Sausageroll's : Flying at a motorway service station.

[sausageroll]

Hi Everyone,

Been having great fun flying with my F550 rig, using an RCtimer/alexmos gimbal. I have a Zenmuse coming next week for it.

I was at Beaconsfield services the other day and they are building a wetherspoons pub there. its the first of its kind, and obviously a pub at a motorway services has made some noisy opinionated people upset so its been in the news a bit recently.

Anyway, out of the window we could see various cranes and stuff hoisting gurders into place and then a guy in a orange hivis jacket came in and sat at the table next to us. We got talking and it turned out it was the site foreman in charge of the pub build project. I mentioned the camera drone setup and he said we should take some photos.

So, we did.















These were all taken with gopro3, on medium 7mp mode, taking a photo every 10 seconds. Im using a DJI 5.7ghz fpv link and a monitor on a stand (no goggles). I have tilt control on the radio too.

All in all this takes the 550 to about ten incident free hours of flying. I fly it about half an hour a week at the moment, and it spent about 20mins in the air today. If anyone is thinking about what to build for semi serious (gopro only) photographing and videoing, then look no further than the 550. With the zenmuse onboard im sure it will be even better.


Pete.

[robshaw]

Awesome. I had no idea the gopro could take such good pics. I';ve just bought a 550 frame. I have a gopro hero 3 silver. Will be chuffed if I can get anything like these shots.

[Gaza07]

Excellent pics Pete ive got a 550 now with a naza whats the specs on your 550 motors / esc';s / batts 

[powerlord]

Yup very nice.  I did some for a local wildlife protection group a few months back.  They wanted to see how there conservation work had been going over the whole area - pathways,  plantings,  etc.  I flew over the area with the gp3 pointing straight down taking stills.  I then made a massive panorama of the area on the mac.  So they had a 100+ megapixel image of the area they could zoom into. They were chuffed to bits.  I';d urge others to try approaching similar groups and offering your services free.  It';s good positive publicity for us,  and fun.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

[QuadBod]

I was at Beaconsfield services the other day and they are building a wetherspoons pub there. [...] I mentioned the camera drone setup and he said we should take some photos. So, we did.

Nice photos, so I hate to be the party-pooper, but seriously people, can we think a bit about where we fly?

Unless you';re doing this commercially with a professional system with multiple redundant components, appropriate liability insurance, a flight plan, and writtenpre-flight  safety assessment to show due diligence, we should be flying our toys as far away from people and property as humanly possible.

Things unfortunately  do go wrong, so imagine the carnage if 2KG of multi-rotor came down on a busy motorway. Motorways have a surprisingly large surface area, so if you';re near one, there';s a good chance of coming down on one. (And it';s not just motorways, so not specifically picking on you @powerlord. Those blacksheep guys have a lot to answer for insetting some very bad precedents about where they believe it';s ';okay'; to fly, and what to fly with. At least you';re using a hex!

Honestly, I don';t mean to be a kill-joy, but it';s only going to take one serious incident to change the face of our hobby irreparably, and that will spoil the fun for everyone.

These were all taken with gopro3, on medium 7mp mode, taking a photo every 10 seconds. Im using a DJI 5.7ghz fpv link and a monitor on a stand (no goggles).

Getting back on track, just curious, what gimbal do you use (if any)? I know for stills it';s less of an issue, but I would imagine you';d still get less sharp pictures without some kind of damping? I just upgraded to the Tarot  T-2D, and absolutely love it!

[powerlord]

It wisnae me quadbot... So I should hope u ain';t picking on me.  :-P

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

[sausageroll]

Im using standard F550 kit, standard DJI motors and 30 Opto ESCs. Using 5ah 4S turnigy hardcase lipos, one at a time, get about 10-15mins flight time. Im using the 10inch DJI 1038 props.

The gimbal is an RCtimer gopro gimbal with an alexmos controller. I have a mini zenmuse arriving on Monday.




So, saftey.

Please dont be so accusing QuadBod. I know there are a lot of idiots out there with quads, but I am not one of them. After we got permission to fly, we came back the next day, having done various google earth planning. Here are the facts about the site we flew at:

The carpark area where we took off was part of the building site, and entirely under control of the foreman, who gave us permission to fly.

We were at least 620M from the motorway at all times.

