Trolls, arseholes and The drone police...

There's a typical way most people conduct themselves in front of real people... Majority of the time you are suppose to be kind and courteous to others... Or so what society has implied for most people... But takeaway the face to face social interaction and replace with anonymous identities or a faceless wall to write you inner most thoughts and opinions and you got a system that's open to abuse...

When you start to post your fair share of proud videos thinking you are the bees knees or thinking if I share this, will I get any compliments?... Fishing for compliments is what most of social media is relays on... As each post of the crappy art work we do is a way to say look at me and this is what Ive done...
Our friends who are like minded tend to put a positive spin on most things and we feel good for the afternoon... But in life, people gather up attention or followers that seem to grown according to how helpful or interesting your posts are... You eventually run into problems with your drone or flying technique and you share it with the world...

You eventually get advise or blow back on the things you've done... Take the typical screen record of your drone...  A typical video open to abuse is a droner who likes to test the range of their drones...They show case their newly fitted antenna or test out the stock aerial to their advertised range...
By then you will start to attract the Trolls or the drone equivalent called the drone police...Self appointed ambassadors of the civil Air Authority or the Federal Air Authority...They will squeal air laws and guide lines of safe drone conduct... These 'Guardians of the galaxy', type their concerns of a higher power...Sometimes you might need a nudge in the right direction and people will give you advise...

But if you start a line of communication with a insult or a laundry list of drone laws like some space cadet trying to make you wash out in basic training.... Its likely you'll get a verbal punch in the face...
Its the same with any other video when someone is showing off their home town or the city they live in... Or the landscape they happen to capture, with a few close flights to people or buildings that you down own... Personally I'm done with giving opinions of other peoples videos of flying in built up areas... The hassle is the back and forth insult exchange with single minded people who simply dont care where they fly...
Other trolls who like to correct grammar or pass off a lame insults as a joke, seem to be in a habit of being too familiar with strangers on the internet... But gone are the days of introductions and healthy discussions... We sit in the wake of a social media revolution where we follow the trends and re-post what we like and more importantly express ourselves, without a filter...
People often try to strike up a conversation by being too familiar or open up with a joke with no context to the post that causes the attention... Lame jokes and insults usually are by people who have little to no content themselves as if they hide their achievements or lack off... Short attention span and no sense of community, are the tell tale signs of a typical troll'er...

I tend to ask peoples qualifications in their drone profession... A person with little to no video or piloted skills, lecturing or talking their opinions of your own videos... Are likely to talk short conversations if they are losing a argument... After all bullshit can only go sofar...

I had a argument with a fellow who was passing around misinformation, he was selling his mavic pro joystick covers that stop the movement of his joysticks, when someone complained that leaving them deformed in a bag would lead to the joysticks needing a calibration...
I had mention you can take the mavic controller sticks off for temporary storage while his argument was that they cant come off... Despite the sticks are made of metal and the joystick gimbal is plastic... and is not glued on... Long story short I reached a point where logic and reason couldn't budge his views... And his agenda was that e wanted to keep selling his joystick covers on the insecurities of people finding faulty joysticks when stuffed in a bag a few days...

When really the magnetic field ( that caused the calibration fault), will eventually fade and will return the controller back to normal if you stop deforming the joystick...
I hate to admit it but everyone has a hidden agenda with what they do, whether its to sell their 3d printed joystick covers or to freely give tips so you can gain subscribers...
The real karma is with the majority of people that follows you... Although I dont have many subscribers or followers... I still like to share advance tips to fellow pilots all the same... Most people will also fall for a glossy video on teaching cinematic tips...
And while I fine some helpful videos I see these video are generalized tips that dont fully explain the full reasons of why shutter values are the the way they are in relation to the frames per second value... I did have a crack at a few drone tutorials and while I am limited in my presentation skills... I did get a lot of backlash on how crappy my videos are....
Video trolls on you tube seem to be the worst of it, in my experience... as there is no reasoning, but a like or dislike rating system... Which seems to power the popularity of most videos on the internet...
I have notice this continued rating regardless of any reasoning crosses over to popular entertainment, besides you-tube videos... The armchair critic makes lazy opinions on anything from a person pouring their heart out on a song or acting performance to films and personnel video journals...

