Buying a drone...

chrismscotland

chrismscotland

chrismscotland

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Joined
16 Jul 2009
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Location
Edinburgh
I've been looking at picking up a drone for a while and been looking at either the Phantom 4 or Typhoon H and leaning toward the Yuneec. What I'm really wondering though is with the British weather (and more specifically in my case Scottish) how much use are folk really getting out of their drone?
 
For me the weather is less of an issue than finding places that i can fly without breaking the rules and potentially annoying people. Only you can ultimately decide if you will get enough use out of a drone to justify cost, but its certainly true that some weeks or months of the year flights are unlikely. I would have a browse of the multirotor thread in GD for other peoples opinions.
 
I bought myself a Phantom 3 at Christmas and have barely used it.

I live in London, so you can't really fly it anywhere legally, the royal parks also have warnings about prosecution for flying drones, so even open spaces are pretty much a no-go.

I only tend to use it when I'm going travelling somewhere and will be in an area I know I could use it.

Weather of course does play a part in being able to fly, which was actually something of a downer when I actually had some time that I could fly it over christmas. You can't fly it when it's raining. The real worry though is wind, I quickly found that picking up a little hand held anemometer is useful for determining whether it's safe to fly it.

A drone like the Phantom is pretty good at holding itself in position in reasonable winds, but it's using a lot more battery power to keep itself in place. If you switch it into one of the more manual modes where it's not automatically adjusting to keep in the same spot, you can really see what the wind is doing when it quickly drifts away from you. It can then be pretty slow coming back to you if it's flying back against a head wind.

It's fun to fly, but I probably haven't justified the cost of it yet.
 
Double check your locations in Scotland with regards to local airspace. There is no requirement to get permission from ATC to fly in controlled airspace as long as you are under 7kg and stay below 400 feet (there should be imho), but it is strongly recommended that you inform them anyway.
 
You only have to go on youtube and see that everyone is breaking the rules , flying in towns and City's and the cops are doing nothing about it , only a handful of people have been fined , eg flying over a live football match and the odd no go areas like airports. pretty much you can fly them where the hell you like because no one cares.


popular you tubers like Casey - Flys over City's all the time ! Also Mr Ben Brown from the UK flys his in Citys and they even publish there work on Youtube and no one has stopped them from doing it. from what I am seeing you can fly them anywhere you like as long as its away from Airports.
 
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I've had a Phantom 3 Advance for a while now. Haven't used it as much as I would like and need practice as I'm taking it to Ukraine for a 4 day visit to Pripyat.

I live in West Wales which has some great areas to film but the wind is almost always quite strong. Had it drifting out to sea the other week. Panic set in and went for a Return to Home. Fortunately it got back on land and parked up just by my feet. :)
 
Ive had a P3S for about a week and half and flown it about 8 times. just recently turned the Beginner mode off, so scary taking it up past the 30m it resricts you to and seeing my bird turn into a tiny dot.

The thing is fun as hell to fly and sooo easy. Took it out yesterday in pretty windy conditions but it held its own pretty well.
 
Gungnir said:
Be careful if flying over farm land. My mate shot one last week for disturbing his pigs. I'm sure he isn't the only one.
Click to expand...

Had a visit from the police yet?

Probably not a good thing if he wants to keep his licence, and not get done for something like criminal damage.
 
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