Just had my best flying experience in 30-months of drone ownership.
It really wasn’t much to do with what pictures or films I could get (although these were good), it was the sheer comfort and safety…
The key features:
- a chair
- a chair for anyone else who wanted to join me
- a bench to lay out all my kit and access it quickly, with a nice clear circle for recording the return-to-home point
- in the garden of our AirBnB, so easy availability for (non-alcoholic) refreshments and charging facilities
- beautiful weather for three days, with gusts below 5mph!
- no non-involved humans visible, and only a minimal amount of human habitation visible from the air - a farmhouse and an easy-to-avoid small cluster of houses
- the non-involved sheep and cows did not seem to notice the drones
- everywhere I could see was below me - once I was 5m in the air, there was no reason to increase height. Also, the river in the distance is ~100m below my point, so not going to infringe the 120m height rule
- very tempted to break the distance rule - I have strobon lights, so 400-500m is just about visible. However, I am certain it could fly 2Km away with strong signal and no degradation to live monitoring
- this was the only time I have used Sports mode, and got the Third Twin up to 63Km/h.
- only one sighting of a real aircraft in the three days. It was Cessna-style, significantly above me, some distance away. I could see it coming for miles and didn’t have my drone up anyway
- I kinda resented the rest of my family thinking they could use this table, and the nearby barbecue pit, for evening meal when there was still some sunlight left… the attitude of some people, eh?
I managed to get through three batteries twice each day, and captured waaay too much footage. Instead of being almost paralysed by my usual fear and worry, I really enjoyed the experience.
The only downside: bald man sitting in the sun for too long. Even then, there were sturdy umbrellas available and slots to put them in.
