Greetings and Salutations!
So it’s been a week so far. Feel like I’ve been “tied to the whipping post” with the morons I have to deal with on the regular. Today was just a continuation of the beatings if you will but I did have one high point.
My new drone showed up.
It’s a 2.4 gig 3 camera quadcopter.
The price?
I pretty much stole it.
I found it on a Online County Police Auction… I threw a $25 bid at the last second juuuust to make sure I got it, with I think $15 for shipping? For $40? Hell yes! I mean… it’s NOT a high-end drone, but normally it retails for about $125 which at what I paid for it?
I’ll take it GLEEFULLY.
I also found a almost-identical one on Temu (of course) that was only $40, but there’s the import tariffs and crap that gets added on? Either way, to get some more drone training in for that price? As I stated before, I’ll take it.
So now I have two drones.
This new quadcopter, and then my “Scout” Dronecopter:
The Scout is a good practice drone, and small enough to get in and around the interior of the house (or any house for that matter) for recon pretty well.
The problem is that it’s so lightweight, ANY and ALL breezes affect its flight. One time I was working on going room-to-room in the house, and the Central Air Conditioning kicked on, and the bird ‘lurched’ across the room in the draft of the AC blowing out of the vent.
So I’m not sure of the utility of it outside in real crosswinds.
This is a standard problem for the cheap ‘practice’ drones if you will. No real weight. One of my early $30 Amazon Chinesium drones I actually lost when practicing outside with the Redhead Nukular Gran. If you recall while I was flying it, I had a BIG gust of wind show up unexpectedly, and grab it, and last I saw of it, it was headed due south towards the Publix a quarter mile away…
Never did find out what happened to that ‘un LOL.
It literally faded to a teeny-tiny dot and then >poof<
So tonight, I tried to to fly this new quad inside BUT had a minor issue. Or maybe not minor per se…
The doggos.
Chili AND Stella both seem to think that the quadcopter is something they need to ‘fetch’ out of the air… I tried to get them to leave it alone, but nope. They weren’t listening at all. In fact Stella got too close while lunging at it, and the rotor blade caught her on the nose. She yelped pretty loudly as it must have hurt, but did that stop her?
She’s a fucking rockheaded Pittie…
What do you think?
Riiiiiiiight.
Now it’s a challenge apparently.
Must. Snatch. The. Flying. Thing.
So this means in the future, I’ll have to either practice in the bedroom for the initial ‘tuning’ of it and getting a feel for the flight characteristics, or take it down to the park at the elementary school we used to take the Grans to after school or on a Saturday and give it a try there.
When I say ‘tuning’ I mean that the controls and servos need to be dialed in for accuracy, otherwise it might have drift already in the settings, and I need to make sure that it does a steady hover, and do some other things, to include getting the 4k Cameras ‘dialed in’ as well.
Seeing that drones are the future and at least trying to learn how to use them is a good and necessary thing. Better to learn on the short $$$ models than to spend a grand on a nice DJI Drone like the Ivans and Krainians use and have that get wrecked?
I’d rather burn through a half a dozen ‘practice drones’ learning how to ‘fly’ a drone rather than buying a $$$$$Mondo-Expensivo$$$$$ one and wasting/crashing/destroying it by accident. In fact as part of my training/learning experience(s), I found and downloaded a free drone racing game on Steam to try and get the ‘feel’ using that. Called “The Drone Racing League” It’s OK to a point…
My issue with it primarily is that the problem with that is it’s not very accurate, and the fact that it’s a racing game, the ‘training’ is more focused on MOAR SPEEEEEED than anything else.
I just want/need a basic simulator, and lacking that, I’ll keep using ‘disposable drones’ to get proficient in my craft and flying skills. I sure as Hell can’t afford a $1200 drone and smash and bash it all to Hell and Gone just to practice…
The idea is we/me/you should be Training on something everyday if you can Aye? In my case, I’m working on my drone-skillz. If anyone has any other ideas, throw them in the comments. I appreciate y’all and anything you throw out there.
So on that note
More Later
Big Country
Last saw the chineseum cheapie headed north above the pines. Gone with the wind. I really hate what they have become, very scary shit watching what goes on in the kraine. I vote start indoors and close quarters and learn fine skills.
Good morning Mr BCE,
Your mission should you choose to accept it
involves the surveillance of young Mrs Hood down the street
designated Big Hooters
You may select any team members but it is essential
that one team member be Scrapper as your wing man and back up.
You have 48 hours to complete the surveillance especially when she is in the shower or changing
and meet me in Orlando to receive your next assignment.
As always should you or any member of your IMF team be caught or killed
the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions
Good Luck BCE !
This message will self destruct
in five seconds
I think we will need a committee meeting to evaluate the performance of the equipment after it completes it’s mission.
I’ll bring the dark beer.
