. is always going to be cheaper than the monthly cost of a running and maintaing a full blown Police Helicopter!

When asked about the extortionate cost of running a Police Helicopters, a local Police Force Spokeswoman, stated that £800-£1000 an hour cost, is “justified by the man hours it saves” – You could ground it a year, equip every single Police Car with a Phantom, or Solo, or probably even an Inspire with a thermal and night vision camera to boot, and still have change left over!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1304187/Outrage-police-use-helicopter-catch-shoplifter-cost-1-000-taxpayer.html

So if it is accepted that the Police are not using UAVs for ‘commercial’ applications, then what rules would apply?

Lets pretend for the sake of amusement, that Police cars are equipped with a UAS in the boot, linked to dual screen, a portable one and one mounted to the dash of the car. Would every single Police Officer that users the UAS be required to complete a similar competency exam, similar to the BNUC-s or RPQS? That would prove costly in the current format. Huge amounts of paper work etc etc etc.

In the future 50 years from now, this might be a reality, because the technology within UAS will become so advanced. But that future is well off, and in the mean time, i do think it would be great to see more Police Force utilise UAS.

There are various forces across the UK using UAS for crime prevention now. Surrey and Sussex Police recently spent £250,000 on a new fleet of UAVs! Wonder what platforms they are using, and what rules the are required to adhere too?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-32070689

Im not suggesting that every Police Office should or even could be trained to fly a UAS, but in all honestly, in certain circumstances, anyone with eyes and enough fingers can fly a UAS.

My three year old daughter, Esmé, can use my Mac, iphone, ipad and thus she is able to ‘fly’ my Inspire. She knows how to ‘take off’, raise the landing gear, turn the camera film herself and land it. Granted i hold the controller, she hold the ipad, but you get my point. Give it a few years, and UAS will be able to follow a designated target and autonomously fly, avoiding building and people, without the need of a Pilot.

When you are training for you’re UAS licence, who do they tell you can legally encroach on your airspace? A Police Helicopter. They can fly where other Helicopter Pilots cant. If the Police are going to use UAS then the chances are they aren’t going to be operating within the same rules as us anyway!

TU

Stupid Pop star makes Drones look bad – again

So by now most of you will have laughed heartily at Enrique Iglesias, firstly grabbing the Inspire Camera and screaming one of his shit songs right at it (poor Inspire 1), and secondly you will have certainly laughed as it decided to take its revenge, and attack him…. ‘that’ll show him for making shit music!’ – said the inspire 1 – But just to clarify, nothing with the Inspire goes wrong. He cuts his finger because he catches it in a spinning prop….. who knew!?

An epic fail in front of 12,000, which has gone viral, Inspire 1 forums are alight around the world…..’stupid pop star’, tends to be a common phrase.

What amazes me more than his stupidity was the fact that it was there in the first place. Ok so the concert was in Mexico, but does that mean you can fly anything, anywhere there? Erm, well yeah. According to my research there is no Mexican CAA regulation on the use of UAS at all.

So thats awesome news if your a stupid pop star. Secondly, once the Inspire cuts his fingers, he appears to throw it off the stage towards the audicence. Now that could have been disaterous. Anyone who owns an Inspire will know, it always tries to corrects itself. That could have easily corrected itself, flying back upwards, into the faces of his equally stupid fans (can anyone who buys a Enrique Iglesias concert ticket be anything else?)

So, was flying a UAS over these people, literally an accident waiting to happen? In my opinion, no. There is no reason to fear a UAS, in particular an Inspire 1, over say a car!!!!

Do you fear for your safety every time you walk down the road, that it will lose a wheel and career towards you? Of course you don’t. Thats because we have become used to cars on our roads. We interact with toy versions of them from 9 months. What is more dangerous a 3.5kg object or a 2000kg one? Maybe now its time for better UAS regulations like cars; a licence, insurance, training for all users.

Drones are still a new trend for most, but in fact if you ask anyone, born since 1980, if they have ever flown a remote controlled car of helicopter, they will say yes! If people associated ‘Drones’ with the RC toys from their childhood, rather than Military and Surveillance UAVs, i’m sure the public would be more receptive….

And stupid Pop Stars like this fool, aren’t helping. Once again we have another negative story associated with a UAS. People who read this story at face value, will think he was the innocent victim of ‘yet another drone incident’, when in fact they should be thinking ‘oh look, another stupid pop star’!

