My most daring mission!

[Phantom Pirate]

As a fairly new drone pilot and videographer, all I can say is WOW!!!! That is one IMPRESSIVE video, even without any editing! This is the kind of stuff these things were made for and I LOVE it when someone is able to show off what they can do! You, Sir, did just that. VERY WELL I might ad!
Thanks

 

[wa5tef]

Wow! Great video. I watched it before I read on down that it was a Litchi Waypoint mission. It furthered my appreciation of Litchi as that is all I fly. I "converted" in November of 2016 and found the Waypoint missions in mid December and I seldom fly FPV now. If you fly anymore, please post them here fort us.
Thanks,
Jim
WA5TEF

 

[VegasFlyer]

Great flight!! Very brave to fly behind a ridge like that. Did the AC have contact with the RC during the whole flight, or did Litchi run the flight by itself during the time the RC was not in contact with the AC?

Thanks! Litchi ran the entire flight. After the mission parameters have been uploaded to the RC, I hit take off and that's it. I would never have attempted this without having complete faith in Litchi and my RC. But I have run numerous missions where loss of contact has occurred and not once have I crashed.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Litchi is my goto app and recently I setup 4 missions in Mexico from my computer 2000 miles away. 3/4 miles across the ocean and along the shore of an island then safe return home. 14 minute flight. Litchi is great.

So you had full camera control and FPV during the entire flight because you never lost signal, right, or were you flying along the back side of the island below the ridge line, too?

 

[GadgetGuy]

I've flown behind a number of ridges before this one and Litchi handled all of them just fine. I lost connection just after I made the left turn into the canyon. Specifically, right after the first view of the city. I was out of contact for a little over 5 minutes. I regained contact right when I turned toward the sun just after I crossed over the peak. I was at 942' at that point.

Litchi is really great for missions like this where you need to fly into or behind objects that block LOS and cause signal loss. Careful planning of the entire mission is critical, and you succeeded. Is it possible in Litchi to preprogram exposure changes during the mission, say when you know you will be flying into the shadows, during the signal loss? I believe you can preset the camera elevation changes for the gimbal and the aircraft orientation to the flight path, but not sure about the ability to alter the actual exposure settings.

 

[VegasFlyer]

As a fairly new drone pilot and videographer, all I can say is WOW!!!! That is one IMPRESSIVE video, even without any editing! This is the kind of stuff these things were made for and I LOVE it when someone is able to show off what they can do! You, Sir, did just that. VERY WELL I might ad!
Thanks

Thank you! Living in Las Vegas my options are limited. I don't like flying over neighborhoods (boring) and I'm tired of flying around the desert (more boring) so I decided to try something that is more colorful and interesting. I'm glad you like it!

 

[VegasFlyer]

That was amazing. I have to learn how to use Litchi. How long did it take you to become proficient?

I took a lot of small steps before I became confident enough to try this. I'd say it took me 4-5 months before I worked up the nerve. Reading the stories about flyaways, dropping out of the sky, and crashing into trees didn't help much! There are other areas I need to work on like orbits and setting the right exposure (although that wouldn't help here)

 

[VegasFlyer]

It was impressive that you were able to pre-program all of the way points and then launch (and hope). Nice job. It would be interesting to do the same flight with DJI G0 4’s new TapFly/Coordinate mode. Most cinematography is done in short clips. I find that using the “coordiate mode” I can fly leg-by-leg in real time, look around and optimize each leg (camera settings and path).

On the other hand, what percentage of your flight was without VLOS. Recreational or not, in the US, you must always fly VLOS. Rules are rules.

Thank you!. I wish I had P4. I know what you mean about the short clips, but I wanted to see the majority of that trail. I lost contact for a little over 5 minutes out of the 13. I know there are rules, but that would leave a lot of unseen areas from a relatively low level. There's no way a helicopter could have flown that low. As for rules, we're supposed to always drive the speed limit too.

 

[VegasFlyer]

I’m still wrapping my mind around the way you can use these technologies together like this. Awesome job, btw!

I wondered about that loss of signal question, too. I seemed to recall that Litchi could carry on a mission after loss of signal (?), but wondered about RTH being triggered by loss of signal. Is that maybe just a DJI Go 4 feature that doesn’t apply in Litchi?

I live in the Smoky Mtns and can envision similar scenarios flying into valleys and around the backside of peaks.

I think it's a DJI Go issue. I've flown several of these at a much lower altitude and I've never had an issue. Because Litchi has the entire mission onboard, I honestly don't expect anything to go wrong.

 

[VegasFlyer]

Litchi is really great for missions like this where you need to fly into or behind objects that block LOS and cause signal loss. Careful planning of the entire mission is critical, and you succeeded. Is it possible in Litchi to preprogram exposure changes during the mission, say when you know you will be flying into the shadows, during the signal loss? I believe you can preset the camera elevation changes for the gimbal and the aircraft orientation to the flight path, but not sure about the ability to alter the actual exposure settings.