Life has gotten much worst for the occasional video blogger as you-tube has taken away the funding of most causal bloggers... Leaving a creativity void of which most videos are now expected to perform well and appealing to the majority by childish humor and very Little research content... Time will tell if this type of social rating and low motives will have on the future of social media posts... I can only explain why I sometimes wonder why I bother to post videos and live streams when all I get is occasional hassles and dislikes saying my videos are boring.... And a explainable money drain from doing a hobby that for now, like doing because I dont earn from this or gain anything other then sharing with what I know to other pilots... Probably at worst, I have bragging rights to some of the videos I do in my particular fashion... But generally people like to complain on the production values of my tutorial videos... Either way life's to short to get mad or emotional with trolls in general... A simple block and a mind wipe is my technique of choice... Happy posting everyone...

Big drone, Little drone, carboard box

There a lot to be said for smaller drone especially today when technology and miniaturization come together... But looking at my next drone I am thinking do I really need a inspire 2?...
When I started out flying after I brought a little toy drone doing loops around the living room,,, I thought of buying a drone to see if I can get decent footage... I guess I was one of the many many drone users who watch the usual you tube videos about drones... Never quite committed to buying the Parrot AR or the Lilly drone for which was plastered all over my screen as a advertisements....
The inspire 1 was suggested to be a Pro consumer drone and besides all of the specs and fancy videos about the drone... I liked it because it had a large micro four thirds camera with a option to buy a Zoom lens... I didn't have a used for this but still I wanted to buy it all the same...
Luckily I had a trip to Hong kong and by the looks of things I could buy the Inspire slightly cheaper then UK prices...
There wasn't a official DJI shop back then but thankfully there was a RF model specialist that I could buy the Drone from... This was helpful as I would buy accessories and eventually spare batteries, all I need for a good session...
By the end I had a spare remote 4 batteries a X5 camera and zoom lens as well as a 15mm and 12mm Olympus lens... My first flight was at a large empty part of the park in Hong kong... My flight was very short and by the time I got to the end of the last battery I was hooked...

The video was sunning and from then I tried to learn as much as I can from the drone... The learning curve was big... Not only did I have to learn to fly the drone, but had to have some understanding on photography...
Coupled that with the short flying time, I was setting up the camera in mid air when what I really should of done was to set the drone on the ground before I took off...



 My second drone was different experience the drone was per-ordered through the DJI flagship store and I had to wait... I was in Hong kong again... The long wait was worth it as the drone although small was much better the the inspire in so many different ways...
The Mavic was quick the drone could go to different areas and generally I felt more comfortable with flying with it... With longer flight times and a wicked quick low latency screen for feedback... I found I had a knack of doing turns and filming objects... I can only attribute this to the lower Expo settings...
If you see the inspire screen for the Flight characteristics you will see the lowest Expo setting is 0.2 which in my opinion is still sensitive even when pinching and performing a manual orbit maneuver...
The mavic however still has a lower value of 0.1 which mates the turns so much smoother...
Why is this important??...
In filming with the drone the inspire1, it can basically do long straight shots of forwards or backwards or side to side... Without much editing... If you are going to film turns or a wide slow pan you are at the mercy of a sensitive pan control... This has often turned too quickly or not enough... Or for some reason does not turn consistently over a very long pan or orbit shot...
The simple fact is your turn shorts with out a computer aid is pretty much rubbish...

Using automatic aid has been a fix that Ive employed lately due to the fact that as a solo pilot and cameraman I found a tracking system is better then trying to fix the sensitive joystick... The inspire 1 does have its advantages above the phantom drone, with its hide away legs and a better camera or its handling over high winds... A bigger drone would in theory handle the horizon problem, although I find that it wasn't the case... But looking the footage of a mavic pro and inspire 1 you can clearly see the turns and overall appearance of the two drones... The mavic can be piloted easily and the flight characteristic can be tamed for a cinematic look... while the Inspire prefers slow moving footage with little to no turns and also there is a speed limit of round 30mph before the gimble shakes or creates jello...

Everyone is telling me to go get the inspire 2 and that the safely of having the 2 battery system is better then the possibility of one, which could fail and crash the drone... While its essentially the same drone as the inspire one except for the speed and extra camera, as well as a few extra things... Ive been holding back because Ive simply been having too much fun with the Mavic pro...