All i can say, i please, please, please, can someone upload the actual footage from the Inspire, i want to see the look on his face when he realises his mistake.

The Source of this video is ABC News, just check out the other negative UAS reports. One in, all in.

TU!

Pocket Drone!

Two Swiss engineers have manufactured this new Quad, designed to live in your pocket and be used in seconds. Robotics researchers Stefano Mintchev and Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are the great minds in question.

Owners of typical Quads would love how quickly this model is able to fly. It normally takes me a good 5 minutes of fiddling before my Inspire is ready to fly. Not ideal when you want to capture something on the ‘fly’.

Their is more info on the Wired.com site, where i found the story. Have a read.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/watch-foldable-mini-drone-launch-snap/

TU

“Attack Drone”!!!

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!

The “Drononaut”- New 3DR Promo Vid

If you haven’t seen this new short from 3DR, watch it now…

It feels like a trailer to a new epic sci fi movie, the soundtrack is big and the cost make the video, even bigger!

Can’t lie, this video sold it to me, i wanna be a Drononaut too! (coined that one)

With Lily coming early next year and the 3DR Solo, almost here, consumers have never had so much choice…one thing is for sure, DJI have some real competition now.

TU

30MPH Wind vs DJI Inspire 1

I have seen a few threads on how well the DJI Inspire 1 handles wind.

You need to know you’re platforms Max Wind Speed Resistance for your Ops Manual; for the Inspire 1 the User Manual states 10 m/s.

10 m/s equates to approximately 22mph…. so you can imagine my slight hesitation when a friend suggested we took his Phantom and my Inspire out, to test her handling in the wind.

Not going to lie. It wasn’t his best idea. I don’t even have footage of his Phantom 2 because it was blown into a tree within 20 seconds of him taking off. A strong gust just carried it off, nothing he could do… broke 2 props but wounded his pride more than his craft (secretly i was actually happy, just confirmed for me that the Phantom 3 is not a competitor to the Inspire, 4k camera or not – they just aren’t stable enough).

So, i was even more hesitant when it was my turn, and my Anemometer said 26MPH… but as Paul Carr, the BNUC-s Examiner told me, “always test yourself, every time you fly, try something a bit more difficult than the last time”.

So i took her up, not high, because i wanted to make sure any potential harm was mitigated……

The footage from the Inspire was smooth and flat as per, but not worthy of posting, just a short video of me getting blown to shit by the wind!

Sufficed to say the DJI Inspire 1 can handle winds in excess of 30 MPH, here is the proof. Would i want to shoot a wedding or survey a roof, no. But i would be happy surveying a large building site or farmers field, no worries.

Hope this is of some use!

TU!

Your own personal Entourage

Meet Lily. A new UAS, designed for extreme sport enthusiast, who want to take personal footage to a new level – move over GoPro!

Simply throw Lily, into the air and she uses a GPS tracker to ensures she stays close by, and alerts the drone to elevation changes. This is a great function, similar to the Perceptor Drone i wrote about last month.

You can tell Lily, to take a photo, fly in front, behind by your side, or even circle around you. And it gets better. Lily has a built in microphone which is totally awesome!

As an additional extra you can buy a waterproof case, which would make it a must have for white water rafters and surfers everywhere. Oh yeah, it floats too! POW – take that DJI!

Lily packs a 12-megapixle camera, that captures 1080p @ 60fps and 720 @ 120fps. With a 94 degree field of view, a price tag of $999 and a shipping date of Feb 2016, both the Phantom 3 and Solo have some serious competition on their hands. And it gets better still; if you like you can pre-order now and get it when it ships for $499, until June 15th so hurry!

I can tell you this, if this works as well as the promo video shows, i will be looking to buy one. It will be interesting to see, how easy it is to control without a standard RC.

THUMBS UP LILY!

Read more on Mashable. http://mashable.com/2015/05/12/lily-camera-drone-follow-video/

https://www.lily.camera/

http://www.percepto.co/

Is it a bird, is it a plane….?

No its not a bird. Its not a plane or a helicopter, its both!

This is the new GL10 Drone, designed by NASA, and its huge!

The Craft, with a 10foot wing span, weighing in at 28kg, can switch between helicopter and airplane mods, on the fly! Increasing manoeuvrability and vertical take off capabilities.

Here is a link to the source and a video for your viewing pleasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXql26sF5uc

Thumbs Up!

Source http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/11/8584353/nasa-greased-lightning-prototype-drone