Drone photos

[prv]

I know a digital video guy who occasionally films drone shots of new boats, usually from a chase boat.

He had to do a course and get some sort of license because his flying is commercial. If you’re filming your own boat for fun then the bureaucracy is much reduced.

The auto-return-to-launch-point is an issue he has to be careful of, but so far he’s not lost a drone that way. He has once had to have the chase boat race the drone back to the start point to catch it, but they got there in time...

A significant issue is that his drone detects obstacles when landing, and the clutter around the aft deck of his usual chase boat tended to trigger the obstacle detection and make it abort the landing. The solution was a four-foot square of ply which they mount high and clear of everything, to act as a “flight deck”.

They also had a bad landing once that resulted in it flinging bits of shattered propeller around, so his rule now is that everyone except the drone pilot has to be in the wheelhouse (or on the side decks or foredeck, sheltered by it) during takeoff and landing.

Pete

 

[Laminar Flow]

Thanks, SpiderMoobs. It is my understanding that "Home" is the geographical spot where it took off. On a moving boat that would be somewhere back in the ocean.
There is a good video blog series on youtube by a Norwegian fellow. In one of the posts it shows him desperately trying to get the drone down before it goes into self-return mode when it reaches "low power" and returns to the watery spot where he first launched.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

I've done it from a boat while sailing and on my own. Needs a quiet day and a reliable autopilot. Taking off you have to immediately accelerate the drone forward otherwise bits of the boat will move in to it. Landing you have to keep forward speed on, get close and low, get stable, and bang it down. It's not all that easy with rigging to avoid. I'm a helicopter pilot and I think that helps.

I'm trying to upload a video to youtube but it's not uploading at the moment. Here's a screenshot...

 

[mjcoon]

So what is needed is someone to program it with the option to return to the controller position rather than the departure point.

W.

I can imagine the poor operator trying desperately to avoid a drone homing in on him like some peril movie!

Mike.

 

[Stingo]

 

[Laminar Flow]

I've done it from a boat while sailing and on my own. Needs a quiet day and a reliable autopilot. Taking off you have to immediately accelerate the drone forward otherwise bits of the boat will move in to it. Landing you have to keep forward speed on, get close and low, get stable, and bang it down. It's not all that easy with rigging to avoid. I'm a helicopter pilot and I think that helps.

I'm trying to upload a video to youtube but it's not uploading at the moment. Here's a screenshot...

View attachment 87191

Aeronautical training, quiet day, relatively unobstructed drone carrier decks port and starboard and still not all that easy to land ...

 

[Laminar Flow]

Right, that nearly went sideways; $1800 drone, two man job, wide, open back deck, Note the chain-link glove for catching!

 

[ip485]

Yes, a reasonable amount, all with a DGI pro.

Top tips - of course the auto retrieval doesnt work, because your retrieval point has moved - its all down to manual flying.

Launching is relatively easy, BUT the more windy it is the more rapidly the drone will travel backwards as it gets airborne. It is very easy to find the drone in the backstay or anything to the rear of the launch point. Hand launching is vital, with lots of power to get height as quickly as possible.

Retrieval is the hardest part. Forget landing on the deck - impossible with any certainty. Retrieval is to the hand so make sure you know how to turn the rotors off as soon as you have hold. If it isnt to gusty and you have a reasonably amount of deck space it works fine - but practice in a very light wind first and work up through the wind strength. Make sure you have plenty of battery for the retrieval and dont be worried about making a few attempts. The very last thing you want is to be under pressure due to a low battery.

I have read some people use a hanging string, grab the string and kill the rotors. I havent tried that technique yet.

The tracking function of a target is very useful.

I suspect it is relatively easy to lose £1K+ worth of kit, but I have avoided it so far!

Well worth fitting some filters as there is a lot of reflected light of course -makes for much better footage.

(Yes, as others have said, you now need to take a test and register to be legal, unless I guess outside the territorial limits).

 

[ip485]

PS jsut watched the video and had similiar fun myself.

The lesson is dont attempt retrieval over the stern - as they demonstrated.

I find far better to bring the drome along side (the windward side) settle into the pace of the yacht and then use the side control to bring the drone over your hand. Putting the yacht onto autopilot is a good idea on heading mode and max sensitivity. Obviously if there is a swell reducing the motion by pinching up works well.

So far i have found it easier into wind than downwind.

 

[Laminar Flow]

Yes, a reasonable amount, all with a DGI pro.

