I recently joined a UK forum for an unrelated hobby I am active with. They have been helpful and, like a lot of forums advice is not in short supply. But, also like many forums they have threads and pages for completely unrelated topics and this one is headed “Other Hobbies” and has a sub for RC aircraft.
Curious I started to read through and it wasn’t long before the drone bashing started. Here a couple of screen grabs from which I have left out any links or clues to identity posters and the forum.
I haven’t contributed (yet) but I find it sad that such a closely related activity harbours so much contempt. I have already been called a “pervert” by a passer by who clearly believes drones have only one purpose, to look through windows! But when I am flying I really don’t care. Like the great day I had with @Howard flying my Mavic 3 Classic and Mini 3 Pro near the Grand Union/Oxford canal junction in Northamptonshire last week. See Howard’s post here (Gongoozling & Droning around Braunston, Northamptonshire).
Amen to that b******* to em if your doing everything right,
I was out with another member from here about 6 months ago where I was approached by a local in the arse end of nowhere ( flying over fields ) yes just fields, when a local had tried to throw everything at me saying I should not be there & he was proved wrong as he knew Jack shite & was just being a Karen he then went on to tell me that I was not dressed properly for the countryside !
He then got told 2 syllables …
I have had a “here we go again” moment today. A real shame as I was onto something decent too.
I advertise on a variety of social media groups, all good and have done for some time. This week I took some really bog basic, simple pics (something I don’t normally do) of my area around 120m up. The sun was setting and they just came out really well (after a slight tweak here and there). I decided to post them on the local group, and to my surprise, the post went absolutely nuts. Hundreds of likes and loads of comments. I had requests for all manner of things and so I decided to get creative. The response was literally unreal.
I created a mini vid using a lottery type animation, and suggested I post a video each month, taken at a random location within the community. This would serve dual purpose, to allow people to see where they live from above, and also provide a bit of fun for the group each month off the back of loads of requests to continue posting. I went out earlier and took a 90 second sweep (all at 120m) of one of the local roads. No detail can be seen other than that which is imaged below from my first round of images that started it all off. I created a couple of video projects, one short one for the group and a longer full fat version for my YT channel. I put quite a bit of work into it and thought it would be a great traffic for getting me known as the local drone guy. I even started off with a road sign blur and a motif saying “where are we flying this week”. It had so much potential.
Anyway, something told me to approach the admin to explain my intention. They said I wasn’t allowed to post it because “you can’t fly over peoples houses or gardens and I would need permission from every single resident who’s house was in the video in order to film the houses”. It went on with equally nonsensical advice such as “did I know I can’t fly near airports” and other such stuff.
I just deleted everything, and gave up, as I am not even entertaining the conversation. So everyone loses out, the group, the residents and me. Business as usual then.
To add the video was great too - one take of a great high sweep orbit and pan down, colour graded and I had sun reflections popping off solar panels etc. Real shame, everyone would have loved it.
I had something similar on our local Facebook group. Took a short 4 minute video. A quick flight round our area. At first all the comments were “Wow, Lovely, Fantastic, for the first hour. Then all of a sudden, it was " Ive looked up the rules and you cant fly within 150m of buildings.” ( mini 3 pro ) Then " This will attract thieves to my back garden. " ( yeah, like theyre going to nick your blue wheelie bin or partially collapsed trampoline. ) One neighbour insisted you can see my roof on that video and Im not pleased. Then someone started on about " There could be young children playing in their gardens in paddling pools." ( it was mid February FFS )
I simply deleted the post off the FB group and now stick the occasional sunset shots on instead. Ya canna please everyone.
I hope you don’t think that FB Marketplace is good I tried to sell my late fathers car in there. Within a few minutes of posting the advert, I was literally inundated with scammers offering to buy and pick it up the same day. But, it was always “a friend, a brother, a cousin, an uncle,” etc,etc who was going to pick it up and bring a cheque or they would do a bank transfer once they had the car ( even though the advert clearly stated “cash only on pick up” )
Everything would have told me not to in that position. You already had some good results so all you did was give Karen or Kevin the admin of the local facebook group an opportunity to feel important for once.
But they would have blocked the post at approval stage, so I saved myself a load of additional work not continuing. I can see it a bit from their side, people would whinge, and it would cause them grief. But, spineless none the less.
he then went on to tell me that I was not dressed properly for the countryside !
