Still droning on

Something I’ve been accused of quite often in the past but this time we’re talking about something completely different to before. With the strict Covid-19 lockdown still in full force here in France I’m glad that I had the idea of getting hold of a lttle drone to occupy myself with in and around my garden because I’m actually finding the whole experience more and more absorbing. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

First more on the Covid-19 lockdown. Both here and in the UK it looks as though lockdowns involving a block on all types of private flying will continue through until at least mid-May. Here in France the lockdown has been extended to at least May 11 and although the statements made in the UK have been a bit more vague, it appears that a similar date has been set there, but with a strong possibilty that it will be extended into June. And who knows, the same may happen here in France.

So it looks as though my ex-pat Xair has no possibility of budging from the hangar where it’s being stored in the UK at least until there’s some kind of relaxation on both sides of the Channel. And the prospective purchaser of my Weedhopper has also been keeping in touch and expressing his frustration that he won’t be able to get his hands on it, probably until June at the earliest 🙁

But there’s another possible concern here in France. Government spokesmen have been suggesting that even when the lockdown is released, elderly people will still be subject to enforced confinement until the end of the year, and ‘elderly’ could very well include me! In that case I’d be looking potential disaster in the face. That would mean that the Xair would have been standing untouched and un-run for a full year with everything that means for its airframe end engine.

I fitted a brand new battery last October/November so goodness knows what state that would be in and then there are the implications for the engine which would not have been run for the same period. I think that if it did look as though that might happen, I might have to look at the feasibility of getting one of my contacts in the UK to perhaps go and start the engine for me and also charge the battery, but that’s something for later.

And, of course, there’s also the question of the cost of hangarage which will be racking up in the meantime plus the fact that In December/January I’d be right back facing the same kind of weather-related problems as I did previously regarding flying the Xair over the Channel and down through France. Merely thinking about such issues give me the shivers and I’m just having to put them to the back of my mind for now.

Anyway, back to the subject of drones. As a result of Youtube videos that I’ve seen published by other private pilots, I’ve had the idea for some time that drone shots would be an interesting adjunct to the ULM videos that I’ve been making for the past few years. Actually, ‘trying to make’ is nearer the mark as my cheap little Chinese video cameras have been letting me down so frequently that I’ve been ending up more and more with nothing to show after carefully setting them up and starting them running.

I’ve hopefully now solved the key issue by recently acquiring a couple of real GoPros, both brand new and found on UK Ebay as the prices of even well-used GoPros are silly here in France. The first one was a GoPro Hero 7 Black which I’ve been really impressed with and a week or so ago I also came across a GoPro Hero 8 Black at such a good ‘Buy-It-Now’ price that I couldn’t resist it. That should be with me very shortly and I’m really looking forward to seeing how, as the latest model, it compares to my GoPro 7.

So that should solve all of my conventional video problems and it’ll be interesting to do recordings, for example, with one on the wing amd the other in the cabin as other Youtube pilots frequently do. Goodness knows when, of course, because it’ll have to wait until we’re allowed to get back up in the air again.

But what about the drone footage that I have in mind? Well, I dipped a toe in the water by first acquiring an Eachine EG16 drone that I first mentioned here on My Trike a couple of weeks or so ago, which was quite inexpensive and therefore a good machine to learn on. Here’s a picture of it from Eachine’s web site.

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It’s difficult to tell from the picture that the EG16 is very small and light weighing only 210 grams. However, quite a lot of functionality has been packed into that small weight, including GPS positioning, a bottom-mounted optical flow sensor that further aids positioning, especially in the hover at low altitudes and an impressive AI software capability. And its forte is that it has an onboard front-facing camera mounted on a 2-axis gimbal so it can be remotely raised and lowered, that is capable of recording video at 1080p resolution and still shots at a full 4K.

The serious drone fraternity regard the EG16 as a toy, and I’m now beginning to join them in that point of view as my levels of knowledge and experience increase, but I have to say that I’ve found it to be faultless and totally reliable for what it is. And ‘for what it is’ in the drone world is really all about price.

I realised pretty quickly that I wanted to move forward and was soon able to see how that would not be possible with the little EG16. Firstly, it has a declared range of only 200 metres, which is good for a ‘beginner’ but not for someone like me who has more ambitious ideas and objectives. Also, because of its light weight and fixed 2-axis camera, the videos of which it is capable are always choppy and become unwatchable if shot in anything but the lightest of winds. But the deciding factor was its battery life.

Eachine claims that the EG16 has a battery life of 14 minutes, but like most drone manufacturers, this is far from the truth. Some Youtube reviewers have suggested that the figure is closer to 10 minutes but my own experience is that even this is optimistic. I have not managed to get a video of more than 9 minutes including taking off and landing and mostly 7-8 minutes is the average, which just isn’t enough time to do any kind of ‘serious’ video work. And I’ve also found that the video link between my phone and the drone always fails well before the claimed 200 metre distance limit is reached after which the drone is being flown blind with no idea of what’s actually being shot.

