Hey guys, it's awesome that commercial operators now have a different forum of our own. Thanks to the creators.
I'm Dan Kelley. I've been a hobbyist since 1985 when I bought my first RC Heli from Walt Schoonard in Orlando, Fl at Miniature Aircraft. While learning to hover, without any gyro's, I attached a repaired security camera to my Schluter Champion and did my first FPV flight...err hover! Once I started forward flight, I stopped using the camera due to a serious lack of range back in those days. 300 ft was about it. Anyway, I progressed with rotory and fixed wing until around 2003 when I, like several others, started mixing tail rotors and gyro's to make a quad. They flew but they were terrible compared to my first production model, an MikroKopter Octo in 2006. It was amazing on stability and since I had been modifying a couple of Vario XLV's for camera work, I knew that multirotors were going to be the superior camera platform. I still have several XLV's that I haven't touched since. Although, I do miss flying the big guys. Aside from commercial ops, I still love to fly FPV freestyle quads.
Currently, I'm doing stuff for the power company like line inspections and hurricane assessment along with cell tower inspections. After working as a Wescam Operator/Tech in the film and video industry until 2005, I have had enough of the movie industry and now I only want to concentrate on the industrial side of things. I look forward to this forum.
I'm Dan Kelley. I've been a hobbyist since 1985 when I bought my first RC Heli from Walt Schoonard in Orlando, Fl at Miniature Aircraft. While learning to hover, without any gyro's, I attached a repaired security camera to my Schluter Champion and did my first FPV flight...err hover! Once I started forward flight, I stopped using the camera due to a serious lack of range back in those days. 300 ft was about it. Anyway, I progressed with rotory and fixed wing until around 2003 when I, like several others, started mixing tail rotors and gyro's to make a quad. They flew but they were terrible compared to my first production model, an MikroKopter Octo in 2006. It was amazing on stability and since I had been modifying a couple of Vario XLV's for camera work, I knew that multirotors were going to be the superior camera platform. I still have several XLV's that I haven't touched since. Although, I do miss flying the big guys. Aside from commercial ops, I still love to fly FPV freestyle quads.
Currently, I'm doing stuff for the power company like line inspections and hurricane assessment along with cell tower inspections. After working as a Wescam Operator/Tech in the film and video industry until 2005, I have had enough of the movie industry and now I only want to concentrate on the industrial side of things. I look forward to this forum.