Top tips - of course the auto retrieval doesnt work, because your retrieval point has moved - its all down to manual flying.

Launching is relatively easy, BUT the more windy it is the more rapidly the drone will travel backwards as it gets airborne. It is very easy to find the drone in the backstay or anything to the rear of the launch point. Hand launching is vital, with lots of power to get height as quickly as possible.

Retrieval is the hardest part. Forget landing on the deck - impossible with any certainty. Retrieval is to the hand so make sure you know how to turn the rotors off as soon as you have hold. If it isnt to gusty and you have a reasonably amount of deck space it works fine - but practice in a very light wind first and work up through the wind strength. Make sure you have plenty of battery for the retrieval and dont be worried about making a few attempts. The very last thing you want is to be under pressure due to a low battery.

I have read some people use a hanging string, grab the string and kill the rotors. I havent tried that technique yet.

The tracking function of a target is very useful.

I suspect it is relatively easy to lose £1K+ worth of kit, but I have avoided it so far!

Well worth fitting some filters as there is a lot of reflected light of course -makes for much better footage.

(Yes, as others have said, you now need to take a test and register to be legal, unless I guess outside the territorial limits).

Thank you for that. I have wondered about the hanging tether thing myself. The only place I could see retrieving a drone on my boat would be amidships which makes for a fairly small target area.

 

[ip485]

Thank you for that. I have wondered about the hanging tether thing myself. The only place I could see retrieving a drone on my boat would be amidships which makes for a fairly small target area.

Thank you.

Well worth a few goes at anchor, or in the marina. I did (well after I learnt the hard way). It will give you the feel. Then motoring in carm conditions. As with most things work up through your amd the drones limits!

Amdidships is a good plan but obvioulsy depending where the shrouds are. Coming over the side essentially you want as much out the way in front and behind the drone simply because it gives you more room for error.

The IP is rather like the yacht in the video with a big rear deck except I have some large solar panels and an arch. Never the less I bring the drone over the windward rear side. The solar panels actually provide an excellent launching pad when not flying from the hand.

In short, whatever you do, have a few goes in light wind, and from a still boat. If that works take gentle steps. When it goes wrong it can go horribly wrong very quickly. I had no one to tell me this the first time which I tried while sailing and for the Grace of God and all the luck in the world got the drone back, but I reckon 9 times out of 10 it would have sunk!

Also set your limits and when you are close work your way up very slowly knowing you are at risk not receovering it. You will get to a point it becomes a bit touch and go and that is probably a good limit to set less maybe 5 knots.

 

[Refueler]

As a Drone Operator ....

For the job OP is talking about - the best way is one of the Phantom Series Quadcopters ..



That's my P3 Pro ..... old version now but fully capable of all needed. It has user settable camera up to 4K resolution ... fully 3 axis gimballed .... camera can be controlled to pitch down / up during flight etc.
Range about 2 miles for full video and control. Flight time up to ~20mins

The Controller gives you complete control on direction / orientation / height ... with a smartphone or tablet mounted to give you full video view from the camera ...
The tablet / phone will have GPS as well as the Drone. This then means that during flight - you can set the drone to follow you or if you move from original take off position - to be able to reset home position to where tablet is.

Take off is preferred to be from level and stable platform - but not essential ... You can hold the drone by the lower legs making sure all clear of the 10" props .... they can inflict serious wounds ...
You hold the Drone ... pilot advances throttle and when helper feels the drone pulling out of hand - releases to let it go ...

Landing - that's a hand grab job - but carefully to get good hold of a leg and not let Drone fall ... it needs to be steady for a few seconds for motors to stop.

This is some of the best footage I've seen by drone ... and what is even more striking is the wind its done in ...

I suggest the Phantom because its much easier to hand catch than a Mavic ... it has the legs under. But it will need Registration and 'Licence' as its well over the 250gr limit.

Here's hand catching :

 

[Laminar Flow]

Thank you.

Well worth a few goes at anchor, or in the marina. I did (well after I learnt the hard way). It will give you the feel. Then motoring in carm conditions. As with most things work up through your amd the drones limits!

Amdidships is a good plan but obvioulsy depending where the shrouds are. Coming over the side essentially you want as much out the way in front and behind the drone simply because it gives you more room for error.

The IP is rather like the yacht in the video with a big rear deck except I have some large solar panels and an arch. Never the less I bring the drone over the windward rear side. The solar panels actually provide an excellent launching pad when not flying from the hand.

