Meet Candice a professional photographer who’s been flying “Dirty Bird” (her Mavic Air 2) for the last year and a half.
She lives in a van (she’s built herself), is an adventure tour guide and a general badass (who’s been on my Everyday Badassery podcast – you can find her episode here)
Her drone not only sliced her hand, but her face while she was in the middle of a lake in a floating (drink) cooler. Let’s just say it’s one heck of a story with a lot of learnings that came from it.
Key Learnings
- Understanding your key safety settings can help to reduce your anxiety while flying because your drone can help you to stay safe (and not crash) or help you to not accidentally do something illegal (like fly too far)
- There are 3 options for setting your home point and depending on the type of flight you’re having. These include: setting the home point as the controller, the drone or as ANY point on the map (where you drop a pin). For example, if you’re flying from a moving boat or kayak, it might make sense to set your home point as a nearby dock or clear area on land
- Launching a drone from a cliff or mountain and flying down will make your drone “seem like it’s flying in a negative height”. In other words, from wherever you LAUNCH your drone, this is calculated as ground zero (even if you are at the top of a mountain). If you fly your drone down, it will show as a negative number (and may be a challenge to figure out where the drone is in relation to the actual ground). Visual line of sight is key.
- If you’re flying from a boat, or in Candice’s case – a floating drink cooler, land with signifcantly more battery than you think you need. In her case, the gusting wind was making her drone work harder and the battery was jumping from 30% to 18%
- One thing to consider when flying from a boat, get your furthest shots FIRST, then bring it back with plenty of battery (around 40%) and get all your shots that are near you so you can start to gauge how much time you’ll need (and how much battery to leave in the tank) before you land your drone
- If it’s possible, always catch your drone OVER your head (not at eye level unless you want to shave your eyebrows) and down wind so it doesn’t push into your on accident
- Calibrate your drone especially if you’ve been on an airplane or other bumpy travel
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About The Drone Party Podcast
Drones are FUN and everyone is invited to join The Drone Party!
A weekly video show by Christine Lozada interviewing drone pilots about HELPFUL drone tips and their BEST and WORST drone flights.