Following on from my other piece about choosing our drone, here’s a more technical look into the finer details of using the drone day-to-day.
Casual readers will find this monolithically uninteresting!
Transport
One of the things we worried about before purchasing Brian (our drone) was where we were going to keep him in the car. There’s only just enough room for all the essentials, so finding a home for an extra big box was going to be an issue. As things turned out, by some massive fluke, Brian’s box fits perfectly in one of spaces I’d made under the bed platform for our water containers. So Brian lives under the bed and the (as-yet-unused) water container has been relegated to the roof rack.
Our fire pit then lives between Brian and the door which keeps everything snug and means Brian’s box can’t be seen through the windows.
When I pack Brian away I always fit the transportation brackets to stop the gimbal from flapping around. So far, after 3 months of driving through very rough terrain, no problems.
Operation
When flying Brian I try to stick to a few rules of thumb:
- Keep him in sight at all times
- Don’t fly anywhere near overhead wires
- Make sure there aren’t any people or houses to crash into
- Always calibrate the compass when flying in a new location
More recently I’m occasionally failing on the first rule but as I’m mostly filming in remote, uninhabited locations I figure the only risk is losing the drone into a mountain rather than damaging a human being.
The second and third rule mean that I don’t have any footage of the cities we’ve visited, which is a big shame. Now, after 70-odd flights, I have every confidence that Brian would behave, but the risk that something could go wrong still feels too great to me to warrant flying over cities.
My preflight setup goes something like this:
- Move at least 10m away from the car (when I didn’t do this I got a few compass errors during flight, which on one occasion nearly resulted in Brian’s demise)
- Set Brian down on a level surface. I use the box when the ground is gravelly
- Attach the props and finger tighten them
- Switch on the controller
- Switch on Brian
- Wait for Brian’s LEDs to slowly pulse green
- Start the app on my phone
- Connect the phone to the controller
- Calibrate Brian’s compass
- Take a deep breath
- Take off
As you can imagine that’s quite a faff, so mostly I end up flying Brian when we’re stopped for lunch or at our campsite. Getting shots of us driving through the landscape takes a bit more organisation and patience.
Recently, now that the weather is getting a little colder, I’ve been having a few problems with battery temperature. With the outside temperature getting down to 1, 2, 3ºC the system is generating a warning and the motors refuse to start. The solution is going to be better planning: if I want to film in the morning then the battery will have to snuggle up with me in my sleeping bag. During the daytime we’ll keep the battery up front near the heater!
Customs
So far, the only real issue we’ve had at borders with Brian was our initial entry, by sea, into Russia at Vladivostok. A few days before departure the company handling our car’s customs clearance on the Japan side said they wouldn’t permit export of the drone without various bits of paperwork provided by the place of purchase. As we had left Tokyo by this point we were in a major panic as we had no way to obtain said paperwork. In the end we were able to establish that we could carry Brian as hand luggage and side-step the whole export issue.
The next big problem will be Uzbekistan, who have banned both ownership and the use of drones. We’re still deciding what the best tactic will be at the border:
- Leave Brian in his box in his normal spot and hope for the best
- As above but obscure the box as best we can
- Hide all the parts separately about the car
And if the worst comes to the worst we’re hopeful a small ‘fine’ will ensure Brian’s safe passage!