News — drone

Beautiful places meets  people doing fun things!...The folks from Dronstagram in collaboration with National Geographic have compiled the winners of their Photography contest from more than 5000 entries  submitted from everywhere in the world by talented professional photographers and amateur drone photo enthusiasts.  Take a look at the winners http://www.dronestagr.am/contest/  

Flying cars came a bit nearer with the news that a German company, e-Volo are preparing for the first manned flight of their new machine, the Volocopter. Something of a cross between  a drone and a helicopter, the Volocopter 2 seater model takes off vertically just like a helicopter, but unlike other aircraft, it runs on battery packs. Currently the copter can only fly for 20-30 minutes on a charge, but the engineers are working to extend flight times to over an hour and they also want to design a larger version that could carry four to six people.  As...

Proving its never a good idea to shortcut getting permissions from the relevant authorities, see what happens when John Thompson uploaded a 14 minute video to You Tube of firefighters battling a blaze.  Twelve minutes in, a firefighter turns his hose to the prying quadcopter, hitting its camera and forcing the pilot to fly higher out of range. Watch the video below, and cut to 12:00 for the action.  John Thompson, whose drone the firefighters blasted with water, is now planning to bill the fire department for the damage done to his drone…good luck with that one!   http://www.popsci.com/drone-films-firefighters-gets-soaked

Along with the rest of Mr Iglesias’s fans we wish him a speedy recovery as we’re sure his tour organizer’s health and safety advisor will be wanting a quick word with him! We imagine the conversation may touch on: Why use a drone in the first place for camera footage? Why use a machine with blades spinning at over 10K RPM if you could safely use a camera rig instead? Why was Mr Iglesias holding onto the drone? Why didn't someone brief him about how his actions could interfere with the flight positioning system the Inspire relies on for flying...

Intriguing view of the near future perhaps?  Mind you i'm not quite sure the tech is really with us yet to ensure the device's "safe" landing in a crowded public environment like a city - lets face it thats where the bulk of the population reside.  So we have a platform - what's its missing is the brains to operate autonomously.  If you want to find out more follow this link to Alex's website.