Drones that fly 2.5+ hours.

Hybrid Power Could Let Drones Fly for Hours

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/drones/a14804/top-flight-hybrid-drones/

Introducing Top Flight Technologies and the Hybrid Propulsion Engine(TM)

There was a guy on the Phantom 3 forum who was circling around a church steeple when he got the steeple between him and the Phantom. Because the Phantom figured it had lost signal, it went into 'Return To Home' mode, and quietly flew directly towards the steeple.

Yep, smack right into it, fell out of the sky for a few seconds, but fortunately must have tumbled around to the other side of the steeple. So it recovered, regained altitude and flew back to its owner with barely a scratch on it.

Now that what I call good programming.

The guy was too embarrassed to admit he was flying with the machine well out of visual range, over buildings and people, etc.

I am now busy talking myself into buying one :-)

Ha that's a good one GeeBax.

I have recently decided to switched off the Return to Home function, and only enable the landing function if the power somehow gets dangerously low.

I dont want the Hexacopter to do crazy stuff by itself.

When Return to Home function is enabled the craft shoots 20 meters high first, then returs to home (to able to fly over trees etc).
This means that wherever it is, even near you it just blindly shoots up (hitting anything on its way). This happens when the signal is lost, for example if you accidently turn off your transmitter. Or hit the fail safe button without knowing, which happened to me once.

Remember the system is unable to see anything near it. There is no Collision Avoidance System.

I want to be in control of the craft, so the auto landing option is all I am permitiing it to do.

I never fly the craft out of sight, even avoid flying above trees etc.
There is also a way to override the auto landing mode when required.

I have two systems constantly transmitting the voltage of the Lipo batteries, which includes an alarm that goes off when the voltage drops below the given level.

Like this I can fly it back on time.

DJI has recently brought out a collision avoidance system.
I am looking forward to applying a similar system on my hexa.

DJI M100 with Collision Avoidance System




VMP

'North Dakota cops will be first in nation to use weaponized drones'
http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/27/north-dakota-cops-will-be-first-in-nation-to-use-weaponized-dron/

"There was a guy on the Phantom 3 forum who was circling around a church steeple"

The Phantom's software lets you set the default altitude of the RTH flight path for such an occasion. But if you are already at an altitude higher than the default, it will stay at its current height and return home.

Drones ... when things don't go quite to plan:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-27/lucky-no-injuries-in-mcg-drone-crash-at-cricket-world-cup-atsb/6730940

At least no-one was injured.

In the story, MCG is the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a large sports stadium that can seat nearly 100,000 people.

The Rod Laver Arena is where the Australian Open tennis championship is held each January.

It may seem odd, but often those larger UAVs may not necessarily have the degree of sophistication of some of the smaller aircraft. DJI appear, from my research, to have more sophisticated control software than many other makers, combined with specific hardware to improve the safety of their aircraft.

It is also not the first time a UAV has been lost shooting material for the cricket. About a year ago they were shooting a segment with Mark Taylor aboard his fishing boat in Sydney harbour when the UAV they were using to shoot aerial material, simply dropped into the harbour and sank.

I have been trying hard not to talk myself into buying a Phantom 3 Pro, but I now acknowledge that I have failed....

'54-propeller superdrone lifts off with a person inside'
http://www.cnet.com/news/swarm-manned-superdrone-lifts-off-with-a-person-inside/

I have seen the beginning stage of this thing, now it really flies.




VMP

DJI - Introducing the DJI Zenmuse X5 Series

Very impressive, I subscribe so I got that information this morning. However the whole thing is out of my price range, the Phantom 3 Pro will do me.

Did you guys shoot any new aerial footage?
I shot this yesterday for my upcoming movie: https://www.facebook.com/thevmovie





This is just a compilation for the fans.
It is a part of a chase scene.


VMP

now arming them:

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/drones-that-shoot-tasers-now-legal-for-police-use-in-north-dakota/19524-drones-that-shoot-tasers-now-legal-for-police-use-in-north-dakota

Interesting piece, the image shows a military drone which would be totally unsuited to the task they are describing. And the key part of the article is the 'need' of military drone manufacturers to expand their market into civilian areas.

As they say: 'Only in America'.

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a DJI Phantom 3 Pro, so now I an bothering the postman every day waiting for it to arrive.

In the meantime, I happened across this clip ]

I get the impression that this guy is having his first flight with a Phantom, and has chosen to take off from a narrow balcony outside his apartment. Then you realise he is like 20 floors from the ground in New York City. You just know it is not going to end well.

I'm coming to the conclusion that a fair number of vids on youtube (of all types) purporting to show reality are totally contrived.

--tom

I'm not sure what to make of this video. It appears to be "real", in that it shows a person flying the Quad that doesn't have a clue what he's doing. But the repeated building strikes that have little effect on its ability to remain in the air, seem unlikely. From the red light shining on the balcony floor at 1:17 you can see the P3 has not yet achieved GPS signal lock so it has no way of knowing where "Home" is; making a controlled retrieval of the Phantom next to impossible.

+1 Gary. If the Phantom 3 video quality is this bad and the ability to survive solid object strikes is this good I'm very confused. I didn't detect the red light at 1:17 but there is no way the phantom moves this fast or is this tough. I'm more than a casual user of a Phantom II and to me, while this has may have been shot with multiple crashed platforms, it's not a one-take video. At the very least it is a severely compressed and highly edited video with no sense of responsibility. And the author is an idiot, IMHO. This only contributes to the publics paranoia about "drones".

If it is a P3, I'm still looking for the microphone to record sound on mine.

--tom

" I didn't detect the red light at 1:17"

It isn't so much as a direct red light. If you look at the bottom of the frame you'll see a red reddish glow from the P3's LED's glowing bright red - indicating a GPS signal lock error.

Damn! Watching that video had me swaying in my seat trying to steer that bird myself! He is totally out of control..... I too am amazed about the number of strikes and still remaining in the air. I can only guess he has prop guards on.

From his extremely small launch pad and lack of any flying skills, I hate to think how he is going to land it - probably on someones head 200ft below....

I think it is not a P3, it was taken some years ago and is using a GoPro camera, the P3 camera does not record sound. And as pilsburypie says, he most likely has prop guards on.

The poor quality may have been because the video is recorded from the FPV feed, and he may not have got it back at all, or it is simply crappy Youtube compression.

http://www.topgear.com/car-news/video/video-terrifying-footage-chinese-traffic-jam-haunts-our-dreams