Yesterday evening the daily coast wind let up enough for me to take my Parrot AR 2.0 drone out for a test flight. A few recent attempts in the RV park between wind gusts led to numerous crashes with no damage to the flying device.
Because the drone operates with an iOS device...in my case my dear wife's iPad Mini...the range is not too impressive. To extend the range to my satisfaction I purchased an Amped sr-10000 wifi range extender and, in order to increase flight stability, added a GPS Flight Recorder.
Fully equipped with all the above, I loaded dear wife and furry buddies Abbey and Luna into the truck and drove over to the largest open area in Port Orford, the ball park at Buffington Park. A still air evening just before sunset proved perfect for my first arial photo session.
I was very happy with the range extender and found myself operating well within the wifi signal at 300 feet horizontal distance and 52 feet high. I will try for more once I gain some confidence flying the device. The FAA currently limits recreational unmanned drones to 400 feet in height, but I have no intention to fly higher at any rate.
I found a good YouTube video that taught me the rudiments of making a movie from the raw video clips from yesterday evening and uploaded the results to YouTube earlier today. Although not perfect by any means, I am happy with the results and look forward to improving my skill as time passes. There's always something new for old geezers to learn!
That is so friggin cool!!!! What a great new toy. Now, I wish you did catch me drooling. It would have been so cooooool!!! :) A
ReplyDeleteHey, I am just getting started. Droolers beware!!!!!!
DeleteI think I will like your new blog very much. You are on my blog list so updates should come up as they happen.
ReplyDeleteWow! That video was awesome!
ReplyDeleteV
Wow! That video was awesome!
ReplyDeleteV
Good work Gordon. I wish I had that up at RedRock. I'll be looking to see how you continue with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Newt,
DeleteThe quadcopters really offer a new view of the world and I am excited to be taking the baby steps with both video and stills from the air. This Parrot was my "training wheel" quad and I am now working with the DJI Phantom 2 Vision as a aerial photo platform. A new gimbal to stabilize the camera will arrive early next week.
I have been working to improve the video images for YouTube and Vimeo and will use Adobe Premiere Pro CC for processing. Learning that particular program has been helped by a huge number of on line videos by the pros. I am in the process of learning about editing video clips and you should see improvement in my work as time goes on.
You could really get out of control with something like this at RedRock! :-)