Today I had the opportunity to pilot the DJI Inspire for some university researchers at the local wildlife park . The papers were all prepared, the researchers had their animal care training, an emergency plan was in place, permissions obtained, the flight control tower was notified, insurance coverage acquired, plans laid out, everything. The wildlife park even provided us with dedicated staff to provide direction and guidance and ensure the health and safety of the animals. My job was to fly the Inspire, the research student controlled the camera from a separate controller and Ipad, and the Professor commanded the mission.
Getting started I was able to warm up with the built-in simulator. This is a great way for an experience pilot to warm up or for interested observers to play around and see what it's like to fly the drone. The flight simulator seems quite true to the flight characteristics of the Inspire. Calibrating the compass was easy and I was surprised at how fast the GPS lock was acquired and how solid it was throughout the mission.
The mission is the first of what is expected to be many. We flew over some carefully selected pens with a few different types of animals to see what reaction they had to the drone. The flights were very simple, take off, ascend to the required height, manually fly to specific areas and then maintain positions while the footage is collected and the Professor and the Animal Care Supervisor gauged the reaction of the
...Continue Reading