As I may have blathered on about in the comments, I recently bought a drone. I specifically got a supposedly beginner friendly device under the 250 gram threshold for FAA registration. I also did a lot of reading on rules and regulations. I’ve spent more time reading and researching than flying so far.
So, my early impressions – trying to find a place to fly is insane.
What were the hoops I had to keep in mind?
First, that weight threshold. If the drone is too heavy, it has to be registered with the FAA and have a RemoteID module to announce its identity to all and sundry. I didn’t want to do that if it turned out I disliked drone flying, so I picked a light device that didn’t need registration.
Second, even with a drone that doesn’t need registration you are required to take the recreational drone pilot’s exam. This exam is not given by the FAA, but instead by a number of other organizations approved to do so by the FAA. That sounds scarier than it is. It’s an online test simpler than common sense, but I guess there are people who can fail it. The best news is that neither the FAA nor the organization who administered it can reprint the certificate, which implies that there’s not a whole lot of record keeping going on. Anyway I’m now a certified recreational drone pilot.
Third you’re obligated to follow the safety rules of a “Community Based Organization”. The place I took the test from also counted as a CBO. I read their safety rules and they’re as basic as can be – keep away from people and obstacles, keep track of your darn drone, stuff like that. If you have a modicum of sense, you can probably already figure out all of them without really enumerating them. But common sense isn’t common.
All right, I now need to find some place to fly.
FAA says – stay away from airports, stay under 400 feet, stay away from prisons, military installations, and events where we say no fly like presidential visits and sporting events. Okay, the FAA limits all make sense. I would like to fly over the park where there’s plenty of open space and nice views and… wait a minute.
National Parks Service says – No Flying in National Parks.
New York State Says – No Flying in State Parks.
New York DEC says – No flying in wilderness areas.
Ironically, the one place I can fly is over my neighbors’ homes, just so long as I don’t peep on them naked. That’s a felony. But I don’t want to see them naked. I barely tolerate them when they’re fully clothed. I don’t want to fly around people, I want scenic vistas. Unfortunately, New York slaps a state park designation on practically anything. Same with Vermont, who has the additional restriction that you have to be more than 98 feet above private property.
So, I pick Round Lake. Round Lake is a large pond just off NY-9 with a village named after it. It has the advantage of having a boat launch and a parking lot just off of Route 9 so I can get there easily. Plus the body of water means there’s fewer power lines to get tangled in. I get out there, and the drone wants me to do some calibrations of some magnetic sensor. The problem is that calibration involves holding the drone a yard off the ground and rotating it 2-3 times, then pointing it vertically and repeating the action. The prompt that you finished each step appears on the screen of the controller, which means you need at least three hands to do this step. I just wanted to spin up the motors to see how loud it was, and I kept failing this calibration to the point of frustration.
Finally I got the drone ready to fly and started the motors. It made, well, it made a droning noise. I told it to take off…
And promptly flew into a fence.
The downside of weighing less than half a pound is that errant breezes can push the drone around easily. I had not given myself enough space from the fence to ensure that a bit of breeze wouldn’t throw my drone into it.
Don’t worry, the wrought iron wasn’t hurt. The drone picked up a few scratches in the plastic, but was otherwise fine. I tried again and found out my other mistake in picking this spot. The boat launch was on the western shore. It was morning, and a bright sunny day. I couldn’t fly towards the water, since trying to keep track of the drone meant staring into the sun. So I decided to do a simpler test. My back to the sun, I lifted off to about 40 feet, then rotated in place, trying to take a video from on high. I did this twice, before deciding I was a bother to the other people making use of the area for its intended purpose. I packed up and went to look at my video.
There was no video.
The MicroSD card was formatted exFAT. The drone wanted FAT32 only. Windows did not want to format anything FAT32, but Linux had no such limitation. MicroSD card reformatted, I went to a different spot – Overlook Park, which is a promontory overlooking Cohoes Falls on the Mohawk River. I figured I would get some nice views from the same test of a drone at altitude. I sent it up higher than previously and did a few turns about. Since there were other people around again, I brought the drone in for landing, packed up, and went back to check out my video again.
That’s not a mistake in the article. I didn’t take a video – I took a picture. The instructions said that button was the video button.
::Sigh::
I’m going to go mad at this rate. I suspect the instructions swapped the buttons which control the still and motion picture commands. I’ll get a darn video one of these tries.
For the record, I downsized the image to 1/8th the resolution the drone camera took the picture at. 8,000 x 6,000 pixels is a bit big for a web article. There was a second image for when I thought I was stopping the video, but there were people in the frame that I do not know, so I am not going to share their likenesses.
