Hi folks. I'm Joe Marrone, a long-time member of the RC community, but relatively new to drones. I have been flying giant scale fixed wing airplanes for 27 years, and out of curiosity, bought my first drone, the Blade 350 QX when it first came out, because it seemed like such a cool thing. And it was. But as you all know, from that point on, drone technology accelerated ahead at warp speed. I was working in RC Buyers Warehouse at the time (the largest RC hobby store in New England), and had the vantage point of seeing this new technology catch fir. I followed it with interest, but stayed on the sidelines to see where things were going. Meanwhile, I continued to fly planes.
As RC Buyers Warehouse was closing its doors in late 2017 (I know, we are all in mourning over this loss), I found a job with a small R&D company doing some work on their test equipment, and built several prototype pan and tilt gimbals. They eventually hired me full time to continue this work, which also involves putting their transceivers in the air to test them, ie, on a drone. So I took the Part 107 exam last November and passed, and now I am their commercial drone pilot. I fly electronic payloads, not cameras. My missions are all line-of-site. Most missions are less than 10 minutes, but we might do 4 or 5 in an afternoon. Since we have some choices as to where we fly, I can choose class G airspace for most missions, making it easier to schedule events.
I am flying a DJI Phantom 4 without camera or gimbal, and in its place, a custom bracket to hold the transceiver and battery, which together weigh about as much as the camera and gimbal, so the all up weight is about the same.
I just finished building a DJI F550 Flamewheel, upgraded with the E310 power system, and will be using the Pixhawk controller. This will be our new experimental platform as our technology matures. Once this has been test flown, I will be adding a Raspberry Pi companion computer so we can develop a true autonomous drone for our testing.
That's about it. You might say I can't wait to get out of bed in the morning and get to work. And you'd be right.
Joe
As RC Buyers Warehouse was closing its doors in late 2017 (I know, we are all in mourning over this loss), I found a job with a small R&D company doing some work on their test equipment, and built several prototype pan and tilt gimbals. They eventually hired me full time to continue this work, which also involves putting their transceivers in the air to test them, ie, on a drone. So I took the Part 107 exam last November and passed, and now I am their commercial drone pilot. I fly electronic payloads, not cameras. My missions are all line-of-site. Most missions are less than 10 minutes, but we might do 4 or 5 in an afternoon. Since we have some choices as to where we fly, I can choose class G airspace for most missions, making it easier to schedule events.
I am flying a DJI Phantom 4 without camera or gimbal, and in its place, a custom bracket to hold the transceiver and battery, which together weigh about as much as the camera and gimbal, so the all up weight is about the same.
I just finished building a DJI F550 Flamewheel, upgraded with the E310 power system, and will be using the Pixhawk controller. This will be our new experimental platform as our technology matures. Once this has been test flown, I will be adding a Raspberry Pi companion computer so we can develop a true autonomous drone for our testing.
That's about it. You might say I can't wait to get out of bed in the morning and get to work. And you'd be right.
Joe
