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Finally saying "hello"..

Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Messages
32
Reaction score
3
Age
64
Location
Westchester County, NY.
Hey All..

100% new beginning drone pilot and Inspire 1 (v2) owner..

Yup, dove right in and bought the I1 after experiencing a 1st flight fly away of my Hubsan X4 straight up and out, lost forever..and that was it..I made the decision right then..I'm getting an Inspire!..lol

I've always loved flying..My father was a professional pilot all his life, including some crop dusting and a stint in the USAF flying left seat in B-17's and even some time in the 29's..He retired at 63 flying Jetstars for Readers Digest out of Westchester, NY..I started learning myself at 15, taught by my father in my cousins Cessna 172..I accrued about 30 hrs flight time until my father pulled the plug..It took me many years to find out why and he finally revealed.."your sense of direction was not good"...WTF? isn't that genetic?..lol
Anyway, at 56 I'm flying again, still with the same innate sense of direction but with much better flight information to bolster my lack of whats up and whats down.. : )

I've been searching for newbie questions and finding most of the answers..Off the top of my head, I guess I'm still not sure about the proper RTH/ failsafe altitude, thinking its prolly best just to set it at 400 ft (120m) and leave it..Its always better going up so why try and guess the height of everything around you..I'm also disappointed with the gimbal, trying to get used to not being able to manipulate it smoothly..I'm a photographer as hobby with a really loaded Canon 7d setup, so somewhat spoiled I must say..I'm already thinking I'll have to go X5 in the future.. but with the gimbal, It seems the best flow will be achieved with a 2nd remote and a humanoid to go with it..I still haven't figured out the difference between "follow" and "FPV"...lol

I have on order a Marco Polo tracker, a filter kit from Polar, an ipad hood from Hoodivisions, and yesterday bought Autopilot Logic as a rainy day read and hopefully a good program..once I can fly this thing manually!

Anyway, looking forward to being a part of this forum and the community..It seems like a really great global bunch of guys (any hopefully gals?)

Thanks!

Mike..
 
Mike, It seems like you have made an excellent purchase! we here at EZDrone have had plenty of hours on that machine and love it. Prior to the I1 we had and s1000 and s900 that we used very consistently to get our GH4's in the air. They both required two pilots at all times and tons of equipment, the batteries alone could have bought two inspires! haha. Being a photographer, the capabilities of the I1 camera may not seem to drop your jaw but for its size and form factor you can still achieve beautiful production value. The X5 on the other hand is a market first and is very impressive. One of the things, as you pointed out, that will make a major difference is a second operator. Unfortunately manipulating a gimbal with extra digits is never ideal, although you can adjust the gimbal speed to help slow/smooth thing out. FPV Locks the camera forward, while Follow keeps the camera forward while cushioning its movements to smooth it out.

Glad to see you join up,

If you have questions or are looking for part/upgrades feel free to reach out at [email protected] or 858-751-4644
 
Hey All..

100% new beginning drone pilot and Inspire 1 (v2) owner..

Yup, dove right in and bought the I1 after experiencing a 1st flight fly away of my Hubsan X4 straight up and out, lost forever..and that was it..I made the decision right then..I'm getting an Inspire!..lol

I've always loved flying..My father was a professional pilot all his life, including some crop dusting and a stint in the USAF flying left seat in B-17's and even some time in the 29's..He retired at 63 flying Jetstars for Readers Digest out of Westchester, NY..I started learning myself at 15, taught by my father in my cousins Cessna 172..I accrued about 30 hrs flight time until my father pulled the plug..It took me many years to find out why and he finally revealed.."your sense of direction was not good"...WTF? isn't that genetic?..lol
Anyway, at 56 I'm flying again, still with the same innate sense of direction but with much better flight information to bolster my lack of whats up and whats down.. : )

I've been searching for newbie questions and finding most of the answers..Off the top of my head, I guess I'm still not sure about the proper RTH/ failsafe altitude, thinking its prolly best just to set it at 400 ft (120m) and leave it..Its always better going up so why try and guess the height of everything around you..I'm also disappointed with the gimbal, trying to get used to not being able to manipulate it smoothly..I'm a photographer as hobby with a really loaded Canon 7d setup, so somewhat spoiled I must say..I'm already thinking I'll have to go X5 in the future.. but with the gimbal, It seems the best flow will be achieved with a 2nd remote and a humanoid to go with it..I still haven't figured out the difference between "follow" and "FPV"...lol

I have on order a Marco Polo tracker, a filter kit from Polar, an ipad hood from Hoodivisions, and yesterday bought Autopilot Logic as a rainy day read and hopefully a good program..once I can fly this thing manually!

Anyway, looking forward to being a part of this forum and the community..It seems like a really great global bunch of guys (any hopefully gals?)

Thanks!

Mike..
Welcome to Inspire Pilots :)
 
Welcome to the group!

I noticed others answered some questions for you already. No one covered the RTH altitude yet. Probably because it's an opinion based answer, so I'll give you my opinion..... You're probably safe at 400 feet, but it's not the best in all situations. Let's say your craft is far away (but still in VLS) and downwind at 100ft with 35% battery. Then you lose communication. The craft then has to ascend 300ft and fly with a headwind back to home. Hopefully there will be enough battery!

What I do is when I get on the scene is ascend while watching the treetops. When I feel the craft is level with the highest object in the area I reference my altitude. Let's say it's 85ft. I then add 50+ feet = 135ft. I round up to an even 150ft and make that my RTH altitude. I do this everywhere I fly and develop a 6th sense of the geo location I'm in. It will be different from state to state. Also in some places you might need to find the altitude of the highest mountain, or antenna tower.

That's my 2 cents for you!

Again welcome to the group.
 
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Hi there SuperCaliber .. had a chuckle reading your post, 'bad sense of direction'. I'm located on Long Island not too far for a possible meetup and fly. There's lots of beautiful scenery just a few clicks north and west of you. Get yourself some parabolic reflectors as the distances can become large.

Enjoy
 
Thanks to all..I can't stress enough how this new hobby has revived my spirit!..Hey Steelkite, I make several trips to Southampton and Sag Harbor in the summer for work..a meetup would be great..
 
Yeah, Sag Harbor has had some big crash and burn drone incidents.
If you're flying there, cross your t's and dot your i's
 

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