I had a theory that of the button marked “Video” took pictures, the button marked “Picture” might take video. I just needed a spot where I wouldn’t be bothering people. My second fallback spot was a bit of a wildcard. Further along the Mohawk, the Town of Waterford does not have ordinances saying you can’t fly drones in their town parks. Their park is along the river in between two state parks. So I could fly in the Waterford Park so long as I didn’t accidentally cross the invisible line separating it from the State Parks. I found a flat piece of pavement and tried again.
My surmise was correct. I can’t seem to get Rumble videos to embed in WordPress, so the link to the unlisted video is:
https://rumble.com/v7bx6vk-drone-video.html
Now, I know it’s not terribly exciting, but I was proving that I could take video from the drone before I tried any of the other functions this thing had. I figured I’d share my progress here.
Anyone else done any drone flying?
In addition to wondering who else has drone flying experience – where should I try to get video of between here and Minnesota?
I have not flown any drones. I do intend to put a GoPro on one of the big kites someday.
I got fed up with GoPro because they were too enamored of their phone app and cloud services rather than the off-grid operation which they’re supposed to be good for.
There are many off-brand. I will most likely do that. I don’t want to lose much money of I catch a bad breeze and plummet.
Everyone and anyone is going subscription service. I saw a dog cam I wanted to buy that was dirt cheap. They discount the initial buy and then strip out the advertised features unless you want to subscribe.
Corporate America has become a giant scam that puts the Indian call centers to shame.
Boo Fucking Hoo, I didn’t do due diligence and got ripped off, Go cry your Firster tears where people doesn’t understand free markets.
I actually did do the research. Hence why I didn’t buy it.
Corporate America has become a giant scam that puts the Indian call centers to shame.
I’m allergic to subscriptions. Sometimes it’s expensive to avoid them, but it’s always worth it. Screw the companies trying to force everything to a subscription. I don’t need your crap anyway.
My daughter bought a drone with her own money (my money, really). She has some good shots of Minnesota. We never bothered wih a silly license.
“I’d like to buy a fish license.” “For my pet drone “Eric”, please.”
I think some years back my BIL gave us what was really just a toy drone – certainly not equipped with a camera – whose primary purpose seemed to be flying indoors in order to terrorize our cats. I don’t recall that we ever managed to fly it for more than a couple of seconds before crashing, and I suspect it’s long gone by now.
This drone has a a bunch of autostabilization tech built in to help keep it flying, and it tries to stay in one spot of you just let the control joysticks go to neutral.
I expect the older, less expensive model you had didn’t have as many assitance technologies built in.
*less expensive
To elaborate, mine is not a high-end model, but it was still $400, so I’m guessing it had a higher price tag than what you described.
My friends had some small “indoor” drones. We used them to terrify the humans in the house instead of the animals.
My fil had one like that. I got it to fly about 10 seconds. It was tough without any auto stabilization but fun to try.
I had an RC airplane I flew two or three times in jr high.
We can First if we want to. We can leave our worries behind. Because if your friends don’t First and if they don’t First, well…
THEY’RE NO FRIENDS OF MINE.
I’ve been called a bigot 8 times today. One of them was a “super bigot.”
Update us when you have reached Ultra Bigot.
Men without Hats.
I always liked the girl in that video.
I found a drone in my backyard last week after a thunderstorm. It was underneath a large maple tree and the impact with the ground dislodged the battery. I picked it up and noticed it had an SD card. I own a dash cam so I have an SD card reader. I found one video on the SD card from August 9,2022. I showed a kid who looked about 13 with the remote. Once the drone got airborne I recognized the house where it took off from, it was up the street and around the corner from me. I knocked on the door and an older man answered. I held up the drone and asked if they were missing a drone. He looked at me funny and told me no, he didn’t know anything about any drones. I told him about the video on the SD card and how it showed the drone lifting off from his side yard. His wife overheard our conversation and came to the door and cleared things up. It seems she had bought her grandson a drone for his b-day in August 2022 and on its maiden flight he flew it out of sight where it had lodged itself in my tree until the storm blew it down. She told me her grandson was so distraught she had to go buy him another one. We all enjoyed a good laugh over this. My brother had something similar happen, he bought a little cheapie drone and the first time he flew it a big gust of wind cauight it and he never saw it again. One and done, just like the kid up the street.
😬
I was worried about losing mine in the water. I didn’t think about getting it stuck in a tree.
