Recent content by EricF

Drat! You beat me to making that identical generous offer... But seriously, if you find privately-owned property that you think would give you nice views of something of interest nearby, consider approaching the property owner to ask permission. Even better, offer to give them a photo of their...

Like you, I started with film. But having a computer background, I moved to digital early on and haven't shot film since about 2003. As others have noted, many applications can stitch 2 or more shots together: think of the old-school method of laying 2 negs down and carefully slicing off the...

You confirm my point: different jurisdictions have different rules, and both drone users and the general public are poorly informed about what is illegal versus "good practice". My 2nd link (about using drones <250 g in Canada) specifically includes (with my highlighting in italics): While...

I think that links to similar drone flying regulations for other countries would be very helpful on this forum. Although most participants appear to be living in the US, the rules about flying drones can vary widely elsewhere. Seeing apparently-contradictory rules is confusing enough for drone...

As drone operators, we can & should do our bit to dispel the negative perceptions. I find that people react out of ignorance, but are often actually quite interested when they learn a bit about what I'm doing. Case in point: A neighbor on her ATV happened to come along our country road as I was...

I want to prepare planar images (stitched from multiple shots taken at the same altitude while moving) to create overlays for Google Earth. With the built-in tools on GE, the overlays can be accurately positioned, so other tools can be used to measure area and lengths. With the images saved on...

The problem with supposed touch-sensitive gloves is that they are intermittently unreliable — and of course you just know that they'll fail when you really need to touch that ___ button in the UI (fill in the blank...). Bare hands are best IMHO, but best to have hand cream or something to keep...

I have a 128GB SanDisk Extreme micro SD card in My Mini 2. After a flight (or a day of flying), I copy everything onto a dated folder on an SSD drive. The folders use a naming convention of YYYY-MM-DD (so 2022-07-02 for today) for easier sorting, and I don't change any file names (the date &...

Good to know about being able to save waypoints for a mission during a test flight @Agustine ! To @DroneSolutions question: I'm using the Android version (Pixel 4XL with current version of Litchi), and all of my missions (so far) have been set up using the Litchi mission hub running in a Chrome...

I'd planned a 6-minute circuit to get video of a friend's cottage nestled in trees near a frozen lake. All looked well, with the elevation of the waypoints over the forested area set to 45m (~150ft), so well above even the tallest pine trees. Just to be sure though, before starting the mission...

Thank you @dannymavicpilot! The part I had been missing was installing the Chrome extension — and then restarting Chrome. (Duh!) Now the VML file includes the playable mission in GE perfectly. I think I still prefer the Litchi Mission Hub for planning the tour, but being able to preview it with...

Good point! I initially tried VLM, but I found the instructions confusing. Since discovering Litchi's Mission Hub that runs on a browser and works fine with my Mini 2, I haven't gone back to VLM. Exporting a KML version lets me see the mission in GE, but not simulate flying it. So far at least...

Yes, I've been using that feature. In fact, it is what drew me to Litchi as I've been doing a lot with Google Earth since 2005 (just after Google acquired Keyhole). It works pretty well, but you need to be cautious in rural areas where the elevation data is less reliable. As well, 3D buildings...

I was feeling the same way except for reasons of -20°C cold more than wind! However, my fix might well work for you while you are waiting for the wind to die down: plan a mission using the FlyLitchi mission hub on a browser on your desktop computer. I have lots of trees nearby, but also open...

I haven't had any problems using Litchi on an Android 12 (Pixel 4 XL). I've programmed several missions using the flylitchi.com mission hub via a Chrome browser on my Windows 10 desktop. They load without any problems into the Litchi app on the phone.