Covid Respite #12, Part 2 - Learning to Fly

I got a new camera for Christmas.  But not the latest DSLR or mirrorless camera.  This one was attached to a drone.

It was a gift from our younger son and his wife.  He has been flying drones since he built his first one from scratch and outfitted it with a GoPro camera over a decade ago.  They were called "quadcopters" back then.

I have always enjoyed the views he got from above, and the visual excitement of flying, but I was never brave enough to consider learning to fly one myself:  too many flight variables to control -- up, down, forward, backward, rotate -- and too many opportunities for crashing.  And then there's the adage about teaching old dogs new tricks.

But when this drone fell into my lap, I had no choice but to step out of my comfort zone and give it a try.

Fortunately, because technology has progressed in the past ten years, this drone includes safety features that earlier models (like the homemade ones) did not have that make it possible for idiots like me to fly relatively safely.

For example, when you stop toggling the control joysticks, the drone will simply hover.  And if you lose track of the drone, the control screen has a map with an arrow and a direct line back to home base for you to follow; it also has a "return to home" button that will automatically fly the drone back to its starting point.  Whew!  Thank goodness for GPS!

Also fortunately, there's an enormous open space just yards away from my house, with no power lines, fences, or vegetation taller than about four feet.  So I can practice flying with plenty of margin for error.

Here's an 86-second practice flight:

In early January, with a grand total of four 15-minute practice sessions under my belt, I decided to bring the drone on my trip to the Lybrook Badlands with my friend, Alan (see previous post).

The flying was a bit ragged -- not always smooth -- and it was scary as heck to fly the drone out of my sight around the giant hills.  But I never crashed it, and I learned a few things about what makes for good flying footage.

So now that you've made it this far in this post, here's your reward:  a 5-minute compilation of flights over a small portion of the Lybrook Badlands.  Notwithstanding the ragged flying, it will give you a sense of the enormous size of the area and its features in a way that still photos from ground level just can't convey.

Enjoy!