Today's forecast was for stormy weather; so I headed down to the Shandaken Wild Forest, which is fairly nearby to where I live, to do some practice flying. I decided to practice tight orbital turns in situations where there are obstructions.
What I mean by an "orbital turn" is basically an arc, or a rounded turn that keeps the object of interest more or less in the center of the frame. So it's not a full circle like an orbit would be, but just an arc.
The situation I set up for this practice session was that the turns were made in situations where there were obstructions, so I couldn't just do an orbit (or program the Smart Controller to do one) and then select the best part of the orbit. I was simulating a situation in which obstructions had to be avoided on one or both sides of the arc.
Like most higher-end drones, my Autel EVO II Pro 6K has obstacle avoidance to prevent it from crashing into things. But there are times when obstacle avoidance prevents you from getting close enough to the thing being inspected or to an obstacle, and must be temporarily disabled.
Obviously, flying with the obstacle avoidance disabled is dangerous. There's nothing preventing you from crashing your drone except your own attentiveness. That makes an old, abandoned house a good place to practice. Hitting the house or something like a tree limb would still crash the drone, but at least you wouldn't be on the hook for damage to the owner's property.
The orange rugged drone case is a DIY one that you can learn more about here. I made it using a using a standard hard case with pick-and-pluck foam.
The orange circle in the grass is a drone landing pad. It prevents the drone's propellers from getting caught up in the grass, or dust from being kicked up into the drones motors or circuitry.
The dog's name is Maddox. He's a good-natured sort, as are his owners.
This video was shot with an Autel EVO II Pro 6k drone, using a PNY Pro Elite Micro SD card, and edited using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
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