Piloting experiments

Objective: To learn how to fly a drone and then capture footage of a building.

Using a drone to capture aerial footage is a great technique to capture the best possible reference without having to use a plane or helicopter. Using a drone can provide you with reference which would have to of been a figment of the imagination otherwise.

So I decided to began by watching many online lessons which show me how to fly my model of drone and all the essential things that I need to know.  Here is a few of the tutorials I watched to help me with getting a better understanding of the functions of the drone:

In this video all the basic of the drone are explained such as what is in the box and what they are for. It was vital that I got an understanding of all the components of the drone to ensure that I was able to fly it without any severe accidents or having the drone fall apart in mid air.

In this video it explains all of the basic functions of the drone such as the various flight modes which will be important for me to understand to allow me to capture the best possible shots. There is a ariel photography mode which is perfect for what I intend to do.

After I got an understanding of how the drone works and how the components all work in relativity. I then decided to take the drone out for a test flight.  I took the drone to an open area in my local park to lower the chance of me crashing it. I was quickly able to see how fast it gains altitude, how it responds to inputs and most importantly how it reacts to gusts of wind.

It was important to understand how the drone reacts to sudden gusts of wind due to me eventually flying it in a much more built up area to capture my required footage. Not understanding how the drone would react could be very disastrous if it was to catch me of guard and lead to the drone possible breaking, causes property damage or even worse a person damage.

Once I had some experience piloting the drone I then decided to then take the chance of getting up close to my building and film the roof which is not possible to get to by foot. I needed to get as close as possible to the building to capture as much detail as possible.

 

Critical Review

I was able to learn everything there to know about the drone to allow me to fly a drone successfully. There was a lot of functions to learn about the drone which was a very tedious task to undertake as there was so much to learn. I had to watch many video explaining what functions do what to ensure that I understood everything there was to know about the drone before I piloted it.

I was able to pilot the drone in very close proximity to a building which I decided to use and example to film. I was able to get some close up footage of the room which would provide clear and accurate reference to work with. Understanding how to get close to the building without smashing the drone into the side of it was a matter of understanding the functions.

The function called ‘SAFE’ mode was the best function to use as it did not fly too fast and always used GPS to hold its position. Using another function would of disabled GPS which would of meant that the drone could of got carried away with wind and probably crashed.

I managed to meet my objective which enabled me to have a successful flight and capture good reference video. This is a technique which I could now use in future projects to capture ariel footage of an area which could then be used as reference. Using this method would enable to me to have accurate reference which would then enable me to create work which is more accurate and therefore realistic.