It is spring time in Holland and the bulb fields are coming into full bloom.
I planned a waypoint mission for my MP2 around some fields near the town of Lisse and went out this morning to see how it would fly.
I chose a Sunday morning just at dawn to reduce chances of encounters with other people, especially the troops of tourists that come here this time of year to take in the flower spectacles.
Unfortunately, the weather was overcast with a pretty stiff breeze. However, the tulips are not in full bloom yet so I decided to fly anyway as a practice run to try out the waypoints so I could modify later if needed after viewing the video. I found a nice secluded spot to take-off and land near my starting point. I did all the recommended pre-flight checks and with a sense of excitement (and the always present bit of trepidation when I fly this machine) I flew to my first way point and let the program take over.
As this was only my second attempt at a waypoint mission I maximized the map on my display so I could follow the progress of the route. My max radial distance from my home point was about 700m. At about 600m out I noticed some flurry of activity on the small PIP video screen in the lower left corner of my display. I popped the window open and to my dismay saw I was amongst a flock of birds (turned out to be Oyster Catchers). By this time, however, I had reached a turn point in my flight programmed to increase altitude and seemed to have left them behind. So I continued on.
When I downloaded the video I saw that I was amongst the birds for almost 2 minutes. I’ve attached three screen shots to give you all an idea of what I was into. As you can see I was flying above an irrigation canal at about 10m high and experienced a number of very close encounters with these relatively large and fast flying birds. In shot 2 I believe the obstacle avoidance kicked in as the drone appears to have come to a momentary pause. I don’t think the birds were actually aware of the drone but just intersected its path by chance.
I’ve already had one fresh water “wet event” from which I was lucky to recover from since I knew exactly where the drone was and had easy access to the property. These near-misses could have resulted in a much more complicated and sorrowful situation.
But, I can say I did get some pretty nice footage and look forward to going back out when the tulips peak, however I will keep a keen eye out for other species using the air space.
I planned a waypoint mission for my MP2 around some fields near the town of Lisse and went out this morning to see how it would fly.
I chose a Sunday morning just at dawn to reduce chances of encounters with other people, especially the troops of tourists that come here this time of year to take in the flower spectacles.
Unfortunately, the weather was overcast with a pretty stiff breeze. However, the tulips are not in full bloom yet so I decided to fly anyway as a practice run to try out the waypoints so I could modify later if needed after viewing the video. I found a nice secluded spot to take-off and land near my starting point. I did all the recommended pre-flight checks and with a sense of excitement (and the always present bit of trepidation when I fly this machine) I flew to my first way point and let the program take over.
As this was only my second attempt at a waypoint mission I maximized the map on my display so I could follow the progress of the route. My max radial distance from my home point was about 700m. At about 600m out I noticed some flurry of activity on the small PIP video screen in the lower left corner of my display. I popped the window open and to my dismay saw I was amongst a flock of birds (turned out to be Oyster Catchers). By this time, however, I had reached a turn point in my flight programmed to increase altitude and seemed to have left them behind. So I continued on.
When I downloaded the video I saw that I was amongst the birds for almost 2 minutes. I’ve attached three screen shots to give you all an idea of what I was into. As you can see I was flying above an irrigation canal at about 10m high and experienced a number of very close encounters with these relatively large and fast flying birds. In shot 2 I believe the obstacle avoidance kicked in as the drone appears to have come to a momentary pause. I don’t think the birds were actually aware of the drone but just intersected its path by chance.
I’ve already had one fresh water “wet event” from which I was lucky to recover from since I knew exactly where the drone was and had easy access to the property. These near-misses could have resulted in a much more complicated and sorrowful situation.
But, I can say I did get some pretty nice footage and look forward to going back out when the tulips peak, however I will keep a keen eye out for other species using the air space.
