Horse Sand Fort - Added to Castles and Fortifications in Unknown

Where to fly your drone in the UK
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I have just added this to the map of places to fly your drone at Drone Scene:

3840×2160 9.5 MB

Land owner permission not required.

Horse Sand Fort or Horse Sands Fort is one of the larger Royal Commission sea forts in the Solent off Portsmouth, Hampshire.

The fort is one of four built as part of the Palmerston Forts constructions.

It is 200 feet (61 m) across, built between 1865 and 1880, with two floors and a basement and armour-plated all round.

The originator declared that this location was not inside a Flight Restriction Zone at the time of being flown on 30/10/2024. It remains the responsibility of any pilot to check for any changes before flying at the same location.

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Congrats on being first out there!

Annoyingly you beat me to it. :rage: LOL!

You might like to add your TOAL maker to the map.

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Hi, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Thanks to a calm day! I was feeling nervous for obvious reasons.
No issues there and back.

I set the transmission to only 2.4GHz band due to the best RF Power <20dBm/100mW compared to the 5.8GHz band at <14dBm/25mW. Had good lock with no drop outs.

Also I didn’t do any constant video recording to save battery energy. Just turned ON/OFF for a few secs to record journey.

I set an altitude of around 20m. N Mode Out and back to around half way when switched to S Mode for the remainder of the flight. Prior to the flight, I made sure there were no sea craft in the vicinity of my flight path and the Fort due to possible interference.

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Thanks for the Congrats.
There is another Fort to the SW of Horse Sands. (Solent Fort?)

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Is 2.4GHz better for longer range out to sea transmissions then?

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Hi,

For increased RF Power (The 2.4GHz channels have ~ 4 times the RF Power than the 5.8GHz channels). So, theoretically (no interference) should yield better range. Also 2.4GHz being a lower frequency band than 5.8GHz suffers a tad less signal attenuation due to precipitation (fog/mist) if there’s any around.

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Honestly - that makes less difference than is worth worrying about.

Only two things significantly use power - and you can’t do without the motors or the control signal.

As your screen will confirm - the camera is still running and it’s still transmitting. :+1: , so it’s only the only power needed to save to the SD card that you are saving…

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There is. It’s the furthest!

Let me know if you are thinking of going for it. I may pop down and join you.

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Yep, understand what you’re saying. I guess I was a little paranoid about saving even microwatts or picowatts of power on this 1st ‘Must Beat OzoneVibe to the Horse Sand Fort’ flight. :slight_smile:

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Okay, sounds like a Plan.

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Just looked at this other Fort which lies SW of Horse Sand Fort. I think it may be called ‘No Man’s Lan Fort’ There is also another (4th) - St Helen’s Fort. These two Forts look certainly to be nearer the Isle of Wright.

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Yes - “No Man’s” is the same “Solent Fort” (the hotel name, I believe).

St Helen’s is way our of range from the mainland. Just off the Bembridge coast on the IoW.

It’s 8.25km from Southsea …

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I want to fly here @CJLL, but there are no parking or take off and landing markers. Would you be able to add some to the map please?

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Doing those 3 in a single flight may be pushing it a bit :flushed:

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Suggested TOAL Added - Have a Good Flight
There is ample parking available. This is just one possibility which I chose for both my flights.
I think I paid £5.70 for 3 hours. Horse Sand Fort is also in this video

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With my MP and aging batteries, perhaps, but on a calm day it’s only(!) a 20 min flight at 25 mph … and my MP goes faster than that quite easily. :smiling_imp:

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