Managed some practice time yesterday late avo (Roath Park recreation ground, ‘The Rec’, in Cardiff), with my P8. This is the firstbtime I’ve been able to keep the thing airborne long enough to make it go where I wanted it to go, and come back to somewhere at least within the same time zone as me, right side up to boot! Went and had a Guiness to celebrate!
I’m a lot more confident now, and will be able to develop skills to a reasonable level.
I’m wondering about methods of flying in higher winds, though, for video purposes and practice, and have been considering tethered flying; would be intersested to hear from anyone who has tried this and why they found it to be unworkable, or not if it was a success. The idea is that, using the drone as a sort of powered kite that would be able to ascend to, say, 100’ while I hung on to the string, or to have on say 20’ of line following me about, might lead to a wider variety of filming possibilities. One would have a degree of sideways & fore-&-aft movement.
Initial experiments in the bedroom earlier this evening suggest it’s not a totally barmy idea. Trick is to attach the tether as close as possible to the a/c’s centre of gravity, found by infolding the arms and balancing it on my fingers, and flew it steadily above the bed holding the string. I have fixed a staple under the fuselage with superglue & Milliput to attach a line to for further exeriments. Looking forward to your views on this idea!
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Maybe? Don’t know.
Well done for getting it in air, if that’s it
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The best thing to do mate, is to learn to fly it properly first. If you tether it in wind, you’ll end up with the drone swinging around in a circle (and crashing), or bouncing from one side to the other like a pendulum (and crashing).
What you can do is to not fly it in windy conditions, these cheap drones don’t normally like anything other than still, virtually no wind, mainly because the motors, battery and GPS aren’t strong/good enough to react quickly enough to keep position.
If you want something that will cope with the wind, sell your P8 for what ever you can get for it, put the rest to it and buy a DJI, the new Mini 4K is about £250, but the difference is chalk and cheese mate
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What you are trying to do is a botched attempt at active track.
You will be lucky if the drone stays in the air for more than a minute, and you be bloody lucky if it gets a single shot of you once moving.
As above. Use this to practice flying, the skills flying this will pay dividends when you move onto a more refined drone.
When you can afford to, get yourself a DJI.
Around 20 years ago, before drones were affordable, I tried using a hydrogen balloon to get a small digital camera to between 50 and 100 feet high. All I really wanted was a few different shots for websites but the practicalities were huge. The balloon needed to be quite large to support the camera and control cables but the wind was the biggest problem. I went for hydrogen as it has much more lift than helium but you need to be really careful as it burns with an invisible flame! Using a drone removes this problem. After several attempts with different tethering systems I ended up with a ‘tripod’ setup of guy ropes plus an additional straight down rope with the control cables, video feed etc. The whole thing needed a man on each rope plus me watching the screens. The size of the balloon meant it was very susceptible to wind and I never managed to get any decent pictures out of the rig. Even when it was very still at ground level the wind at 50 feet blurred most pictures.
I think you’ve got it much easier these days but the wind is still a killer. In fact it’s a bit like full size aircraft - bigger is definitely better. Good luck!
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This whole thing sounds really imaginative. Amazing. Whilst you didn’t get any photos from the air, have you got any photos from the ground of that balloon? Oh was everyone busy holding it down?
That’s the fella. My idea was to buy a cheapo and learn to fly it before splashing out on something better. It is what it is, and practically useless in anything but very light winds, and the instructions that came with it are not much help; some cracking examples of Chinglish and a bit vague, especially when (not) describing the calibration procedure. It was this that was the main stumbling block to progress for a week or so; it would raise off the ground and then drift off wherever it wanted to. Proper calibration has improved matters and I was able to keep it hovering long enough to learn how to correct the drift and even fly a square.
You will find that a GPS enabled drone like the DJI ones will barely drift unless its high winds it’s in and even then when you watch the video back it will be super level and rock steady due to the gimbal setup.
Some drones even use the camera sensors on the bottom to scan for changes in the pattern of the ground to help keep it steady too ( a £100 Telo drone that is just about as toy like a drone as you can get made in partnership with Intel and DJI uses this )
So with a DJI drone you won’t really need to worry about correcting a drift if it has proper GPS lock on it.
They basically fly themselves
See, now, this is fhe sort of advice that forums are brilliant for. I’ll manage with the P8 for now, and upgrade when I feel a bit more confident. GPS would be a big improvement and so would a return to base ‘come to daddy’ button. I’m guessing that a DJI would have a better camera as well, this one is somewhat basic. The best shots/vids are to be had in ‘golden hour’ around sunrise or sunset, and this seems to coincide with the light winds, but light conditions are challenging for basic cameras.
Mooching about online shows that there is a lot more online support in the form of apps for DJI/Mavic, another advantage.
Checking online and it looks like the DJI Mini 2SE is probably what I want. I’ll need to save my pennies for a bit for that, though, and plug on with the P8 in the meantime. UAV Forecast says good to fly around sunset thie evening; wish me luck!
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Didn’t go out eventually; bit overcast & dull for decent video, which was part of the intention, and getting hungry so dinner felt like a more attractive alternative. Got to eat, if I don’t eat, I’ll DIE!!!
Well, after a while…
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As I’ve now splashed out on a Mini 2 SE, I’ve given this P8 drone away to a neighbour, who is well pleased with it (because he hasn’t tried to fly it yet; to be fair, he says he’ll be more than happy to zoom around the rec or Splott Park and doesn’t need precision controlled flying). Better than it taking up shelf space in the flat and not serving any purpose. I wish it luck in it’s new career with Bob, but i won’t miss it much!
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