Fun Assignment

[MapMaker53]

I'm looking forward to a fun flight this coming Friday with my P4P. The Principal of my high school was kind enough to give my Class of 1971 a tour of the high school during our reunion weekend that was held this past July. (Most of us had last walked those halls 53 years ago.) In return, I offered to do something nice for him, which was to take some aerial photos and video of the school. He loved the idea and asked if I might be able to also include some evening shots of the football field under the lights. Well Friday night, the Varsity football team will be having a home game and the Principal has given me permission to fly and take some photos during it. Naturally, I have assured him that I will remain far enough (and high enough) away so as to not distract and interfere with the game. The forecast is for nice weather on Friday with minimal wind. Hopefully, I will have some decent photos to post here afterwards.

 

[MapMaker53]

Okay, here's the followup. It wasn't exactly "fun". I found it very stressful flying in the dark, having only done it once before and not to the same extent as this time. I also had the added pressure that this would be the last home game of the season held at night. Rather than launch on school grounds, I decided to take off from the rear of an adjacent shopping center parking lot so I could fly to the field at 300' AGL (LAANC) and avoid being seen by attendees and participants, because I didn't want to interfere with the game. The parking lot was unlit with a lot of high school students milling about, but luckily no one came over to bother me. But I did make some rookie mistakes.

I decided to use Litchi as I always do and set the camera manually. I always have Litchi launch with video rolling and unfortunately forgot to stop recording as I snapped photos - which degraded the photo resolution. I finally realized the video was rolling after several shots and turned it off, but had no time to re-shoot the photos because I suddenly got the dreaded "DISCONNECTED" message and lost contact. It automatically initiated Return To Home, but then I got an additional message that I had never seen before. "Drone out of control." I have to admit, I peed a little in my pants when I saw that. I didn't know if it was simply confirming that I no longer had RC control, or that it was, in fact, out of control and NOT heading home. I was relieved to see the little guy streaking across the sky home to me.

I may have I lost signal because I had set up not far away from a big barn-like silo (winter salt storage) located in the parking lot that I now suspect is metal. (See launch site photo.) And although I had a clear direct view of the drone at 300' AGL past the silo, I had been experiencing some video breakup during the flight. Once I safely landed, I called it a night because I was pretty stressed out and didn't want to risk losing the drone in the dark. Maybe all of the metal fencing in the area was affecting the signal, but the drone was well above that in my line of sight.

Anyway, below are a couple of shots I captured. At least it wasn't a complete bust and it also wasn't a paid gig. I just flew it for the "fun" of trying it. The photos I captured will be good enough for the school website or Yearbook photos.

 

[AMann]

Wow, that would’ve been a disturbing flight for anyone. Is it possible you were close to that chain link fence? It would have been hard to see it in the dark. I’ve always felt it’s important to do a flight test in addition to an inspection of the flight area during the day before a night flight - in fact, I used to put it in my waiver applications for night flying ops back when they required it.

 

[MapMaker53]

Wow, that would’ve been a disturbing flight for anyone. Is it possible you were close to that chain link fence? It would have been hard to see it in the dark. I’ve always felt it’s important to do a flight test in addition to an inspection of the flight area during the day before a night flight - in fact, I used to put it in my waiver applications for night flying ops back when they required it.

I shot directly up to 299' AGL (highest LAANC allowed at that location) and never flied any lower, not wanting to interfere with the game. But that metal fencing was just below my LOS of the drone when it was at the game, so it definitely could have been a factor that caused the disconnect.

 

[AMann]

I shot directly up to 299' AGL (highest LAANC allowed at that location) and never flied any lower, not wanting to interfere with the game. But that metal fencing was just below my LOS of the drone when it was at the game, so it definitely could have been a factor that caused the disconnect.

If it was just below your line of site and you were holding the controller at waist level in your hands, could that have put the chain link between the controller and the drone? You may have found an interesting issue people don’t think about. Thanks for sharing your experience!