To All Budding Quadcopter Pilots,you may find this helpful (especially if you drink cider lol)

[shaunicus75]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxg06DRILpY

[jd.linklater]

Funny?

[shaunicus75]

  All depends on a persons sense of humour,think mine might be questionable lol.Anyway,that was just after my first flight with my new man toy,a Parrot Bebop 2 quadcopter .Great quadcopter and easy to fly.This is the more sensible video of the flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cxJcmq8bTs

Was pleased with the video footage,really stable,especially when you compare it to a toy grade  drone ,like my cheapy Tarantula X6 drone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyLI0CTSwQU

[jd.linklater]

That is remarkably stable footage on the second clip, must be a really professional piece of kit.

[shaunicus75]

And that was my first flight with it,and im not a great drone flier,I couldnt fly a racing drone at low level through obstacles like alot of fliers,The first video is a £30 toy grade quad with a £50 mobius camera I attached to it,the camera is decent HD camera,but there is no option to stabilise the footage,and the quad is light and jerky to control.The Bebop isnt the most expensive,got it for £449 last november in the black friday deal,£150 knocked off,it was £599 the day before.Even now 10 months later in Argos it is still £479 so i got a good deal back then.Good job it wasnt defective though,as it was unopened in the box for 10 months,only just got round to flying it.Its not cheap of course,but good value compared to a DJI Phantom 4 or Mavic,both of which cost £1000 plus.

I took it out for a second flight last night at sunset,i was abit braver this time.The first Video ,i flew to a maximum of 400 metres from me.The second flight,flew to a distance of 1.1km at a height of 100m from me,and still had full control and a good video feed on my mobile.Next thing to try are the FPV Googles I got with it.Anyway,its a great hobby,and gets me out and about in some places,luckily where i live in Worcestershire is a great place to fly,lots of open spaces.As to be honest with Drones,you cant really or shouldnt really fly in built up areas.

[shaunicus75]

Actually JD,the Bebop 2 is seen as middle of the road drone wise,not the best camera,its standard HD,some Quads like what DJI make,have 4k resolution cameras,that are attached to 3 -axis gyroscopic gimbles.The Bebop 1 and 2 both have the camera built into the chassis and frame of the quad,in essense it looks like a flying Camcorder.The stabilision is from software built into into the drone itself.But I was more than happy with the results anyway.It flies great too though,steady as a rock,its not very big and weighs only 500g but can handle winds up 20mph and stay hovering in the same place with barely no movement from wind gusts.

[j_uk643]

I too am surprised at the footage which is better than I expected

I did see one flying around the pyramids a few years ago.

I see there are also  'full sized' ones with a cab for human flight.

[shaunicus75]

 I saw that too,got about 12+ electric motors,and powerful enough to carry a single occupant.Like most tech,its improving all the time.The quad /drone I have,the bebop 2 has a range of 2km,and if I download the flightplan app,can pre-program the flight route,so when it takes off,it flies autmomatically,but I can control the camera,also has a follow me mode,so in theory if i was on a bike,the quad would continue following me at a set distance..This one can fly at 40mph maximum,but newer more expensive drones such as the DJI Mavic,can reach nearly 60mph,have a range of 5km and have prefessional ultra HD 4k cameras

Its amazing to think though,that now anyone can buy a drone for several hundred pounds and take aireal footage as  good as a multi million pound helicopter with a film crew.You could argue its greener too,as all drones are battery powered.Whereas 10 years ago,to get airial video you would probably need an RC Helicopter with a petrol or nitro IC Engine ( RC Helicopters are incredibly hard to fly,quads are easy to control)

[j_uk643]

I saw several. One had a range of about 70 miles, and had a parachute and crumple landing frame, emphasising safety over conventional small helicopter, some of which like r22 have had a number of fatalities due sometimes to mast bump in negative g, causing the blades to detach and the craft fall out of the air with no hope of recovery

You can flight plan and run automatic, and no tail rotor means no pedals, so just a cyclic and integrated collective for manual

Think its a bit optimistic to expect to bypass conventional flight training which is what they hoped

As you say its a lot cheaper than hiring a helicopter to do the same work, and with a quality camera the results look impressive

Could be a lot more mini traffic in the air in time

[shaunicus75]

  Drones and UAVs are replacing helicopters for filming anyway,you see more and more news stories where the video footage is from a quadcopter or a UAV,A UAV can be like a quad,but have simply more than 4 sets of motors.On Planet Earth 2,on one episode ,I think it was in the amazon where they were hoping to film rive dolphins,the guy who was hoping to catch a sight if the elusive creatures when they were coming up for air,was using a DJI Spreading Wings Octocopter,a large 8 motor UAV,costs about £10,000 but can carry 10-20kg of cameras and sensors.Its alot of money,but still way cheaper than hring a helicopter for a week.Plus its a one off cost,as long as it doesnt crash,can be used over and over again,only cost would be charging of the battery pack ( would be a huge high capacity one)