Big Country Expat is experimenting with a couple of low-cost entry-level quadcopter drones. He suggests it's a good idea for everyone to get to know at least the basics of how to operate them.
The Scout is a good practice drone, and small enough to get in and around the interior of the house (or any house for that matter) for recon pretty well.
The problem is that it’s so lightweight, ANY and ALL breezes affect its flight. One time I was working on going room-to-room in the house, and the Central Air Conditioning kicked on, and the bird ‘lurched’ across the room in the draft of the AC blowing out of the vent.
So I’m not sure of the utility of it outside in real crosswinds.
This is a standard problem for the cheap ‘practice’ drones if you will. No real weight. One of my early $30 Amazon Chinesium drones I actually lost when practicing outside with the Redhead Nukular Gran. If you recall while I was flying it, I had a BIG gust of wind show up unexpectedly, and grab it, and last I saw of it, it was headed due south towards the Publix a quarter mile away…
Never did find out what happened to that ‘un LOL.
It literally faded to a teeny-tiny dot and then >poof<
So tonight, I tried to to fly this new quad inside BUT had a minor issue. Or maybe not minor per se…
The doggos.
Chili AND Stella both seem to think that the quadcopter is something they need to ‘fetch’ out of the air… I tried to get them to leave it alone, but nope. They weren’t listening at all. In fact Stella got too close while lunging at it, and the rotor blade caught her on the nose. She yelped pretty loudly as it must have hurt, but did that stop her?
She’s a ****ing rockheaded Pittie…
What do you think?
Riiiiiiiight.
Now it’s a challenge apparently.
Must. Snatch. The. Flying. Thing.
So this means in the future, I’ll have to either practice in the bedroom for the initial ‘tuning’ of it and getting a feel for the flight characteristics, or take it down to the park at the elementary school we used to take the Grans to after school or on a Saturday and give it a try there.
When I say ‘tuning’ I mean that the controls and servos need to be dialed in for accuracy, otherwise it might have drift already in the settings, and I need to make sure that it does a steady hover, and do some other things, to include getting the 4k Cameras ‘dialed in’ as well.
Seeing that drones are the future and at least trying to learn how to use them is a good and necessary thing. Better to learn on the short $$$ models than to spend a grand on a nice DJI Drone like the Ivans and Krainians use and have that get wrecked?
I’d rather burn through a half a dozen ‘practice drones’ learning how to ‘fly’ a drone rather than buying a $$$$$Mondo-Expensivo$$$$$ one and wasting/crashing/destroying it by accident.
There's more at the link, including pictures.
I think he makes a very good point. While cheap entry-level quadcopters are still freely available, I think it's an excellent idea to learn to use them. They may not be Predator- or Reaper-class weaponized drones, but one can use them to fly around one's property, or up and down the street, and see what's going on in the neighborhood. If there are reports of rioting or unrest nearby, one can keep an eye on the situation, and if one sees "undesirables" heading in one's direction, one can be proactive in responding to them, either by "getting out of Dodge" before they arrive, or getting together with neighbors to greet them, in full readiness to protect one's loved ones and property, when they arrive.
I think I have a new project for the next few weeks . . . Finding a low-cost drone that can cope with North Texas winds might be a challenge, but I'll do my best. If anyone sees a drone heading for the wild blue yonder, coming from my general direction, let me know, will you, please?
Peter
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