What's the point in long range flying?

[samtex]

To each his own. Everyone hears the call of a different drummer. My drummer is a conservative one and I try to fly in areas where if the quad goes down I have a pathway to recovery.

 

[dudz]

Far before drones hit the shops many people including myself we're building them from scratch. I built my first one from 2 x 6" angle grinder blades made from light steel and put threaded rod with nuts to keep the two pieces apart. Then used 12mm box section aluminium as arms. Bought a flight controller board from the USA, 4 motors , props and esc's etc from hobby king. Mounted a gps antenna on the top. And strapped a cheap Chinese tracker to it. After many weeks of trials and mods I used mission planner waypoint software to plot waypoints around the countryside up to 6miles away. Sent it up and flicked the pre programmed switch into autonomous mode. Got in the car and drove to where I had plotted the landing point in my sister's field. Parked up. Waited a few mins and watched it fly over and land. What a thrill !. Maybe a few weeks later I added a GoPro cam underneath. Done the same again. There were other enthusiasts building fixed wing drones who would fly in one direction getting approx 30 miles + . This wasn't about getting brilliant video footage. It was about building something yourself that would acomplish such goals. I recently bought the mavic 3 which is my first bought from the shop drone. It's great but I have to be honest and say it's boring compared. It has taken the fun out of the hobby. But I guess now I have two with different purposes. I was hoping the mavic would have waypoints by now to fit my purpose of tracking livestock.

 

[Poppacat]

Enough of that propaganda - we all know the Earth is really flat

Flat - but is it mobius? If not, what's on the reverse?
Just something to ponder...

 

[mobilehomer]

Flat - but is it mobius? If not, what's on the reverse?
Just something to ponder...

Roots

 

[Zardiw]

Some of the youtubers seems to be obsessed with long range flying, sending their drones miles away. Other than the fact that this clearly breech the requirement for VLOS, and other than the fact that the higher the range - the higher are the chances it will drop somewhere along the way, I really fail to see the the point in all that. This is a photography drone: If you wish to take a photograph at a location 5 or 6 miles away, just go there and fly your drone at the location...

I think the longest range I've sent my M3P to, would probably be around 1km, along the shore line, or down some road etc. Other than that, I did fly it for a few km, but that was while it was active tracking my car, so at no point did the drone move more than 20-30 meters away from me.

I'm reminded of an old song that has the line 'Different Strokes for Different Folks'

IOW.....why should anyone care what anybody else does......it's not as if we each don't have enough problems/issues of our own........but it seems like there is an attraction to focus and comment on what others do........lol

Z

 

[Mikieh]

I'm reminded of an old song that has the line 'Different Strokes for Different Folks'

IOW.....why should anyone care what anybody else does......it's not as if we each don't have enough problems/issues of our own........but it seems like there is an attraction to focus and comment on what others do........lol

Z

You know what gets me are all commercial and recreational aircraft flying over all of us every day. If a plane or piece of one falls out of the sky and hurts someone, that’s unfortunate, of course. You don’t see the FAA falling all over themselves to ban those aircraft from flying over people. Of course we have rules to follow to register our drones, and of course we will pay if one of our drones causes injury to anyone. I just don’t see the difference between our drones up to 400ft. and regular aircraft. As far as VLOS goes, I know exactly where my aircraft is at all times because it has a camera!!! Just my 2 cents.

 

[Logger]

You know what gets me are all commercial and recreational aircraft flying over all of us every day. If a plane or piece of one falls out of the sky and hurts someone, that’s unfortunate, of course. You don’t see the FAA falling all over themselves to ban those aircraft from flying over people. Of course we have rules to follow to register our drones, and of course we will pay if one of our drones causes injury to anyone. I just don’t see the difference between our drones up to 400ft. and regular aircraft. As far as VLOS goes, I know exactly where my aircraft is at all times because it has a camera!!! Just my 2 cents.

You may be able to locate your drone beyond VLOS using the camera. But it will do SFA to tell you what else might be flying nearby to it. See & avoid etc.

 

[brouigu1]

LOL. Of course you are - that's exactly what you're doing.

This is why the regulations always become more restrictive.

Whenever somoeone follows up thier comment with a "but" you know they are going to justify bad behavior.

 

[Logger]

Whenever somoeone follows up thier comment with a "but" you know they are going to justify bad behavior.

Weird. The post immediately before yours proves that idea wrong. I used "but" to call out bad behaviour.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Whenever somoeone follows up thier comment with a "but" you know they are going to justify bad behavior.

Maybe "prohibited" behavior is a little more fair?

 

[moldorf]

I recently was on a camping trip in SE Oregon/N. Nevada. I took several flights that climbed up cliffs and steep hills that I could not hike up. Many went out 4000-8000 ft. I made some great video and saw geography I would have never seen. I needed that kind of distance because the height of areas I was flying to required me to be a half mile away from the up-slope to maintain signal

there was nobody around for miles, and while some flights climbed more than a thousand feet from the launch point, I'm certain my max altitude above ground was never more than the 100-150 foot range.

again, I was able to record video of geographic features and aspen forests I would have never seen otherwise. I find those videos to have high value on a personal level (and yeah, if my drone went down there was no hope I'd recover it, but I gauged it worth the risk)

those are my reasons for some long range flying