In short, whatever you do, have a few goes in light wind, and from a still boat. If that works take gentle steps. When it goes wrong it can go horribly wrong very quickly. I had no one to tell me this the first time which I tried while sailing and for the Grace of God and all the luck in the world got the drone back, but I reckon 9 times out of 10 it would have sunk!

Also set your limits and when you are close work your way up very slowly knowing you are at risk not receovering it. You will get to a point it becomes a bit touch and go and that is probably a good limit to set less maybe 5 knots.

Thanks again, all makes good sense.

 

[Habebty]

Has anyone tried getting pictures of their boat under sail using a drone camera ?

If so how did it work out and do you have any tips ?

i quite enjoyed this but loads on YouTube

 

[NOHOH]

All the extra expense and mucking about with beaurocracy etc etc...is done away with by using the old technology.....and doing
Kite Aerial Photography (just google it) You can make your own kite and hang a Picavet self-levelling camera mount from it (which you can also make yourself) . I`ve had some excellent results using these arrangements

 

[Baroudeur]

I have a Mavic Pro, and use an after market add-on that gives a really easy way to grab it by hand at sea.

Like this.

They exist for most well known brands/models.

Also, the U.K. needs registration of the drone (if over 250g) and operator. It’s a £9 fee iirc, and short test online. That’s for non-commercial operation btw, commercial is significantly more demanding in accordance with the increased potential for serious accidents.

 

[weustace]

I've been thinking about this in the last few months as well. I am quite interested in putting together some sort of landing pad for it, ideally with what the airline types would call 'autoland', as the idea of being mauled by props while some way offshore and potentially single-handed is not at all appealing. The challenge in this is of course to get the positioning accurate enough; my little working group is currently leaning towards a mixture of GPS to get the rough position right and then computer vision onto printed/painted registration markers to do the final bit.

For a long time I was thinking of buying a second hand DJI Phantom 3, since these are both available at a reasonable price and seem very well liked; I am now leaning towards something custom to incorporate the above gizmos, given it seems I may be cooped up here away from the boat for some months! Given I have a very small boat, the Mavic is much more tempting, but the Pro is probably out of budget and the idea of catching without handles gives me serious concern. Manual flying onto some sort of launch/retrieval pad is probably the best compromise, but where's the fun in that...

Friends who have done the drone 'test' (for non-commercial pilots) inform me it is fairly trivial.

P.S. inspiration for this effort comes principally from this chap's videos: Pandorak

 

[lw395]

Aren't photos from drones a bit '2018'?

 

[Laminar Flow]

I've been thinking about this in the last few months as well. I am quite interested in putting together some sort of landing pad for it, ideally with what the airline types would call 'autoland', as the idea of being mauled by props while some way offshore and potentially single-handed is not at all appealing. The challenge in this is of course to get the positioning accurate enough; my little working group is currently leaning towards a mixture of GPS to get the rough position right and then computer vision onto printed/painted registration markers to do the final bit.

For a long time I was thinking of buying a second hand DJI Phantom 3, since these are both available at a reasonable price and seem very well liked; I am now leaning towards something custom to incorporate the above gizmos, given it seems I may be cooped up here away from the boat for some months! Given I have a very small boat, the Mavic is much more tempting, but the Pro is probably out of budget and the idea of catching without handles gives me serious concern. Manual flying onto some sort of launch/retrieval pad is probably the best compromise, but where's the fun in that...

Friends who have done the drone 'test' (for non-commercial pilots) inform me it is fairly trivial.

P.S. inspiration for this effort comes principally from this chap's videos: Pandorak

Interesting post. Agree, retrieval is the biggest problem . The posts by Pandorak are quite spectacular. He also showed how he made a handle stick to safely retrieve his Mavic. Our problem is that on our ketch the rigging represents a veritable maze of obstacles and this precludes any similarity to land-based operations including the use of landing pads.
The rather draconian restrictions in my home country and the necessity to travel, and not wishing to deal with other foreign bureaucracies, pretty much restricts me to drones under 250g.
In this class, flight times, speed to overcome wind and stability in rough conditions might be a problem. The Mavic mini seems somewhat promising in this respect, but speed is not its major forte. Another concern I have is that various accessories to make retrieval easier/safer, such as floats will further reduce speed and potentially, agility.

 

[Baroudeur]

Aren't photos from drones a bit '2018'?

Isn’t that a bit like saying photographs are a bit 1826?

honestly, to me it’s just another tool, and you get results based on a combination of imagination and skill. Drones have their place...