So even at a very early stage I knew that I’d have to move on and acquire a more advanced drone that more closely met my needs. My decision, wrongly as it turned out although I’ll come back to that later, was to look for some sort of acceptable compromise between price and performance and I thought that I’d found the ideal candidate in the Eachine EX4. Here’s a shot of it taken, once again, from the Eachine web site.

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The EX4 is a step up from the EG16 being slightly larger and heavier, weighing in at 437 grams. This puts it in the same weight class as the market leader, the DJI Mavic Mini which is similar in appearance, but whereas the Mavic has superior features, on paper the EX4 looks like an attractive alternative at something like half the price. The main advantage of the EX4 over the EG16 aside from having double its real (as compared to its claimed) flight time, is that its camera is mounted on a 360 degree 3-axis gimbal, meaning that whereas videos shot on the EG16 are choppy, the EX4’s videos have the potential of being ‘rock-solid’ steady in all but the highest winds, albeit at 1080p. Plus the EX4 also has a claimed range of over a kilometre.

Other than that, the two machines have similar capabilities and after ordering my EX4, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. However, I was to be disappointed and would never get the chance to find out the EX4’s actual capabilities, the reason being that apart for a very brief initial flight, I was unable to get a connection between the one that I received, the controller and my phone, making any kind of flight impossible.

That presented me with a dilemma because the supplier, Banggood, said that although I’d had the machine delivered from Spain at higher cost to save time, in order to process a warranty claim, it would have to be sent by me to China. The problems with this are (a) the cost and (b) the length of time that it would take, so I endeavoured to initiate a claim against them via Paypal in the hope of achieving a quicker settlement. However, as I might have expected, Paypal sided with Banggood and said that I had no choice, presumably because they make a lot more out of Banggood than they do out of me. So the EX4 was duly shipped off today although to their credit, Banggood have said that they will refund carriage up to a maximum of $40. Only time will tell if they actually do.

But that still left me with a decision to make. Youtube searches revealed that not only was I not unique in experiencing problems with my EX4, reviewers who had raised issues had also received comments from viewers asking what they had to do to overcome issues that they faced with their own machines. So that got me thinking. It looks as though with drones, as with many other things in life, you get what you pay for and if you purchase a ‘compromise’ as I explained previously above, not only is that what you get but you could also end up with a lot more problems than you bargained for.

So I decided to bite the bullet. I know that I will only be happy so long as I get results that are acceptable to me and for that I will need to look beyond models such as the EX4. Who knows, it possibly did me a favour by being DOA, forcing me think longer and harder and look at what is available in a slightly higher price bracket. And beside flying my little EG16, which still gives me great pleasure every time I do, that’s what has been occupying me for almost the last week.

I have no desire to get into DJI’s, the the brand leader’s, bracket either in terms of available features or price, but I do know what I want – namely good battery life, good range and good quality videos. As a relative newcomer, it’s not that easy sifting through the various contenders. Youtube helps, of course, because there are umpteen drone channels all doing testing and reviews of individual machines as well as play-offs between one or more similar machines and as a result my short-list came down to a choice between two – the Hubsan Zino Pro and the Fimi X8 SE.

Here’s a shot of the Zino Pro taken from the Hubsan web site.

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And here’s a shot of the X8 SE taken from the Fimi web site.

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Here in France, the weight limit for drones is 800 grams – below that the rules and restrictions are minimal but above and you have to take an on-line test that’s similar to what ULM pilots have to do, in order to acquire a drone pilot’s licence. The Zino and the X8, although coming in at over 700 grams each, both conveniently fall below the 800 gram limit. However, the factor that makes the two machines unique in their price bracket is that both sport 360 degree 3-axis gimbal mounted cameras that shoot video in full 4K resolution.

I won’t go into a detailed comparison of the two machines and their features but my conclusion is that the X8 SE stands head-and-shoulders above the Zino. The general consensus is that despite the Zino having been recently updated (to the Zino Pro and the more expensive Zino 2) the X8 has a superior controller, slightly better battery life and a much longer range. The Z8 is also technically superior in having downward-facing optical flow positioning sensors, which the Zino lacks, making it more stable at low altitudes both in the hover and in flight.

But there’s another very persuasive consideration. The X8 SE is just about to be updated from the X8 SE 2018 to the X8 SE 2020 and whereas the earlier version had a range of 3 kms, comfortably more than the latest Zino, the new version will have a proven range of 5 kms, which is simply stunning!

Range per se is however, now less important than it used to be because almost all countries have imposed the rule that drones must only be flown in line of sight, which in practice means up to a distance of something like 1 km in good conditions. Clearly, it’s possible to push that limit when out in the wilderness away from people and habitation but in normal use, long range means a strong connecting signal and therefore little or no chance that the FPV video link between one’s phone and the drone will ever be lost.

So I’ve already placed my order for a X8 SE, regrettably before my EX4 refund is processed by Banggood. The reason why I’ve done this is because the new version is on ‘pre-order’ with a lengthening waiting list. I already know that my order will probably not be processed for despatch before May 15 but if left too long, this leadtime could become even longer. But not only that, all orders placed before the end of April will go into a draw for 1000 units at a price equivalent of only $299, which is an absolute steal. And who’s to know, given the tortuous first steps that I’ve been forced into making into the drone world, that my name won’t come up 🙂