I am currently in between drones right now because I flew mine into the side of a cliff. So yeah, I’m real big on cheap or relatively cheap drones unless you need it for a professional application.
Lock the Four Legged Furry Ones in a separate room while you practice indoors in another room.
Best of luck to you.
Might be a harmonic off the motors or fans making the doggos twitchy. You can’t hear it, but they can and it may hurt.
Your advice, like your analysis, always has merit!
BCE,
Give this a shot:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2862860/Ukrainian_Fight_Drone_Simulator/
My local sheriff dept uses drones inside houses. Watched them use it with the bigger EOD robot, robot opens the door and teh small quadcopter with fan shrouds checks out the rooms. Watched them plop it onto a kitchen counter just as they deployed the CS… totally blotted the place out. They had a 2nd drone above the house looking for squirters. Effective, well done. The costs of pro setups are eye bleeding.
FPV drones are redefining conflict. You recognize the rise of this, many in the 5-sided foxhole on the Potomac refuse to grok it. The impact of Moore’s Law will become apparent in the next few years, and all that that implies.
-Cheers!
“Toys 2”……OTW……
remember when they SWORE the would just be used for search and rescue ? Pepperidge Farms remembers
Wow, sounds like quite the adventure you’re having with those drones! 🤣 Just remember to keep an eye on the pups—maybe they need some training too, huh? Flying is a blast, but let’s keep everyone safe and sound.
It must be something about the sound. Cosmos loves chasing my line-trimmer, even after getting whacked on the forepaw and nose more than a few times. Silly Pitties!!!
Absolutely, practice on the ‘junk’ models that need trimmed and can’t handle dawg fart turbulance, You’ll get your chops down. IF this is real time vid feed with (near) zero lag in feed, get that headset on and really dig in. Me personally, as is told by my book( https://amzn.to/4o7Wm5h ) prefer fixed wing and fast movers, but even the rotary wing have serious uses as the Kraines and Rooskies have taught those with eyes and Neurons.
Re drone racing. I have seen a live event on the tv late at night. Four dudes side by side piloting the drones thru an obstacle course. Think of Red Bull air races on a much smaller scale and it’s an indoor course. Think it was on espn at around 0200 in the morning
As we age, mind-muscle training on just about anything is a good practice.
Learning to fly drones is definitely good for flexing the old neurons. I’d like to give drones a try, although I am not big on electronic gadgets, which frustrate me with their inherent cheapness and fragility (which is why tinkering with firearms, with their inherent heft and sturdiness is more satisfying, from a zen perspective). As for my two geriatric dogs, they would sleep through the whole thing, unless the drone airlifted treats.
BC – Let me know how you go about video linking your phone to the flying unit. I have almost the identical device and it flies and does all the acrobatics perfectly, have been utterly unable to get pictures snapped or even displayed on my mobile phone.
Hope it works out, they are amazing little critters to fly (all I know so far) 😉
Regarding wrecking them, ive been looking for a rebuildable printable shell/blades/etc if you will. Crash it print and replace parts and keep moving
My son used a very nice drone in his graphic design business. He closed the business and the drone is sitting in its box here at the house. I decided I wanted to fly it, so I downloaded the model’s directions. Took one look at the page after page of directions and put the drone back in it’s box.
Thinking we may want to start shooting skeet
and trap.
Yea good luck with that…
If you’re not flying a drone with goggles you’re doing it wrong.
I understand the idea of practicing with something cheap, but compared to a temu special you will find a DJI or similar tier UAV will operate very differently. If you are really looking to train, I would recomend a DJI Mini2 (or similar). You can get a refurbished model for less than 300 bucks with extra batteries. Not only is it a very capable machine in and of itself, but the flight characteristics and APPs or software you use will be directly transferable to other higher end models. I would recommend learning to use LITCHI flight control APP, as it can allow features on a lower end model of drone that the higher end ones have, such as autonomous waypoint missions. Just my .2
I think you should do one of those awesome camo paint jobs on the drone – like you did on the rifles.
“… the import tariffs and crap …”
Try this bullshit: while your parts are clearing ISC Chicago and ISC New York, the import regs literally change overnight, the USPS hasn’t the manpower to charge duty on what literally yesterday was within the limit, so they summarily dump the parts ordered that were already inside the US in clearing back on the countries of origin.
And then you get stuffed on the shipping charges.
But it’s so easy to make new friends, as in wouldn’t it be so awesome to have this stuff partly assembled and imported that way via new friends who clear the shipments through US Customs for you?
So what if I don’t expand the business because I can’t import parts but new friends build stuff anyway and now deal with that shit as part of the service?
Not muh fuckin’ prob m8, shit gets done anyway, and enjoy the new price structure, everyone else is doing it too.
Also not eating another charge to the business on legally imported parts just because President Orange Tang got a Burr up his ass one morning and made you eat his shit that day.
You’re paying for that jelly donut, Private Pyle.
BRINC drone $$$$
cowboy santa