My kite surfing videos and live shows have never been better and despite me wanting one... Ive been asking around for the specs for the inspire 2 namely what's the lowest expo setting for the rudder... If it still has the same value of the inspire 1 with a 0.2 value then its basically too sensitive for cinematic turns... I have a feeling I'll be disappointed as this is a 10 grand drone... will it still have the same turn characteristics as the old drone?, and with the extra features such as active tracking to make it look good...

I still feel that there are not many inspire 2 footage with dynamic turns or decent parallax examples... Simply put, I think the inspire 2 drives like a big bus with extra flash paint and probably looks good to most people... But why is there a lot of people selling on their inspire 2s and why are people buying the mavic range???...

Going big is not necessarily going smart... At this point in time I am going to hold off buying a inspire 2 because I blog my footage with no intention to sell the film rights to my kite videos... Perhaps if I can gain a decent following I might buy another big drone, but otherwise there is no need for it on my blog video or you tube channel Unless I do a series of you tube tutorials, for which I found are really not that popular anyway...

Light-bridge and Ocusync, the explaination why the video link is laggy...

Ok for some time Ive noticed that the light-bridge system has had problems mostly for my inspire pro... In the beginning its been running perfect and I had no complains...
 But now that a year has passed and that DJI has now replaced the drone with the superior inspire 2, I feel a little  bit robbed from the whole plan obsolescence, bait and switch...
But looking at the system itself the digital video format has the advantage of making gorgeous video transmissions look so professional... The down side to it is that it requires processor power and a high gain video transmitter...
To begin the light bridge system was sold as a single entity, it was a separate video link for the drone builder who wanted better video transmission... Quad-copter drones was starting to reach commercial success with the early phantom series... it was the later phantom 3 that now included the light bridge system... And was advertised was worth it alone for the video link....

Compared with a analogue system in FPV flying, the older FPV pilots had superior low latency (at around 20- 60ms) at the cost of grainy low resolution video with lots of RF interference with every turn or other movement of the drone... (in the form of picture snow or white and black lines in the camera view) But the lower latency of 30ms or so was the reason why its so good to fly FPV... Imagine you are in the cockpit of a drone reaching in excess of 50mph or more... Couple that with a racing track or a open area to freestyle  and you got yourself a exciting afternoon...
But most of it involves building testing modifying drive outputs and stability settings to get the drone to turn or move the way you want... With the other half of the learning curve to understand the flying aspect... Which can’t be easy as you fly  with no collision avoidance or GPS stabilizers... DJI took the exciting part of that flying tamed it down and allowed a better video link to connect the pilot to the aircraft... But what’s the magic that makes the video link so much better then the analogue system?...

Without going into too much detail.. the sysem is a streaming digital transmission... This reduces the signal to a simple binary 1 and zeros... Which can be much simpler then varying brightness encoded in a timed scanning signal... Much like the digital information in a CD, the digital information is jumbled so that when information is lost in the link... There is enough information that requires rearranging the video back the right way it sees part of the message...
I would say its very much like a letter missing in a sentence...

 The sequence or the picture frame may lose some of the information but because it wasn't transmitted sequentially... The reassembled picture can now be placed in the right order... While a algorithm system or parity checksum can fill in the blanks... The Light-bridge system has a form or error correction which works very well...
The down side is that it requires some process power for it to work... And if the signal weakens further then its likely to pixelate or introduce lag... Further improvements of the digital process could be as simple as making the Clock speed faster for the error correction process or different algorithm or a number of things... Either way the improvements of the Light-bridge of a couple of kilometers to the far improved occusync system of  several miles is the envy of any FPV pilot... Grated the Occusync  maybe slower at 130ms compared to a FPV system... But for filming in action sports or general stuff the video feed is good enough...

Looking back on my system I see the ipad mini 4 which was perfect for the inspire1 now bogged down with ios11.3.1 firmware... And what seems like the inspire 1 drone having a reduce transmission power, I see that the drones range has only reduced so much of what it used to do...
A recent plan to improve the range, now that DJI have stopped giving a toss about the older inspire 1... I decided to modify the stock antenna of the inspire 1 controller... The looks of things, the wire to the white bunny like sticks on the top of the controller are too thin... I followed a you-tube instruction video and brought a similar but significantly stronger set aerials...

