Attack of the Drones

Just priced one with a few extras for my Hexacopter, nearly £700, but I must say it looks very impressive, things like the auto hover and return home. I wonder if they have thought of return home when battery is getting low, so if you are flying it several 100 yards away it will 'abort mission' when it gets down to only just enough power to get home.

 

I'm not knocking them, OK there are some privacy worries that someone can overfly your land and photograph you whatever you might be doing, , but as a super toy or something to get away from the 'decorators steps' syndrome, I'm all for them. I've recently got, for my grandson you understand, a helicopter with contra-rotating rotors, works a lot better than the quad copter I tried out and it has a still/video camera fitted. Great fun.......

 

At the moment the odds are probably similar to you winning a decent sum on the lottery.

 

Is it, why?

 

I wonder though how many of these people you have talked to have actually seen one in action or even used one? Dangerous, compared with what, any more hazardous that standing on a platform near the edge with your back to oncoming trains. On Shap, any more noisy that the 'drone' of the motorway traffic..... I feel it's the it's the 'new fangled stuff and I don't agree with it' just showing through.

They seem to come with their own cameras so you would not be attaching your own expensive ones to it.

They are a new method of getting still or video from a different angle and I cannot see them ever taking over from the lineside/hillside/station shots.

 

A few drone shots from the 2014 Sandstone Estates annual gathering, towards the end there are some fine shots low sun shots.