The good ole days

sawman · 2024-09-04T10:31:00-0400

How many of you remember doing aerial photography before about 2010? I recently came across some photos that I took back then (I won't post because they are embarrassingly poor by today's standards). I only had fixed wing platforms and the associated shortcomings of trying to get good shots in tight spaces. Used an analog video feed from a cheap Sony sensor mounted on or adjacent to the "real" camera. Lol! The only great thing was zero government involvement.
Isn't it amazing how much has changed!? The advent of drones. The fantastic cameras and software now available. Flight computers and planning software.
When the Phantom came out, boy howdy!! It was something. Anyhow, just reminiscing.......

GFields · 2024-09-04T11:01:58-0400

Yes I remember very well. I didn't have/use a fixed wing but my first drone used the GoPro

Droning on and on... · 2024-09-04T11:02:41-0400

That pre-dates me.

Did you have a VTX with a live view during flight?

AeroJ · 2024-09-04T11:18:05-0400

Oh I remember those days... I can go back 12 years to find the first 'aerial video' (and I use the term exceptionally loosely) I ever made, in which I was given the flying bug by nothing so much as a toy grade helicopter, with levels of control and camera quality that I can only describe as 'exceptionally ropey', but it was enough to give me an ongoing appreciation for the view from above, and to show me the 'potential joy' of flying, once we have enough control to not spend the majority of our session time retrieving things from various levels of trees and shrubbery, and enough video quality to make the results worth looking at afterwards !

I have had my years of being entirely put off the hobby by depression at continuing over-regulation (of course I also remember when the ONLY rule was don't go over 400 ft !) and constant shrinking of available interesting places to fly, but the lure of flying remains strong even when I am not doing it, or more focused on other hobbies, so I always come back to it in the end.

But having flown everything from the worst toy-grade crap to home-built quads, and hexes, and latterly the better consumer models from DJI and Yuneec I am very much enjoying my latest return to the hobby with the M4P, which, I have to say, is pretty much everything I ever wanted from a drone, and the uncharacteristically sensible sub-250g rules mean that a lot more of the scenery I actually want to capture is newly available to me now, and in full, stable glorious colour with immense levels of control and safety features that I could only have dreamed of back in those early days.

Long may the adventure continue, what a time to be alive !

sarahb · 2024-09-04T11:47:23-0400

Can't say that I can as the DJI Air 3 is my first drone.

moldorf · 2024-09-04T12:46:43-0400

* my first job I got paid $1.05/hour and thought I was in hog heaven with big plans for my wealth

* my first car was a Rambler Classic station wagon I bought for 75 dollars, and gas was 24.9 a gallon. I had no luck in the back seat because convincing any girl to get into that rambling wreck was as easy as shoving buttermilk up a wounded bear's behind with a hot fork

* my first music system in that car was 8-track

* my first phone was a landline, rotary dial of course, with a 20 foot cord so I could move around my house. That was overkill because all I needed to get anywhere in my house was a 12 foot cord

* my first girlfriend was my first girlfriend for about 2 months which was actually a month longer than it took for my first wife to become my ex-wife

* my first year in college cost $1500. That included tuition, room & board in the dorms, and a 50 dollar credit at the campus bookstore

* my first computer had a 60MB hard drive and the OS was Windows 2.0

teccer · 2024-09-04T12:57:09-0400

yes I remember it well, after giving up hangliding I still felt the need to experiance flying so I bought an easystar rc plane and fitted a sony cam onboard, this is one of my many videos I made.

Droning on and on... · 2024-09-04T13:16:11-0400

moldorf said:
* my first year in college cost $1500. That included tuition, room & board in the dorms, and a 50 dollar credit at the campus bookstore

Reg fees at UC Davis in 1980 were $472 a quarter.

It's something like $10,000 now. No, there hasn't been 2000% inflation over the last 40 years.

Hmmmm...