Nice day so decided to head for the hills to shoot some video I’d been thinking of doing. Loaded up and hiked up the hill to a point that wasn’t too far below the highest point I need to get the drone to. The little anemometer I take with me was reading just over 3m/s. Set up and flew roughly the path I planned to film. So far so good, brought it back and slipped in a new battery, noticed I’d hadn’t replaced the SDcard after I’d been downloading stuff to the laptop . OK I’ll record to the drone memory. Half way through the run the battery was full
OK so I got out made it far enough up the hill, got some practice in. Flew over a site I’d noticed from browsing Google Earth think it’s an old collapsed sheep fold but could be something much older. Better time of year for this shoot will be early spring when the vegetation has died back. Add SDcard to the check list and carry spares in the kit.
Learned that a Rucksack would be a good idea for this kind of trek. Glad I chose a round collapsible launch/landing pad I was able to level it out on uneven hilly ground, RTH was quite happy to land on it although the drone threw a hissy fit when I first tried to launch because it wasn’t quite level enough.
Part Deux decided to go and try a really pretty waterfall. I really must learn to act my age instead of my shoe size, scrambling down wet rocks with a dodgy hip is just effin stupid. Anyway made it down only landed on my backside twice. I knew what I wanted to do but my piloting skills just aren’t good enough yet as its a short but very technical flight, tight and rock with hardwood trees hanging over everywhere, maybe best done in bits then edited together. Still a very pretty place with a lot of water coming down today. Oh and I had plenty of batteries and a fresh memory card.
Didn’t achieve any of what I hoped today but learned a hell of a lot, need to get to the level where my piloting is instinctive.
Kudos for having a go, its a steep learning curve, and tbh the only thing you can do to become instinctive is to fly as much and often as you can… Try going to a large open field and doing manual orbits and figures, and build from there…
Before you know it, you will be capturing the footage that you can see in your mind’s eye - or at least that’s what I found
Yeah I’m not bad in open fields and following rivers, This mornings one should have been pretty straight forward if I’d put the memory card in. I thought his afternoons session would tricky but manageable certainly a lot simpler than the other watercourse I have in mind. It’s not that far away so I plan to keep going back until I get it nailed no matter how many batteries I have to recharge by which time my piloting should be pretty well sorted. It’s also close to a nice little church that I can video to decompress.
If it makes you feel better, I’ve gone out without the SD card twice, and once without the right cable for the phone I had with me!
Nowadays, all the Drone stuff (including Mr.Drone) live in a shoulder bag that a neighbour was throwing out and which he was happy to give me. I live in the sort of area where using DJI-labelled bags is not always wise, and this flying bag is pretty anonymous. 3 compartments, 2 with sub-compartments inside, from back to front; cables/spare props/tools/superglue in case running repairs are needed, sunshade for RC/phone, RC/battery holder-charger, SD cards & phone-compatible reader, Mr.D, filters, inflatable cushion. This is small enough to fit in my anonymous rucksack, which enables me to carry water/squash, sarnies, pies, thermos, spare fleece, placcy mac &c.
The drone stuff lives in the shoulder bag, so I can pick it up and go flying ad hoc, but I have to be disciplined about SD cards, which get removed from the shoulder bag for xfer of photos/videos to the computer. It’s not a perfect system and I still check it after each outing and before any planned outings, but it works reasonably well for this semi-senile old fool!
. OK I’ll record to the drone memory. Half way through the run the battery was full 
and carry spares in the kit.
