DJI Phantom 2 – Replacement Camera and Gimbal – NEWBIES PLEASE READ!!!!!!

So back in December i bought a second hand, but unopened and unused DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus for Seven Hundred and Thirty of my English Pounds – £730.

I had shopped around, even on ebay, second hand and used, they were selling for £800, so when i found it on Gumtree for £730, i jumped at the chance.

I had just passed ground school. i had been to the Heliguy DJI training day in Newcastle, and i had read lots of positive reviews about the Phantom 2 Vision Plus.

My thinking was this….’I have never flown a Quad Drone before. I need practice. I’ll buy a “cheap” drone to get my skills up to scratch.’

The DJI Inspire 1, which i was, and still am, planning on buying for my Aerial Photography business, once i pass and get CAA permission, was delayed at launch. Plus i didn’t want to have to pay to be assessed on both the Phantom and Inspire, so i decided to buy the Phantom to practice for a month or so and qualify with the Inspire.

So i went ahead and made my first huge mistake on the path through the drone game.

In my opinion the DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus was the wrong platform for a total newbie.

UAS are not as easy to fly as one, you think, and two, how easy the promo videos show. Google ‘drone crash’ and you’ll see what i mean.

A good Quadcopter, like the Vision Plus, is not cheap. In high sight, if i needed to buy something to practice with, why didn’t I buy a DJI Phantom 1, or the DJI FC40, costing £350 and £500, respectively?

Both ostensibly do the same thing. Yes the Phantom 1 doesn’t have a camera (!!!!!) and the FC40 doesnt have a Gimbal, but this is my point, for a beginer this is perfect….Why? Because if you crash a FC40 it wont cost you £400 to fix your camera and gimbal!

I posted about this in December. I contacted DJI after a small crash, due to my inexperience, they told me to send it to them, and i was looking at a bill for £200. Well they emailed me back the other day… and im still in shock

I have seen soooooo many videos of first time flyers trashing their Quadcopters. Every week i see another video of a fellow Phantom Mourner. Is this the fault of excitable newbie pilots, or could DJI take some responsibility for this. 470 euros is crazy, the camera works fine, it connects to the app and streams perfectly, the gimbal worked fine too, no jerking around, it was just the arm was bent, so the picture wasn’t straight. And they are charging me almost the same price as a brand new DJI Phantom camera and gimbal!

http://www.helipal.com/product_info.php?currency=GBP&products_id=11698&gclid=CKC1s4uu1sMCFRHHtAodOGEAJg

The camera and gimbal are a so delicate in my opinion, i have seen various after-market camera and gimbal protection products, because broken DJI gimbals are a real issue. If a man in a shed with a 3d printer, can design a small cheap plastic product to protect the c&g, surely DJI could develop something similar?!

Another option, that would save many users a small fortune, is selling the Vision Plus with the camera and gimbal detached! I know the augment for selling it as ‘ready out of the box’, but i’d bet my house, that if it was sold without the gimbal attached, most people would just fly it as it came, opting to attach the camera later. They would quickly learn it can be hard to fly and safely land, and be glad that their camera isn’t been used to capture ‘practice crashes’. They will certainly be £400 better off.

There is another huge reason why i think the DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus is the wrong platform for most newbies to the drone world. Throughout this post i have highlighted ‘Plus‘, this is because it is the actual Vision Plus, not the Phantom 1, or the Phantom FC40 or Phantom 2, that i believe was a terrible decision for me, a newbie. I will discuss this in my next post.

Till then

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DJI Inspire 1 – Literally my Inspiration.

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!

The DJI Inspire 1: finally, a drone that flies well indoors

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

http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1

BNUC-S Ground School Day 2

Following on from my post last week, i wanted to quickly cover what happened on day two of my BNUC-S training day run by EuroUSC.

A 9am start. First off we went through the mock exam paper they had given us the previous day. I will do a more in-depth post on the theory exam and the kind of questions you might expect to answer shortly.

We then had 2 hours theory on preparation for the Ops Manual and what to expect on the Flight Assessment. They actually give you an almost completed Ops Manual, that you can submit to the CAA with some minor alterations and additions, again i will discuss this in a later post.

By 11 we had a short break and then covered Risk and Hazard Assessment, planning and justifications. This was a really interesting subject and before i knew it, i was lunch time.

We were told the exam would commence at 2pm. At 1.45 we were given the same map we had taken home the night before for revisions, an answer page and then the examiner (John, the tutor) passed out the papers and we were off!

I found Navigation the most difficult part – if you have never seen an Aviation VFR Map before, go and buy one for your area, you will need it for later, and will help with your exam.  I went straight to that questions. Out of 60, 6 or 7 questions all relate to the first Longitude / Latitude question, so if you get that wrong, you wont be able to answer the rest of the map questions. If you get the Lat/Long question right, you can almost guarantee yourself 6/7 right answers!

The exam is 1.15 hours long. Its multiple choices; 4 possible answer per question. only 1 right answer! You need to score 85% and above to pass.

At the end of the exam, we had a short break and we chatted amongst the group, the first question everyone asked was the first map question, seemed everyone got it right. We were expect our results within a week.

By 3.45 we were done and everyone left, seemingly very pleased about the exam, and about the two days training in general. I was defiantly one of them, and have stayed in touch with one of the guys on the course. He’s way ahead of me in terms of flying knowledge and experience, so it was great to pick his brains about the Platform he flies, and what he plans to do commercially in the future.

All in all a great two days, and very much worth the £840 i paid. Just wait for my result and hope my revision paid off!

Results days tomorrow – Fingers Crossed

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New addition to the family!

Just a quick post. Say hello to my brand new DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus.

I went to a DJI products training day for new pilots run by Heliguy, who are based in Newcastle. Great day at the Falcons Rugby Club, got to inspect Phantoms, S900’s and S1000’s which was really useful. I didn’t realise how big the S900/1000 are. Defiantly not for newbies! They gave an in depth training presentation and then flew both a Phantom 2 and S1000 around the inside of the stadium.

After watching them fly the Phantom, i made the decision that i would wait a few more months for the DJI Inspire 1 (the piece of kit that i am really after) and see how i got on with a smaller, cheaper Phantom. They were selling them for just over £1000 with an extra battery i think. I decided to shop around. I was lucky enough to stumble of this on gumtree. Brand New, Unboxed for £750 (managed to haggle to £730 in the end). A result i think you’ll agree!

Unfortunately its dark right now, and maybe thats a good thing, so i will have an in-depth read of the manual tonight, watch as many youtube clips on Phantom first time flights, and will be up bright and early for a practice run…… safely of course!

I will post my first time flight (/crash) tomorrow

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