UAV video platform - soaring video potential?

On Wednesday, August 13, 2014 7:28:41 PM UTC-5, wrote:

The scary thing is that any idiot with the money to get one can endanger themselves and others, they are remarkably easy to fly. I'm just waiting for the first serious midair with a GA aircraft, a balloon or a glider. These bozos are flying around (illegally right now) people, vehicles, aircraft and over private property. There will be accidents. FPV flying outside line-of-sight is illegal, even below 400' and outside the 5 mi perimeter of airports.

One word: Shotgun

Kirk
66

"People tend to connect the dots in the most pathological ways possible"

I think the current statistical probabilities for glider midair collisions are (in order): other gliders, powered aircraft, birds, flying squirrels, UAVs

(I need to check on the squirrels).

The mostly likely collision targets for people flying UAVs a the surface of the Earth, trees, themselves (ask Sean Fidler), large structures (especially in urban environments), anything they are trying to video or photograph (fighter-bomber pilots call this "target fixation")

It is this last scenario that requires care, coordination and good judgement. Any effort to film gliders in motion needs to be approved, briefed and consider that UAVs (flying from the ground or by FPV) have limited visibility to other aircraft and themselves present a very small target so augmentation in terms of lights, Flarm, being at a predictable location, etc. are very important.