The wire to the new antenna are much thicker ( hoping that will reduce signal loss) And the aerial themselves are longer fatter and remove-able... The results of a boosted aerial has improved things and my Crystal sky allows for a better video... But I feel if I paid for a better antenna system or even a powered antenna... I could perhaps use my Ipad system... and maybe my autopilot app with its GPS device tracking for smoother footage... At the moment Ive tested my system and find my Crystal-sky monitor gives the best results for my inspire and while my camera view is only slightly laggy... My ipad mini4 with its ios 11.3.1 has throttled down the processor in my opinion that it struggles to maintain a decent camera view with the current improvements...  It is good enough to fly in kite surfing weather but only for higher altitudes... As the video delay might be too slow and unreliable for semi FPV flying for which I normally use my Mavic Pro for to get closer to the action...

What to do when you are not flying, the quite bits when you are waiting for another session....

Like any other addiction, when you dont fly or don't do the thing you love to do... You will get moody... or try to find an alternative thing to do... Its not so easy if your hobby is mostly outside... and you live in a country that the weather changes every winter time... Most people mothball their drones thinking nothing more then watching past videos or doing a clean maintenance for your dusty drone...

The lucky ones are the people who live in hot climates reaping the rewards of all year round mild weather. The things is not everyone is like that and whether or not there'll be times when life and family gets in the way... Not to mention maintenance issues and crashes where you'll be sending off your drone for a long while...

On days of not flying I have to make up my own entertainment... Of course there is the telly and all the rubbish that going on TV... And work and chores to do in every day life, making a working week a less of a pain as you forget your drone life... Although some people are now trying to make a go of this by getting qualified and learning the theory and writing their tests and operations manual...

Whether paid or not, hobbyist or fully qualified professional everyone has down time and flying hours you might clock up wont change the weather... For my addiction I temper my frustrations on related topics such as blogging and to read up on the latest developments... While pottering around the house doing all sorts of alternative hobbies...

Sometimes I like to play the classics and look at the past flight videos  see my improvements...

going over your flights to look for flaws or strategize, is helpful as I'm always willing to look for ways to becoming a better pilot... Being critical to your movements and overall smoothness pushes me to find a solution to certain short falls... Take for instance the switch to sport mode... Most beginners would want to use it all the time and like the feel of high speed flight... But I noticed in my inspire 1 flights and even my mavic footage that clocking over 30 miles an hour, my camera movements were unstable...

I would jerk the rudder or the gimble will catch the wind and would spoil the smooth long flight in a orbit or complex maneuver... My early videos, I would edit out the jerks or inconsistent flying... in favor for smooth edited videos... slowing the altitude settings (slowing the acceleration curve) or making the rule to use sport mode to fly only in a straight line helped a lot... This reviewing my videos from a new perspective has helped solved many an issues and trim my expos, my sensitivity and gain settings
( gain is the flight settings to react to exterior forces )
Another thing you can do in your down time is maintenance, or cleaning your drone and inspecting it for cracks and hairline fractures... Not everyone lands gently and its possible that you might have  have to look out for stress fractures and use preventative measures to stop your drone falling out from the sky...
In my case I land on the beach pretty softly and the only thing I try to do in my down time is clean the sand off my drones... Or clean the lenses using a lens pen and soft brush to get rid of dust and microfiber tip...
One major problem I found in my down time is that I am trying to solve a on going problem... My inspire 1 system has a definite screen lag from the light bridge system.... Knowing the system is a digital video link... I am understanding that screen lag is caused by a error correcting system that trys to reshuffle the data to the correct order in the hope that video signal comes out perfect from the camera view... The error correction uses process power to shuffle the video and if its overwhelming, it will cause screen lag as well as pixelation... My solution is to boost the signal between the controller and aircraft, as this will ensure the best RF link for what I think is a reduced RF power dictated by the latest Firmware update from DJI ...
The simple answer is that a larger aerial mod fitted on the inspire controller should boost the signal by a few decibels... 
his is a passive system and should be legal in terms that the CAA only allows passive aerials only and not powered versions... This theory has been tested on my mavic system already using a DBS itellite antenna... And has been operated in a area of high RF, with no lag or pixelation...

Having Down time can be very useful as a whole as It gives me ample time to go over each individual problem from my drone and see if improvements can be made... In the winter seasons you should check your batteries every few months, as the self draining battery management can possibly drain the inspire battery or indeed and other DJI battery to dangerous levels... Eventually the season will change and hopefully spring will bring up more opportunities to fly again...