More lockdown, more drone stuff

So how’s your lockdown going? I have to confess that although I’m keeping myself busy and still have things to do, I’m getting bored now. And it’s not helped by the wonderful, summer-like weather that we’ve been getting for the past few days which you’d like to be out and about in and doing, well, almost anything except staying at home around the house and garden.

We’ve been getting temperatures in the low 20 degrees C (low 70s F) which are quite unusual at this time of the year and this is probably the best spring that I can remember in the almost 8 years since I’ve been here. And isn’t it typical that we can’t get out and make the best of them by flying and doing all of the many other things that you can do in this glorious part of the world. It’s all very well to sit or lie in the sun and OK, I’ve now got the sort of suntan that I usually only have achieved at the end of the summer, but it begins to pall after a while.

I have, of course, been flying my drone, my little EG16 and not my new EX4 that is defective and that I’m still trying to sort out with Banggood, the Chinese supplier. I’ve made it clear that I’m not going to be messed about – the drone is not fit for purpose and not as advertised – and unless we come to a quick resolution, as I paid for it via Paypal I’m going to pursue a refund through them.

This seems to have focused their minds somewhat and Banggood have already offered carriage up to $40 for the drone to be returned to China. However, it wasn’t delivered to me from China – I paid extra for quick delivery from Spain. By Banggood’s own admission it could take some considerable time (I estimate 60 days or more) for the replacement to be shipped from China, the delay being due to shipment and the time to clear the defective drone through customs back into China.

I’ve therefore naturally rejected that option and said that I am only prepared to ship the drone at their cost back to Spain. As they say that that isn’t possible I’ve offered them the further option of shipping out a replacement controller to me at their cost as it’s unlikely that both the drone and the controller are defective and I’m now waiting for a response from them regarding that possibilty.

In the meantime I’ve therefore had to be content with flying the little EG16 which is OK as far as it goes, but not what I wanted to be doing when I invested in the EX4. But for now I’ll continue to be patient – although not for much longer. I’ve been shooting videos every day as well as one or two still shots and although I’ve not got as many of the latter to choose from, I’ve posted a series below in date order.

Mostly I’ve just resized them and, where necessary, enhanced them a bit to bring out colour and contrast. One or two, however, usually ones where the camera was aimed high and therefore caught the front propeller blades, I’ve cropped and edited in order to create a clear picture without such visual distractions.

2nd April

6th April

7th April

8th April

This picture of my neighbour’s house is my favourite shot so far.

11th April

12th April

For the ones taken today, I switched on the ‘4K visual correction’ setting as although I don’t quite know what it’s for, I think it’s supposed to reduce the ‘fisheye’ effect and reduce the curvature of the horizon. However, I don’t know for sure because the effect is greater the higher the altitude and the wind today has made it unwise to fly too high from where I could take comparative shots.

It’s also interesting to see how in what is a relatively short period, the trees have gone from partial, many no leaf, to full leaf. Most of the colours are glorious, showing what a wonderful time spring is. And I’ve had some interesting experiences along the way too, the most demanding being wind rotor.

Depending on the strength and direction of the wind, because of the roll of the land, the buildings and the high trees, I’ve found that in certain sectors, it’s not uncommon for the drone to begin to go out of control and start rotating faster and faster in a circle of increasing diameter while continuing to face in the same direction. It also begins to lose its height stabilty and if left to its own devices I think control would eventually be completely lost and it would crash, possibly into the ground or more likely a tree.

I found early on that a solution was just to hit the ‘Return to Home’ key which would take back automatic control of the drone after a few moments, bring it back overhead and land it. Even so, you had to be pretty quick to do so because in the time that it took for control to be regained, the drone would still do a couple of large sweeping and dipping circles that could bring it into contact with any trees in its vicinity.

I’ve since found that positive control action usually deals with any rotor instability so long as it’s applied the moment the instability starts and preferably before it becomes too pronounced. So first you increase altitude to ensure that you remain clear of any trees or any other high objects and then you hit the ‘move forward’ joystick. This usually solves the problem because the AI that’s built into the drone’s software decides what it has to do in order to deal with the ‘external’ issues and complete the requested actions.

But in any case, if you’re still not happy, there’s always the ‘Return to Home’ option although I already find that far less satisfactory than taking control of the problem myself, bringing it back close to me and landing it under manual control.

Our lockdown is scheduled to end on 15th April but as the virus is still pretty rampant in France, I suspect that it will be extended to at least the end of the month, frustrating as that will be. I’ll probably use my two DGAC derogations to go to Malbec and run the engines of each of my aircraft for 20 minutes in the first half of this coming week anyway. It’s a pity that it won’t be possible to do the same with my ex-pat Xair that has been languishing these past months in the hangar at Clipgate in the UK 🙁