Drone

I haven't had much of a reason to write about an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), colloquially known as a drone.  Nevertheless, they're becoming more common at outdoor events like ball games, car shows, church picnics, Kermiss and Belgian Days.  Photographing large events from a couple hundred feet is easy and still something of a novelty.  They also have practical uses in agriculture, wildfire response, search and rescue and such.

So I purchased one; basically for fun.  

It's a DJI Neo, a small drone that I will use for photography and scouting that doesn't require a pilot license.  Over the weekend the winds died-back enough for me to get some flight time under my belt.  

I previously was restricted to flying the dang thing in the house and up and down the staircase.  That's OK for figuring out the preflight checklist and the joystick controllers; but it's really an outdoor toy.

The firmware on my little drone automatically limits my altitude to 120 meters: just under 400 feet.  Because I’m a rank amateur and don’t have a pilot’s license that’s my limit.  Which is fine because the lowest-flying aircraft around here is air ambulance Eagle III which generally comes screaming over the house at about 600 to 1000 feet.  The altitude restriction is designed to keep hobbyists out of trouble.

 

Anyway, this ingenious quadcopter might be the answer to some (certainly not all) photography limitations.  One being altitude.  As the forest has grown up around the west side of the house it has become more difficult to catch an easy sunset photo.

 

No longer.

 

As a trial run I flew my drone up to max altitude and took some photos. 

 

View North

View South - Farm in center is exactly a mile distant

 

Including my first sunset.  If you look carefully there is a little band of blue on the horizon. That is Green Bay. 

 

 

I have a sliver-sized view of the water at a fraction of the price of the real estate and property taxes!

 

This mechanical, digital, aerial technology is going to be fun.  Wouldn't it be in cool to catch the northern lights at altitude?  Or view a shallow coastal shipwreck from above?  Falls colors?  And outdoor events?  I suppose if I really get sucked-into the possibilities I might just jump thru the hoops and get certified for more sophisticated flight opportunities; and naturally, spring for a larger, better-equipped aircraft.

 

Stay-tuned.....