If This Guy Keeps Talking About Drones, I'm Going To Ask For A Refund On My Platinum Membership!

I will honor any of you who desire a refund on your group membership at any time!  But more about drones!

This is the upgrade version.

Bob Paddison has sent me the link for the raw footage he took of the 8th Annual Hood College Open I attended last week.  It was a fairly windy day, so it wasn't easy for him.  And once I bothered him during the race, I think the drone took off toward Washington DC to report me to the authorities. His upgraded drone had the ability to be summoned back "home" however.  But he recovered for a nice view of the finish of the men's race.  I even got to see Daughter the Elder's teammate Joe Fletcher finish without his shoe in 30th or so place (at 9:45 of the video), which he kicked off in front of me just before the finish.  This inevitably brought the wrath (not really!) of Coach Preston, who reminds them about double knots before every race!  Then he has a good view of the Women's start (starting at 11:37) where I could pick out Daughter the Elder, me, dad, Coach Preston and Daughter the Younger.




He has some advice on those looking to purchase a low-cost unit:

Regarding the $500 dollar version.  If you are asking, just a few thought to consider. 

1.      The Battery system in the original Phantom drone is awkward with a two cable charge/feed system. It is clunky to plug in and stuff the wires into the drone.   The Phantom 2 has an integrated battery connection.

2.      The Camera system if using a go pro camera has two considerations.  

a.      The gopro mount does not have a gimbal system.  It does have vibration dampening.  (and I like GoPro). 

b.      The gopro system (and I think even the Phantom 2) do not have FPV (first person view) video that comes back to the operator, so you are sort of operating in the blind (that’s the video you were looking at on my cell phone during the race, the actual video is recorded in full resolution on an internal memory card.)  It’s not that this capability cannot be added however it takes a little (read “a lot”)   hobby tinkering. To add that capability it looks odd with lots of extras hanging off the platform.   It all depends on your hobby skills.  Like anything,  if you build it yourself you can get additional features but the integrated system included with the “Phantom 2 Vision +”,  I think is still the best ‘out of the box’ experience.

3.      Make sure you have at least 1 or more additional batteries  The Phantom (std) has only about a 15 minute flying time versus the ‘Phantom 2vision +’  about 25 min.    Keep in mind you will be loitering for long periods of time to be in position prior to the starting gun.  As such you will need at least 2 batteries for each XC race (assuming ~27 to 30 min per race).

4.      The ‘Phantom 2 vision+” also includes self-locking propellers.  A very good safety feature(common in most systems now but not in earlier versions).

5.      I am not sure if the original version of the Phantom (the $500 version) supports “Ground Station”.  Ground station (GS) is a GPS system that allows you to pre-program GPS locations and vertical height for a programmed path and out view flying.    While I would like to use GS for XC races I find that because of the speed of the racers ‘free flying’ gives you more control (although you may not feel that I had much control when you see the Hood video).  It was very windy on Saturday, I normally don’t fly above 15 or so Knots.   The drone can fly in higher winds but I was not willing to fly that close to runners in case of stronger gusts.   I have flown in up to 25 mph winds but not near people.