DJI Phantom drone flight over grid at 2013 Caesar Creek Contest

On Sunday, August 11, 2013 5:07:16 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Cool video!



Personally, I have never been comfortable when someone decides to fly an R/C aircraft over my glider ($150k) Having been an avid R/C enthusiast myself....I know they get out of control, lose signals and crash unexpectedly.



Your skill is impressive....but, one has to consider the "what if....?"



J4

That's the beauty and the risk of these quadcopters, you can teach a 6 year old in 10 minutes to fly it. Heading lock alone is making it childsplay. If you stay behind the craft as Sean did in most of these shots (standing on an open golf cart) all you have to control is up-down and right-left. I agree that flying over gliders is not advised.
J7

The DJI Phantom also has a "return home failsafe". If it has good GPS coverage it will remember "home point" and then automatically fly back home and land if it loses transmitter signal. This can also be initiated by the pilot.

Really pretty amazing technology. There have been failures and fly-aways, of course. Lose a motor and it's TU, so checking prop nuts is advisable.

bumper