I don't think you can if you're using curves with your waypoints. You're absolutely correct about careful planning -- I sweated every detail. I have insurance on my drone but I'd still hate to lose it.

 

[VegasFlyer]

Wow! Great video. I watched it before I read on down that it was a Litchi Waypoint mission. It furthered my appreciation of Litchi as that is all I fly. I "converted" in November of 2016 and found the Waypoint missions in mid December and I seldom fly FPV now. If you fly anymore, please post them here fort us.
Thanks,
Jim
WA5TEF

Will do! I was up to 942' on that one. I'm working on one now that will take me up to 1225' with a clearance of 165' which is 15' lower than before.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I don't think you can if you're using curves with your waypoints. You're absolutely correct about careful planning -- I sweated every detail. I have insurance on my drone but I'd still hate to lose it.

Any better way to handle the radical change in lighting while out of signal range? That seems to be the biggest challenge from a cinematic point of view.

 

[VegasFlyer]

Litchi is my goto app and recently I setup 4 missions in Mexico from my computer 2000 miles away. 3/4 miles across the ocean and along the shore of an island then safe return home. 14 minute flight. Litchi is great.

Wow! Great video!! I'd trade you the mountains for the ocean any day! It never gets old!

 

[VegasFlyer]

Any better way to handle the radical change in lighting while out of signal range? That seems to be the biggest challenge from a cinematic point of view.

I don't think there is. Someone posted the reasons why. It all comes down to the loss of contact. There's no way to communicate with the drone at that point.

 

[VegasFlyer]

Interesting area -- I was out that way a few times in 2005/2006 though mostly along the Red Rock Canyon loop. I would caution you about flying behind a large object like a ridge-line as you can easily lose your signal and then it's a bit of a crap shoot if the drone makes it's way out of there. Being relatively close helps, but you can lose signal even relatively close if you have something between the drone and RC. Also, I would learn to use manual exposure control as the changing lighting makes it all but certain you will have the exposure change and often not the way you would want. Practice using manual exposure control and you will be much happier...


Brian

I can't explain the camera operations any better than GadgetGuy did. As for flying behind objects, I've done several at a much lower altitude and I lost signal on each one. I lost signal on this flight for a little over 5 minutes. In fact, I expected I expected I would. I've seen a lot of people push the limits on distance and I don't see and I don't see the difference. When I planned this mission, I made sure I was going right down the middle of the trail.

 

[VegasFlyer]

This is my P3P video taken of the Calico Basin, Gateway Canyon Trail just west of Las Vegas located near the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. As of yet, it has no sound and no titles. I wanted to get the video posted first. It was shot and uploaded in 4K.

Mission Hub

Here is a bit more info. One is the Notifications and the graphic shows where I lost connection and when I picked it up again. The yellow arrow in the upper left shows where I began my exit.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I don't think there is. Someone posted the reasons why. It all comes down to the loss of contact. There's no way to communicate with the drone at that point.

That was me. Just curious if Litchi had any tricks up its sleeve to deal with camera expoure while out of signal control, such as the ability to increase exposure at a particular waypoint known to be in shade, or when the camera was facing a particular direction. It not, it might be a new feature set Litchi could work on. Seems possible. I presume you had the camera in Auto Exposure, or was it in Manual?

 

[VegasFlyer]

That was me. Just curious if Litchi had any tricks up its sleeve to deal with camera expoure while out of signal control, such as the ability to increase exposure at a particular waypoint known to be in shade, or when the camera was facing a particular direction. It not, it might be a new feature set Litchi could work on. Seems possible. I presume you had the camera in Auto Exposure, or was it in Manual?

I agree with you, that would be a great addition to Litchi's feature set! You're correct in that I did have it set to Auto Exposure. In fact, I was working on screen captured video that shows me trying different exposures just before take off. I couldn't simply upload the video as-is because it needed to be rotated 270 degrees first. It was in the middle of that task that my CPU gave up. I'll have to wait until I install the new chip before I can get that finished.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I agree with you, that would be a great addition to Litchi's feature set! You're correct in that I did have it set to Auto Exposure. In fact, I was working on screen captured video that shows me trying different exposures just before take off. I couldn't simply upload the video as-is because it needed to be rotated 270 degrees first. It was in the middle of that task that my CPU gave up. I'll have to wait until I install the new chip before I can get that finished.

Bummer! I feel for you! I've been having computer and PP issues recently, too! "Windows Explorer has stopped responding." Weird output errors from Media Encoder relating to XMP data not being able to be written to the file, and then the 23 minute 4K .mp4 file is only 1k!

 

[VegasFlyer]

Bummer! I feel for you! I've been having computer and PP issues recently, too! "Windows Explorer has stopped responding." Weird output errors from Media Encoder relating to XMP data not being able to be written to the file, and then the 23 minute 4K .mp4 file is only 1k!

Mine was working on a 1GB file for over 4 hours! What version of Windows are you using? If you send me a private message (don't want the admins to get grumpy ), I can probably help you out. Include everything you think I might want to know. No detail is too small.

(Just discovered the shipper inextricably cancelled my order!! )