I managed to fly, perform basic maneuvers and land with no problems.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Enough snow melted so I could find some grassy areas and the wind died down – so I figured it was time to overcome my nerves and fly this thing. A long, long time ago I flew Radio Control airplanes and helicopters – and remember a lot of happenings (crashes?). This drone is much easier to control than what I remembered from the past. Much easier!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, here is my first photograph (that looks like anything other than a test shot). I was 50 meters ( 165 feet) above our back yard and facing southeast toward Ocean City, Maryland. The high-rise buildings of Condo Row (just right of center) are about five miles away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The water in the foreground of the Ocean City Skyline is Assawoman Bay and the water on the horizon is the Atlantic Ocean. This look quite impressive as a semi-panorama 4,000 pixels wide by 1,600 high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not want to put the drone on the grass for launch so I made a makeshift takeoff\/landing pad from a piece of heavy cardboard reinforced with Styrofoam strips. I may waterproof and paint the cardboard to make a more permanent landing pad. Of course, if I paint an “H” in the center it may become my Heliport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first tried a short flight in a sheltered area on one side of our home. I did the “Auto takeoff” and hovered a bit right in front of me to check the drone over. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary so I explored the controls. I went up and down a little and yawed left and right with the left stick. As I gained a bit of confidence I tried the right stick and propelled the aircraft forward, backward and to the each side. Next I took a short flight out and back and then proceeded to “Auto land” my new airship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a second flight I moved to the back yard where I had more “space” and figured I would expand my reach, so to speak, a bit higher and further. I hovered in place to make sure the drone could handle the slight breeze. It did, so I ascended to 50 meters (165 feet) and yawed in a circle a couple of times – all the while changing my gaze from the screen to the drone. I was impressed with what I could see and took a few pictures. The most interesting one, in the fading light, was the one posted above – the skyline of Ocean City, Maryland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The batteries are charging now, as I type this, for my next adventure into the sky. So, of course, there is more snow in the forecast for tomorrow morning and I can hear the wind howling right now. I may have to practice continued patience – but I do not want to “push” anything until I am well experienced. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I managed to fly, perform maneuvers and land with no issues – and captured a cool image of the Ocean City skyline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,117,18],"tags":[404,387,386,401,400,405,42,388,403,402],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4a6sz-nk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billswartwout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}