Wingmandami, Thanks. We were not able to try out your SW today as we were ona quest to gain some insight on the basics of formation flight itself with these drones.
I flew to LZU this AM and Rob picked me up from the airport.
After a fantastic lunch we proceeded to his usual "drone testing grounds" where we set up and after some deep exchange of thoughts on the mission which was formation flying with the drones. We are both fixed wing pilots and have done formation flying, so there was some understanding on the basics.
Well we were a flight of two today.
First we started off on DJI GO 4 on P mode and flew at very low alts trying to fly together, with FPV on our tablets. He had a
smart controller and I had my trusty I pad air with retina 10".
Smart controller sucked! Could not see the drone in front of you. Both of us felt strongly the same. The iPad was awesome, even in the sunlight. The drone in front of you was in plain sight.
Now, the P mode was really not very suitable, and I suggested we try the Tripod mode. GOLD !
In the tripod mode, we were able to stick together closer, had visual contact via FPV through our screens and were able to do several runs perfectly.
Next we figured flying low, was quite limiting, so we tried a 100ft AGL. BINGO! We had no clutter of the trees and shrubs, the aircraft were against a blue sky backdrop and opened up to a better formation.
The difficult part was to identify who is flying what drone when you do VLOS. Rob is right, you need unique colors on the drones for the pilots. We had trouble when we had two up there. Imagine more than 4 -8.
One thing we we established. The 2
Mavic 2 aircraft in both P mode and tripod mode, were able to raise alarm and stop with obstacle avoidance when closer than 6 feet of each other. They were able to perceive the small object of a flying drone in front of them so well.
Many things were learned, many more to be learned.
We had a good time flying and Rob is a fantastic resource on drones, knowing things from its innards that we will not ever know, as he trouble shoots, understands the inner workings and fixes them. Seriously.
By the end of several batteries, we were tired, dehydrated and called it a day.
He was gracious as a host and took me back to the airport and I was able to fly back home.
What a fantastic day!
I gotta see if Tom Baldridge wants to try this with me this weekend so I have a solid understanding of how it works.