We were at least 240M away from the nearest road (not a motorway) at all times.

We were flying over water (that lake you can see in the pictures), the building site - empty at the time, or the grass area at the back - closed off to the public by the building contractor. At no point were we over cars or property not under our control. We did fly over the Ibis hotel, but its being worked on and is under the control of the builders, and that end section is empty anyway. 

We observed the 400ft ceiling, highest altitude we reached was about 70M.

We never came within the 50M limit of ';persons not under our control';. The whole outside area of the service area was closed off by the builders and it was their site to control and was empty of the public. All the builders on site knew we were there and were wearing hard hats anyway.

I checked the CAA Notams prior to flying.

The area to the left is parking for ambulances and staff only, and there were no people there. I still have no idea why they park so many ambulances there.

We were 240M away from the services building that was not under the control of the building contractors.


At all times the 50M from persons not under our control rule was adhered to, as was the 30M landing rule, and the 150M from 1000 people or more rule. The ceiling of 400 feet and the line of sight 500M away rule also never came into question as we were flying about 50M away from the take off position.

I was also doing this recreationally, not being paid, and as such, I have 15 million pounds PLI insurance.


I hope this explains why I decided it was safe to fly in this area, and I hope it restores some of your faith in the common sense of other flyers.


Pete.


https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.589003,-0.628002&spn=0.006939,0.013862&t=h&z=17

[sausageroll]

Oh also, I had a competent observer (Someone deemed competent by the pilot in control (me)) as dictated by the CAA. Every box was ticked.

[Flying Monkey]

Hope you obeyed site rules and wore your hard hat and high vis vest 

[Prometheus]

The carpark area where we took off was part of the building site, and entirely under control of the foreman, who gave us permission to fly.

We were at least 620M from the motorway at all times.

We were at least 240M away from the nearest road (not a motorway) at all times.

We were flying over water (that lake you can see in the pictures), the building site - empty at the time, or the grass area at the back - closed off to the public by the building contractor. At no point were we over cars or property not under our control. We did fly over the Ibis hotel, but its being worked on and is under the control of the builders, and that end section is empty anyway. 

We observed the 400ft ceiling, highest altitude we reached was about 70M.

We never came within the 50M limit of ';persons not under our control';. The whole outside area of the service area was closed off by the builders and it was their site to control and was empty of the public. All the builders on site knew we were there and were wearing hard hats anyway.

I checked the CAA Notams prior to flying.

The area to the left is parking for ambulances and staff only, and there were no people there. I still have no idea why they park so many ambulances there.

We were 240M away from the services building that was not under the control of the building contractors.


At all times the 50M from persons not under our control rule was adhered to, as was the 30M landing rule, and the 150M from 1000 people or more rule. The ceiling of 400 feet and the line of sight 500M away rule also never came into question as we were flying about 50M away from the take off position.

I was also doing this recreationally, not being paid, and as such, I have 15 million pounds PLI insurance.

Can these guidelines be posted as a sticky for newbies,,   

[sausageroll]

My new flame hard hat that i practiced hydrographic print transfer on. lol.

I need more practice at hydrographic painting but its a start.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/998240_10151773423827570_198121174_n.jpg

[Flying Monkey]

My new flame hard hat that i practiced hydrographic print transfer on. lol.

I need more practice at hydrographic painting but its a start.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/998240_10151773423827570_198121174_n.jpg

Oh dear God, that actually is your kitchen isn';t it...

[sausageroll]

Why, are hardhats banned from the Beer kitchen? lol

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP393.pdf

The rules are in there.... somewhere.... I got my rules from Telecopters operations manual.

[sausageroll]

I have extracted the rules with the help of Telecopter and have made a post in the news section. Someone else will need to sticky it but all the info is there.

It seems upon re reading it that if the people are inside, then they don';t count. As it clearly states open air outdoor gathering.


Pete.

[Hands0n]

Fabulous pics, and a superb practical example of how, as hobbyists, we can follow the CAA rules with relative ease and compliance. 

[sausageroll]

I had a call today from the site foreman at the service station build saying they were craning the roof panels on with a big crane and could I go and take photos.















Pete.

[Calomile]

Lovely stuff mate, what a blummin'; big crane!

[kilby]

Nice shots