This is going to sound incredibly corny, but the thing that inspired me to get into droning was the NASA drone Ingenuity, on Mars. Ingenuity just completed it's 8th successful flight.
So, when I got my first drone, a Snaptain S5C, I named it Ingy. A great little intro trainer, but zero wind resistance. Good camera, though, for a cheap trainer. Living in a canyon, both wide flat spaces and calm winds are mythical conditions. I tended to fly early in the morning.
The S5C has three speed settings, just like the Mini-2. I started training on the slowest setting. I got better controlling it in the wind over time, but I was spending all of my time just keeping it stable where I wanted it, rather than flying around and doing what I wanted to do.
I've flown dozens of different models of human-sized airplanes, and as a general rule, the heavier they are, the more stable they are. I started looking around for a heavier drone, but I came across an article (which may have been a pointer to somewhere in this forum!), that pointed out that wind resistance in drones is produced by the intelligent application of substantial engine power, and not by increased weight.
This made perfect sense to me, so I increased the power on Ingy to the middle setting, and sure enough, that DID make a difference! I still had to actively control it to keep it stable in the wind, but it was easier to do that at the higher power level. I was even able to get some decent video.
After a couple of days of this, I bumped the power level up to it's version of "Sport", and that made a bit more difference, but I made the mistake of flying in the afternoon. A strong gust caught Ingy, and he was blown out of sight, over the roof of the garage behind me. I had picked him out of the nearby sagebrush (and a couple of short trees) on numerous occasions, but this time he was nowhere to be found.
By then I had done enough research that I knew that the Mini-2 was the aircraft for me. I went over to Best Buy and bought one the next day. What a difference!
After practicing very closely for a while (trivially easy by comparison to Ingy). I concluded that the only way to find Ingy, was to search for him with Dijimm, my first Mini-2. I confirmed that Ingy wasn't on the roof of the garage, and I did a cursory survey of the acre or two of sloped sagebrush down the canyon from my house to the road. No luck.
Flash forward a couple of weeks, and I know a lot more about Mini-2s, and how to fly them. I determined to do a more thorough search of the most likely crash site area. I set the camera to 4X zoom, and pointed it not quite straight down. If Ingy went beyond the road, he's lost and gone forever. So I started my search at the road below my house, and moved up the slope, scanning. I'd go down one row, scoot Phoenix up a few feet, and then do another row.
No luck, I'm afraid. But perhaps I'll win an award for the most boring drone video ever made!
TCS
So, when I got my first drone, a Snaptain S5C, I named it Ingy. A great little intro trainer, but zero wind resistance. Good camera, though, for a cheap trainer. Living in a canyon, both wide flat spaces and calm winds are mythical conditions. I tended to fly early in the morning.
The S5C has three speed settings, just like the Mini-2. I started training on the slowest setting. I got better controlling it in the wind over time, but I was spending all of my time just keeping it stable where I wanted it, rather than flying around and doing what I wanted to do.
I've flown dozens of different models of human-sized airplanes, and as a general rule, the heavier they are, the more stable they are. I started looking around for a heavier drone, but I came across an article (which may have been a pointer to somewhere in this forum!), that pointed out that wind resistance in drones is produced by the intelligent application of substantial engine power, and not by increased weight.
This made perfect sense to me, so I increased the power on Ingy to the middle setting, and sure enough, that DID make a difference! I still had to actively control it to keep it stable in the wind, but it was easier to do that at the higher power level. I was even able to get some decent video.
After a couple of days of this, I bumped the power level up to it's version of "Sport", and that made a bit more difference, but I made the mistake of flying in the afternoon. A strong gust caught Ingy, and he was blown out of sight, over the roof of the garage behind me. I had picked him out of the nearby sagebrush (and a couple of short trees) on numerous occasions, but this time he was nowhere to be found.
By then I had done enough research that I knew that the Mini-2 was the aircraft for me. I went over to Best Buy and bought one the next day. What a difference!
After practicing very closely for a while (trivially easy by comparison to Ingy). I concluded that the only way to find Ingy, was to search for him with Dijimm, my first Mini-2. I confirmed that Ingy wasn't on the roof of the garage, and I did a cursory survey of the acre or two of sloped sagebrush down the canyon from my house to the road. No luck.
Flash forward a couple of weeks, and I know a lot more about Mini-2s, and how to fly them. I determined to do a more thorough search of the most likely crash site area. I set the camera to 4X zoom, and pointed it not quite straight down. If Ingy went beyond the road, he's lost and gone forever. So I started my search at the road below my house, and moved up the slope, scanning. I'd go down one row, scoot Phoenix up a few feet, and then do another row.
No luck, I'm afraid. But perhaps I'll win an award for the most boring drone video ever made!
TCS