Another drone story…. A couple of months ago I was out walking near a grade school that had a large flat ball field next to it. Some kid who looked like he was 13 or 14 and his parents drove up and got a fancy drone out their vehicle. I could tell by the sound it made this was not your average drone but a high performance model. The kid grabbed the remote and got it airborne but I couild tell he was new at this. He pressed a button and I heard the engines spin up really loud and the drone shot up vertically like a rocket. Wow, this was no ordinary drone. The kid landed it and then it took off again like a rocket, went left, right, and then at high speed he flew it right into the side of a the brick school building. The kid and his parents went and collected the pieces and left. Another one and done….. 🙂
😣
Another story I didn’t want to be a sequel to. That must have cost a pretty penny.
That’s both really nice and kinda creepy. What if it were a fun video? Doubt you’d return that one… Though if were something nefarious, uh…? There’s a movie in that somewhere. Find a drone with footage of peeping or doing surveillance on someone. Then a week later that person gets killed? Throw in a couple of conflict of interests, and? Hrm.
Or ya find surveillance of a bank and there’s a robbery a week later. Find some incriminating info on the perps on the tape. Try to get a cut out of it.. add a conflict of interest or two? Hrm. Just spitballin’ here.
I’m going to film myself masturbating, put it on the SD card, and then crash it into a tree as a sort of time capsule. Whoever finds it finds it.
I want whoever does to really wonder about the person who owned it as well as the mechanics of what they just watched.
Footage of the event.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=728459519306583&vanity=LADbible&http_ref=eyJ0cyI6MTc4MzQ3MTgwODAwMCwiciI6Imh0dHBzOlwvXC93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbVwvIn0%3D
That looks like pretty woodland. But okay, lots of rules. What would happen if you broke one of these rules? Who’d report it? How would they find you? How bad would they make it?
“so I am not going to share their likenesses” I might thank your consideration to others.
It seems like such fun tech. I also kinda see why folk are terrified and law law law against ’em, but kinda useless.
It depends on which rule you break, and what happens.
There’s a good chance you might not get caught, but like the guys who enforce fishing regs, the parks service folks would gleefully write you a ticket. You could tell me they get a share of the fines and I’d buy it the way the parks police want to cite people. The fines range from a few hundred to a few thousand depending on who’s rules you broke.
If you catch people in compromising positions, that’s “Unlawful Surveillence” and you might not get caught so long as you delete the data. But some people are stupid enough to upload it to the internet. For an example of the same law in effect albeit with a cell phone video instead of a drone, search for “Oswego DoorDash Girl”. Not sure if her trial has finished yet.
Sheesh. Dumb move on her part but it should be a civil suit by the guy not a criminal prosecution.
I’m okay with anti-voyeurism laws where recording people in places where they have an expectation of privacy without their consent is a criminal offense.
They may not get a cut per se, but their job is probably dependent on finding people breaking those petty stupid rules. If they aren’t writing tickets, what the fuck are they doing all day to justify their salaries?
I once had a park ranger who lived next door to my brother. I was drunk as fuck and ended up in a cab that dropped me off at his place. I couldn’t tell you how that happened as I barely spoke to him let alone visited his house. The park ranger douche came over when I was sitting on the outside deck and was threatening to arrest me for drunken disorderly. I was half asleep.
Even in that state I mocked him for being a park ranger. Go be a real cop or fuck off.
Outside of your home, where do you think people have an expectation of privacy?
Inside a fenced-in yard.
In a locker room (from recordings even if visible to other users).
Any place that the public can’t just walk in on without invitation.
You’d think there’d be a whole category of case law on this very subject…
Is that a navigation lock to the right?
Canal of some sort?
The Erie canal for the lock you can see. The Champlain canal is also nearby.
Do they move cargo through it anymore or is it just pleasure boats now?
Neat vid. If making me a bit queasy.
I didn’t have anything in particular to focus the camera on, and am still learning to control it.
If you walk past the bridge off to the right in the video you’re along the Erie and Champlain Canals. The bridge off to the left connects Waterford to Peebles Island (a State Park)
I like canals and wasn’t even aware of that one. Though I haven’t traveled around that area much. More central and western NY.
I hadn’t heard of it myself until the first time I visited the Canal park and there it was, with signs and everything.
I was wondering if it could spin around faster, lol.
It can’t. It moves side to side, front to back and up down fast, but rotates sooo sloooow.
Ugh it was fast enough for me
In the video, it seems to rotate pretty quickly but that is probably because I’m trying to see detail as it moves. I think what causes some disorientation is the rapid change is rotational speed. I assume the fancier drones have damping built in or make it easier to control rotational acceleration. Not a critique, just an observation.
If you pause the video while it’s moving you’ll notice something that probably contributes to the problem – no motion blur. Every frame is full detail.
Moar Oliver stone!
Needs to turn in a point though.
