Hi all,
Whilst I’ve a Mavic Mini somewhere in my office, I haven’t seen it not alone flown it for quite some time. However recent thoughts on adding drone footage to my ongoing photography/videography of motocross races has ‘reignited’ my desire to start flying again (or is that crashing again …!!!)
There’s a fair amount of ‘the public’ watching - so there’s likely a need to fly over them at some point - so I’ll be limited to sub-250g.
The race tracks come with a fair few twists and turn, straights and jumps - speeds can reach up to 50mph - so its doubtful my old Mavic will be able to keep up.
There are always pesky trees to get around.
Initial thoughts were on the Mini 4 Pro … but with a top speed of [35]mph, straights would be an issue.
So that’s got me thinking of sub-250g FPV drones.
Am I on the right track?
Am I right in thinking these are manual flown craft with a camera simply attached? No ‘intelligence’ in other words
If you’re looking to follow bikes around a track you can safely forget any camera drones and focus on FPV drones, but if you’re just looking to just stick it 30ft in the air at one corner of the track and pan around, then a camera drone is all you need.
There might be a bigger issue here though, well, a few issues.
How well do you get on with the track owners? Are they going to allow you to fly a drone in the middle of a race?
Who does the liability lie with if you injure a member of the public, you or them?
How will you handle the CAA regulations though? No matter how light your drone, you still can’t fly over a crowd of people.
FPV would be the way to go if you wanted to chase them round the track - but you will need to invest time in a simulator as you would need to go manual mode to be able to drift on the corners and fly safely without sending it into a crowd of people and crashing.
If it was to get a more over view sort of shot then a mini 4pro etc would be great for this sort of job.
Have a look on YouTube at video’s of this sort and you will see what you can expect from a FPV type of flight - the pilots of these have some real skills though and flights are done with approval of the race organisers along with a lot of risk assessments etc
@PingSpike - thanks.
Firstly, I’m a trackside photographer/videographer supplying to the track, riders, teams and the public. Camera drones are used regularly but to provide arial shots of the general circuit. I’m looking to see if I can push the boundaries to some degree - but won’t be making a nuisance of myself to the riders, so will need to keep a decent distance. I’m thinking of tracking lead riders from say 20’ up (say).
With the permission to go trackside comes the need to be covered by relevant insurances. Mine can and does cover me for drone use, and third parties.
I said I would need to fly over people watching - they’re not a crowd however - all are spaced out, so don’t consider this to much of an issue - although a careful eye for any crowds forming would be required.
@SparkyFPV Thanks. We all have to start somewhere and I’m willing to try anything that demarcates me from the other drones employed at the events I’m at.
There are a few decent Sim’s on the Steam platform - I would recommend you work out what FPV your planning on using so you have the controller as most if not all of them can be used with the simulator then you use that controller to learn the sticks and get the muscle memory associated with it all.
I use LiftOff on Steam with my FPV Controller 2 that I got with my DJI Avata ( the first gen one ) and it works great. One of the things I like about LiftOff is there is a community behind it that have loads of drones that closely mimic the real drones ( they might not look like the drone your flying but the power / rates etc will be very close to the real deal ) I think other sims may have similar sort of things but for me LiftOff works very well.
I am not aware of any sims that work with the goggles ( none will work with the DJI goggles as far as I know as they don’t have an input - DJI do an app on your phone that works but its not worth the download to be honest its just fun to play with and that does work with the goggles )
Loads of YouTube vids about FPV sims and setup but yes they are generally PC/Mac software like a game and you can use game pads to use them but the real winner is using the actual controller you will fly with.
Time - well that depends on how easy you pick these sort of things up - I have put in 10 - 20 hrs and I am still hopeless haha - I think thats because I leave so much time between sim and real world - but you will need to invest a lot of time and you will be crashing a fair bit too
Your going to need as much practice as you can - FPV are not like camera drones - FPV you have to fly them - the way I described it to someone is a FPV in manual mode the drone is trying its best to drop out of the sky and your using the very fine art of balance of power to keep it in the sky and moving in the right direction. But it will fight the laws of physics to try and fall out of the sky as ungraceful as it can, but its the pilot that makes that falling look like art.
Just remember a small object no matter how light will bloody hurt when it hits you at speed.
The other factor to consider here is that most FPV cameras don’t have zoom or long range so you will need to be pretty close to the riders and the crowd that line the track.
I’ve been flying fpv for 4/5 years and would say i’m pretty competent but would still need plenty of practice before trying this type of thing.
You will need spares, you will crash and you will need to repair and buy good insurance.
@Howard78 Many thanks - Thats just the advice I need. Sounds like 3months of practice isn’t going to be enough to do this justice and in a safe way. Think I’d be biting way too much off going this route.
Sounds like corner shots and slow panning are going to have to be the answer … annoyingly!
As the other above have said, flying FPV in an open field is a little different to flying close to uninvolved people. but give it a try anyway you will love it and maybe in a year or 2 you might be ready for this adventure
@sachasb did a pretty good chase at big meet V2, he has had a couple of hundred hours in the sim, an like all fpv pilots practiced, practiced, practiced. So that is the key.
I guess it all depends on a number of factors, yes an FPV drone is the answer, repairability may be an issue, cost and weight is another issue, are you happy with old style goggles that have grainy view or want to be able to see clearly as you fly. Home built FPV can have varying quality video feeds and manoeuvreabilty. If you are not wanting yo get too close and only track part of the race so different scenes can be sequenced together in editing, maybe the New DJI Neo would do the job and you can ease yourself into full manual FPV as a starter in to the FPV world. It looks to be pretty durable, but probably not if ran over by a bike lol.
