The First “Drone”
This whole thing got started when my wife commented on a story about “Drone Races” in the Georgia Dome on the news in Atlanta. I was shocked when she said ” I bet you would love that! Do you want one of those things for Christmas?” That was all I needed, a seed had been planted, and I started looking into the hobby.
We had been planning on going camping at our favorite park in South Carolina, Hunting Island State Park. I then checked into getting a drone with a camera to take with us so I could get some cool video on the beach etc. I jumped on a Christmas deal that Verizon had on an AR.Drone 2 from Parrot and I could get it just in time for the trip to the beach, the week of Christmas 2015. I picked the Ar.Drone because it had been around for a while, had parts available, had a SDK for programming, I didn’t have to buy a radio, and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Well, the first time it took off, my eyes were as big as pie plates! I loved it and I was hooked. I took it up, practiced landing, let my daughter take a shot, and then about 10 minutes into my afternoon of fun, the battery was dead, I wished I had ordered a second battery.
After a 2 hour charge… I decided to fly again and get a little more practice. Boy I wish I had a second battery! Well, I never did get any beach video, controlling the AR.Drone is a little tricky with a breeze. So we ended the trip with about 20 mins worth of video of the bath house, the camper and an open camp site…. need to get another battery or two and get a little better control.
Well I bought 2 more batteries, 15 minutes of flight time each, which combined with the stock 12 minute battery I could get a lot more flight time in and hopefully get good at this new hobby. I then tried another app than the one that is from Parrot, It had some cool moves that I could do with the AR….. including me turning it on a dime and meeting the ground fast and hard! So I had to buy new props, central cross, shafts, gears, bearings and a toolkit! Remember my comment about being able to repair this baby?
I loved the AR.Drone 2.0, I did however have a little experience with typical 2 stick rc air craft and was having a little trouble dealing with the tilt and touch on my tablet, and phone so I went in search of a more traditional 2 stick control and found that one of the apps that I had purchased would allow me to use a game controller and OTG cable to fly the AR with; I was a happy camper! Soon started to really enjoy flying… except for the short range and out of control fly aways! Then range, stability, and control issues coupled with the less than pleasing video system I soon found my heart wanting a “real” Drone…
The “Real Drone”
Well as luck would have it DJI was getting ready to release the Phantom 4 and in preparation they dropped the price on the Phantom 3 Advanced and Phantom 3 Pro as well as releasing a new Phantom 3 4K. So naturally I had to Jump at the chance! I chose the advanced because I have no equipment, be it software or hardware that I could do anything with 4K resolution. Youtube and real 4K? So I bought mine directly from DJI and had to pay a foreign exchange fee, but no sales tax , but Amazon is the ticket! The first weekend after the arrival of my favorite new toy, day one I spent the day charging the battery, and Controller and updating everything! The next day it was windy but my sidekick, Emily, and I were itching to try this baby out! Boy was it windy… we did it any how! Check out this video! After that first day I knew that 20 minutes of flight wasn’t going to cut it! I jumped onto Amazon and ordered an additional battery, they are cheaper now, maybe I should get a 3rd batt while cheaper. At first my cellphone, Droid Turbo, did the job but I wanted a larger screen so grabbed my LG 8.3 tablet, soon got tired of the video stuttering it worked OK with an antiglare screen protector but still wasn’t happy and I had read that the Nvidia Shield K1 tablet was the ticket! Not being an Apple fan, except to eat, I jumped on the K1 and an antiglare screen protector and couldn’t be happier.
I use both the DJI Go app and Litchi, still getting comfortable with the whole rig. Having fun, hope to do some videos, and reviews etc of all of the software and hardware that I use.