In February 2017 I manually flying a DJI Mavic Pro through a narrow Slot Canyon, this video compares that 2017 footage vs footage shot in 2021 autonomously with a Skydio 2 quadcopter.
I consider manually flying the Mavic through the slot canyon to be the most technical drone piloting I have ever done. I was worried that if I lost signal that the Mavic would climb and hit the overhanging walls of the canyon. Unlike my Mavic 2 Zoom, the Mavic Pro only had obstacle avoidance looking forward and down.
It took me a while to get a good shot with the Skydio, and it was very cold in the canyon in 2021. This was my first time to use the cable car skill with the Skydio 2. The #Skydio GPS beacon did not work in the slot canyon due to the lack of open sky in the canyon; therefore, I had to use visual tracking. The cable shot I really wanted had to be shortened due to the fact that the Skydio2 would stop, and not continue to the set point, when its tracking lost me, due to the geometry of the canyon. The Skydio would not enter the canyon from the far side, instead it would choose to fly over top to get to the other side. If the Skydio was not tracking me, the camera wound up just pointing at a wall and the shot wound up unimpressive. All that being said, the Skydio's performance in the Canyon was amazingly good. There was no wind when I manually flew the canyon in 2017, but there was significant snow blowing wind in 2021 and the Skydio stayed smooth and steady. I made one pass through the canyon in 2017 with the Mavic, and counted my lucky stars I got it through without crashing. I made approximately 15 passes through the canyon with the Skydio.
It would be nice if the kindly developers at Skydio would change the behavior of the UAV where if it looses tracking on a subject while flying a cable car, so that the Skydio not stop but continue on to the finish point "B" with the camera pointed in the same direction as it last had tracking focus on.
I consider manually flying the Mavic through the slot canyon to be the most technical drone piloting I have ever done. I was worried that if I lost signal that the Mavic would climb and hit the overhanging walls of the canyon. Unlike my Mavic 2 Zoom, the Mavic Pro only had obstacle avoidance looking forward and down.
It took me a while to get a good shot with the Skydio, and it was very cold in the canyon in 2021. This was my first time to use the cable car skill with the Skydio 2. The #Skydio GPS beacon did not work in the slot canyon due to the lack of open sky in the canyon; therefore, I had to use visual tracking. The cable shot I really wanted had to be shortened due to the fact that the Skydio2 would stop, and not continue to the set point, when its tracking lost me, due to the geometry of the canyon. The Skydio would not enter the canyon from the far side, instead it would choose to fly over top to get to the other side. If the Skydio was not tracking me, the camera wound up just pointing at a wall and the shot wound up unimpressive. All that being said, the Skydio's performance in the Canyon was amazingly good. There was no wind when I manually flew the canyon in 2017, but there was significant snow blowing wind in 2021 and the Skydio stayed smooth and steady. I made one pass through the canyon in 2017 with the Mavic, and counted my lucky stars I got it through without crashing. I made approximately 15 passes through the canyon with the Skydio.
It would be nice if the kindly developers at Skydio would change the behavior of the UAV where if it looses tracking on a subject while flying a cable car, so that the Skydio not stop but continue on to the finish point "B" with the camera pointed in the same direction as it last had tracking focus on.
