Deleted member 66701
Deleted member 66701
There isn't an age requirement for recreational use.
Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread
- Thread starter RomanNose
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There isn't an age requirement for recreational use.
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I nearly pressed the buy button on a dji phantom 2 from currys for £269 yesterday. Came to my senses and just thought how much would I use it after I've took a couple of Ariel shots of the house etc.
I'm starting to lose my temper with people using them. It seems to me at the minute the sensible users are in a massive minority. In the last week I've nearly been hit twice by them and had one just miss my car.
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Wow. Where do you live? It must be some kind of hotspot. I'm yet to see one in the flesh.
My house overlooks our town green. Loads of dog walkers and more recently people with drones. Easily half a dozen people flying them each day over the weekend. I run along the paths that border it and obviously my driveway sits just off it.
I couldn't agree more. The trouble is, basic flying of quads, etc, is far too easy so that just about any numpty can do it, and quite a few with more money than brains do. But actually getting them to respond to what you want, especially when something unexpected happens, requires a degree more ... feel.
And then, there's a smaller percentage of people than can do a half-decent job of controlling them but are idiots with a perverse view of what's funny, and/or a complete disregard for other people. This would be the same category of brain-dead morons that drink-drive cars without considering, or maybe just not caring about, consequences or think taking potshots at people with airguns is a hoot.
Sadly, because they're so easy to buy, and relatively easy to fly, it attracts idiots as well as sensible users.
(OP - I'm not suggesting you fall in the idiot category). EDIT ... The OP of the separate thread before some helpful mod merged this into the mega thread, not the OP of this thread.
However, my personal recommendation would depend on what you want your drone for?
If it's just as a toy and a few aerial snaps, I'd suggest playing about with one of the very cheap entry-level micro quads for a bit first. Budget is of the order of £30 - £100 depending on whether you get one with camera or not, and on brand.
That's one end of the spectrum. The other end is if your intended use is in any way commercial, in which case legally you DO need to be CAA-approved. Licensed isn't quite the right word, but that's pretty much what it amounts to, in which case you can budget probably £2k-ish to get the approval, plus whatever your 'drone' costs you.
And finally, in terms of what you want to do with it, the model, size, motor capability and battery size determines lift capability, which again is determined by need, and your budget. As is the spec/capability of the stabilising gimbal for the camera, and the sophistication of on-board electronics, GPS capability and so on. The range of options out there is huge, vast, immense. It's best to do a fair bit of research on what fits your needs, IMHO, before forking out anything.
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Why not? That is the common use of the term these days - yeah it can refer to any robotic vehicle but the common use is UAVs whether the big ones that bomb people on behalf of Uncle Sam or the small ones that people mess about with in their garden.
I wouldn't, never really agreed with this idea in general and especially wouldn't with this situation. The idea of buying a crappy 'entry level' version of something to start a hobby can often just mean you'll have to buy a new better one not long after. In the case of drones, if the OP has been flying helicopters for years he's already got a good idea of what he's getting into here and might well not be too impressed with a £30 toy especially when he's interested in high quality video! One thing I would point out though to the OP is not to put too much emphasis on things like having '4k' - while I'm not knowledgeable about drone cameras specifically there is an issue with photography in general that marketing depts want more 'megapixels' etc... It doesn't necessarily get you a better image, cramming too many pixels onto a small sensor can end up giving you a worse one. The lens itself is pretty important though a manufacturer spending more on a high quality lens doesn't get to have the same impact in terms if marketing as one that whacks in a crappy sensors that happens to be '4k'.
I'd be very careful with reviews and try to get a look at actual footage shot with the drone you're considering - worry more about the quality of that than whether it is '4k' for example an old 8MP DSLR camera will still beat a 12MP compact with a crappy little sensor. You might also consider drones that allow you to mount your own camera.
"RPAS"
It was deemed that UAV was not accurate enough because it suggested it was completely autonomous and technically they are all manned. In fact, our military drones are technically more manned than any other air system!
Make sure that you read and digest:
and this:
https://www.caa.co.uk/drones/
Happy flying...
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sets the rules on drones in the UK under what is called an air navigation order.
An unmanned aircraft must never be flown beyond the normal unaided "line of sight" of the person operating it - this is generally measured as 500m (1,640ft)horizontally or 400ft (122m) vertically
and this:
https://www.caa.co.uk/drones/
Happy flying...
Deleted member 66701
Deleted member 66701
It's not that much (well, it isn't if you don't chose one of the big companies and go with a local instructor instead.
My training (3 day course) + assessment was £600 plus £112 for the PfAW. It did help however that I'm VERY good at writing technical manuals, so writing the operations manual was pretty easy for me. If you've been flying drones in a hobbyist capacity for a while that obviously helps as well.
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Anyone?
I was using one of those TK102 thingies which worked quite well. It's not that light though (although you could probably strip it down and make it lighter). Depends what else you've got on the quad really.
Nothing else, it's a sub £50 quad, but I don't want to just lose it and buy another one...
How did it work for you?
Never had cause to use it in anger really but it worked fine when I tested it. The place I bought it from supplied it with a SIM and detailed instructions - without those I imagine it could be a PITA.
I agree entirely on the megapixel issue but my concern on trying a "crappy" model is coming from a different direction. If this is just hobbyist use, then someone flying heli's for 30 years is either flying a variety of collective pitch models, perhaps with varying challenges like scale modelling or twin motor, etc, or is a very slow starter if still on fixed pitch models. I assume he flies CP models. In terms of flying "drones" going from 30 years of CP helis go quads is about as challenging as going back to FP helus, or even those toy counterbalanced things, That is, after the novelty of it being a quad wears off, is pretty boring in terms of straight flying.
Finding that out with a £30 toy is a fair bit cheaper than finding it out with a pretty expensive DJI model, or similar.
On the other hand, if it's about the actual flying, then some of the more "race" oriented models might be a better bet, because they're more stripped down for performance. The fact that they're relatively cheap does make them "crappy" any more than a Blade Nano CPX/CPS is crappy for a CP heli. Instead, it's extremely light, ultra fast and indoor suitable, that a 700-class bird, or even a mid-size 450, isn't.
On the other hand, if it's about the photography, then the camera quality on those entry level models is going to be .... limited. So if photo quality is key, those models are only ever going to give a brief taste, and an upgrade will rapidly follow. But what the upgrade should be to will depend on expections of photo capabity. If a 4k GoPro (quality and capability) is the aim, then the Phantom is a good bet, but if it's carrying an SLR-size camera, then the Phoenix doesn't have the grunt.
The GUI is exactly the same as for Cleanflight. It is, in fact, the cleanflight one
Have a good read through of this first If you haven't already. Much has changed in betaflight.
I don't fly on the bleeding edge of my skills so I don't have much interest in running the FC CPU at massive overclocks or need the Acroplus feature set.
Have a good read through of this first If you haven't already. Much has changed in betaflight.
I don't fly on the bleeding edge of my skills so I don't have much interest in running the FC CPU at massive overclocks or need the Acroplus feature set.