Quadcopters anyone?

x2 on the mavic. I just got mine this week and I love it. Camera is really good and flight is easy and smooth.

 

Actions like this is what causes us to have more regulations put upon us. I realize you live in a rural area but if I lived near you I, at the very least, would ask permission to fly over ANY part of your property. If you said no then I wouldn't do it. If you said yes I would let you know before I did and how long I would be over any part of your property and what I was planning on filming.

I generally go West of my location since that's where all of the mountains and rolling hills are. There are very few spots that I go to around here but there just isn't what I would call a great amount of interesting things in this state. But, due to the small footprint of the Mavic I can carry it with me most anytime and get some shots if we go somewhere that is interesting. The drone (to me) is just another camera in my bag. That said... I'd never set up my tripod on my property and put one of my zoom lenses on and point it at my neighbors house. Same thing applies with the drone.

I am guilty of flying over my neighbors houses when I first got the Inspire 1. I didn't know better at the time but should have. I watched the footage after I did it and realized that "if" something catastrophic happened while I was over one of the houses a 7 lb brick was about to hit someone's roof, car, or worse someone else. Not to mention the privacy issue. So after that I limited myself to my property (my driveway to be more specific). Most of which was testing the drone out after a new firmware update to make sure that the firmware installed properly. That said, that was probably not a good idea either. Because after a new firmware update is installed is when you want to make sure you are away from anyone or anything. If something is going to fail it will most likely be after a firmware update. So I stopped doing that also.

One of the times that I did



The issue right now is the huge influx of drones with no regulation on them. I "personally" think the FAA was caught off guard by not realizing that the drone was going to be as popular as it turned out to be. I quickly learned just because I have the means to buy something like this does not mean I should not have to go through some kind of accountability once I got one. How the FAA handles this situation I've no idea?
I started with the small little helicopters / drones that you could buy off the shelf. Moved up to the Phantom series after I felt comfortable with the controls. Bought the Inspire 1 then the Mavic after that. It was trial and error for me. Now I have a card in my bag that is laminated with a preflight checklist and go off of that every time I fly. I keep my registration on the drone itself and the card in my bag. It was trial and error for me and I didn't do everything the way I should have. But I learned.

 

Would you be so kind as to send me that pre-flight checklist you've got? I'd like to make sure I'm doing everything I can to prevent failure

 

No problem. I got it off the DJI forums that someone made up. I just copied it and printed it off. I'll send it to you when I get back home.

 

Awesome, thanks.

 

I apologize for not making my statement more clear. I completely agree with you. My post wasn't pointed at you but the person that flew over "your" property. He is the reason we are going to have more restrictions placed upon us due to him flying (without permission) over your property. I was simply stating that if "I" lived near you what I would do before ever flying over your property. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

Craig and others thanks for the info on the Mavic my gut has been telling me this is the one. I am actually going to a local club group get together this weekend. So I can check them out in the real world and put m hands on them.

 

I think you missed that it was not a drone or RC and that it was a full blown helicopter with people inside.

 

I impulse bought mine after seeing @lesterb315 spark in person. I don't regret t at all. I think you'll love it.

 

You're welcome

 

Lol... goddamn. I sure did. I totally fucked that post up. I need some coffee

 

Let's see if I don't fuck this one up lol.

I really think you'll be happy with the Mavic. There are pros and cons between the Mavic, Inspire, and Phantom series. The main draw to the Mavic (at least for me) is the portability. The camera sensor isn't much different than the Phantom. The Inspire's camera is a little better (unless you get the X5 then it's a lot better) but not so much that you can't fix in in post. I promise after post you can't tell the difference between the cameras.

 

I have noticed very little in the Cameras resolution within reason but basically from what it looks like across the board Mavic is a excellent entry level machine. This should satisfy my need with out breaking the bank.

 

Now that I've learned how to read I understand what you're saying.

We've got a guy that lives in town that literally flies his helicopter around town and lands it in parking lots. I've no idea if this is legal but I would assume it's not. But... he's still doing it and I know he's been doing it for over 2 years at least. I saw him flying down the freeway the other day no more than 300' off the ground. One day I've got a feeling it will catch up with him.

 

Agreed

 

Alright guys need some help. Trying to make my first video from the Mavic, but running in to a bit of an issue. When I run the playback on my phone, it plays the sound that has been recorded from what I'm guessing would be the phone. But when I take out the microSD card and plug it in to the computer, no more sounds are present. How do I get the sound back? Normally I probably wouldn't want the sound, but for a few shots I want it. Any ideas?

 

I'm guessing, based on P3 ownership that what's playing from your phone is the low res video that was streamed to, and stored by, the phone during flight.
The audio will only live in the low res video from your phone.
That said, a good editing program could layer the audio track from the phone video over the video track from the phone.

 

I'm going to hold off on this question for a minute, as I just found out my laptop is currently not playing ANY sound. So, it may have the audio saved, but I don't know as I can't hear anything.

But, your answer may also be correct. I'll have to verify once I figure out what the hell is wrong with my laptop.

 

Ok so fixed the sound on my laptop. Still no sound from the SD card. Did a bit of searching on the DJI forums, looks like the sound is only saved on the cached files on the phone. I'm hoping there's some way around this, I'll have to do more research in to it.