A robot delivered our drinks at a sushi place, this eve. That was rather interesting. Good place, tho overly complicated. Their beef stood out, but their salmon also. Me, my brother and parents, + the youngest two. Dad brought up Jackass and how women like it much less than men. (Correct.) He’s also incredibly wrong about what women like and underestimates how many like it. (One third of those in attendance when he saw it in theater, one out of three, was female. And she LOVED it.)
Colin was correct to poke Dad not understanding women. He doesn’t and admits it. But Colin also called it misogynistic to say such things about women. I helped Dad out a bit with messaging(!) but didn’t do as well with Colin to tone him down. So many stolen bases to go from ‘Dad’s wrong about women’ –> Misogynistic. Well. I felt I had to help Dad a bit. I did, to some extent.
If you see misogyny in every instance, it might be cuz you’re looking too hard for it. Almost a rule of sorts…
When it comes to the various isms, I’ve found myself becoming more of all of them as I’ve aged and unapologetically. I’ve spent my life seeing those words bandied about by the left as political cudgels to where I just can’t care anymore. Reality doesn’t care about feelings.
What is the usual tip for a robot? How do you make sure it gets the gratuity and not the restaurant owner?
A can of WD-40?
Beer and a cigar?
Blackjack and hookers.
I’ll never stop laughing at the left wing sports media that insist that soccer is really about to happen in the US:
The game against Belgium undoubtedly got a big audience. How much of that was people genuinely interested in soccer, and how much was just a result of patriotic competition and the fact that this being on American soil for the country’s 250th anniversary and feeling like a genuine event remains to be seen. The product and entertainment people got from it will be a determining factor in just how many of those people stick.
But we’ve seen similar audience spikes for other America vs. XXX in this or that sport. Hockey did see a bump after the Olympics. It was still marginal in the grand scheme of things. Even women’s hockey saw an attendance bump. We’ve even seen similar events with soccer that didn’t produce much of anything after when the women’s or even men’s team had unexpectedly solid runs.
I suspect if soccer ever takes off here it’ll be because they’ve imported so much of the third world that the audience naturally grew. But truthfully we already have some 70 million Hispanics in the country, over half of which identify as fans of the sport. Yet viewership is fairly small. The structure of professional soccer honestly confuses me and I have little interest in understanding it, but MLS games draw audiences that make it almost unpalpable to air on ESPN2. And even larger events with competition between international teams don’t draw much.
If people like this game, far be it for me to tell them it sucks and they should feel bad for it (at least when I’m being serious).
But the left in this country has a strange little fascination with it taking over the US and it correlates with their general disdain for American football. Not enough to where they’d actually watch soccer or stop at least existing on the perimeter of NFL fandom.
I don’t think any critical mass has been hit where it’s going to take off long term. But we’ll see. I suspect most people will go back to whatever the hell they were watching before the World Cup.
Don’t care.
Curling could take over as the most popular game and it would not impact me.
How strong education, and my generation through it, really push this anti-America shit. Understanding that baseball + football (and basketball) are America’s primary sports, and that history goes back and culturally ‘matters’… and that it’s not a big deal.
It’s kinda cargo cult thinking. Play Euro sports –> Be more like Europe –> Be more supportive of Euro policies.
I don’t think they’re ‘thinking’ all of that through, but I wonder how much their puppeteers do.
So I understand Egypt lost because of racial abuse?
Inconceivable. “Argentina’s players have repeatedly spoken against racism and discrimination throughout their careers”.
At least they didn’t throw hot dogs at them.
Instead of bananas, they threw pyramids?
Egypt lost b/c of dumb strategy in the last 20 minutes or so.
If any of you get the chance, go see the Union Pacific Big Boy steam engine as it comes West again. (Altoona tomorrow). Caught it at Valley Forge this morning – a magnificent mechanical tribute to man’s ingenuity.
An additional accusation comes forth against Platner, and the WashPost has known this for three weeks. First ones weren’t enough? They really don’t want Collins to have that Senate seat. (They don’t care who gets it, as long as ‘dem is Dem.)
“He would pull condoms off,” claims Lyndsey Fifield, who says she dated Platner from 2013-2015 in Washington DC – and previously accused him of physical abuse. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.” — Fifield initially told The Post about the alleged condom removal during a June 20 interview that was off the record. She said she decided to speak publicly about it Tuesday in part because, she said, she wanted to show that Racicot was not alone in experiencing issues with Platner involving sexual consent. -WaPo”
From a decade ago? And that’s gotta be hard as fuck to prove intent, even if the act is somehow confirmed. (He’s gotta be too soft to fuck for it to come of normally, amiright or amiright? Right? Right?)
Too Drunk to Fuck, covered by Nouvelle Vague in a sorta fast, French jazzy style. Fantastic album. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DElRqo8u1vQ