Aerial photography (AP) has now become extremely popular specially with multirotor fliers. We routinely see amazing videos of fliers, not only from India but all across the world.
Many have ventured into this as a progression from their traditional RC hobby but may have come into this as a new entrant, for the sole interest in photography and not RC . Many off the shelf products, like DJI, with its Phantom has aggravated this to a much larger extent.
I can say with confidence that those into AP can be grouped in two sections : RC-first and Photography-first interest. The interest part can be hobby or commercial
My concerns here target both of these groups, but the latter group the more. RC-First fliers would be aware of the traditional flight safety rules, but sometimes just being aware of the rules isn't enough. The photography first lot may not be even aware of the safety guidelines !
Also those of us who are aware may get carried away, by the superficially so called reliability of their systems . Superficial, i say because if a system works 100 out of 100 times, it cannot be guaranteed as reliable. There could be multiple points of failures which can be triggered by many factors, and many such points may be hidden out from the user unless they present themselves and at that point nothing much can be done, except witness the crash and damage.
The flying equipment we use today is very complicated, has thousands of components, connectors and hundreds of thousands of lines of software code. All it needs to bring down a system is one single problem which may be completely obscured to the user !
''The other day, I went to the field to fly with my faithful Futaba 8FG . When i powered up my model I noted that it had substantial up elevator. Perplexed, I went to the Servo menu on my radio to see that almost full up elevator was given as a command, even with the stick neutral and the trims almost centered.
The gimbal and stick did not seem to have any mechanical problem, and when i moved the stick the center point changed randomly. The servo bar moved with the stick was usually offset and never centered. It was a very nervous moment - Imagine what this could have done, with someone flying a multi rotor, only to have it come flying back at them with no stick movement !!
Or for that reason go flying anywhere else !
The stick was smooth, and the radio has had no history of problems or handling problems.
Of course i would never fly with such an equipment, so went home and opened the radio. Everything inside was clean and factory set.
The gimbal was connected to the motherboard with a cable with connectors on each one. One end plugged into the gimbal and the other into the main board. i noted that when I touched these connectors, the servo output varied.
So, I took of the connector, cleaned it with some iso propyl alcohol, and after drying, put it back and all the problems were gone !
The centering works fabulous ! ''
Gimbal Signal for the stick being generated by the position of Potentiometer connected to the stick axle, this is bound to happen even if there is a small amount of oxidation in the Plug connectors of the potentiometer which will vary the balance of the potentiometer, which can easily happen due to any ingress of moisture, sweat or fuel with Nitro with overtime usage. Only way to eliminate this is to remove the plug connectors and directly soldering the three wires to the main board further to be doubly sure can give a coat of lacquer to the exposed solder conductors.
Where an internal connector issue, complete hidden away from the user, on a reputed brand radio can cause a complete control problem leading to crash and damage/injury to people. I shudder to think what this could have caused had a multirotor been flying over a wedding with hundreds of people ! This problem alone, if presented when the multi rotor was flying, would have resulted in an uncommanded flight leading to a crash, possibly over people, and causing serious injuries. The pilot would have no answer, since none of his 'obvious' actions caused the crash
Yet the pilot should be termed liable, since his action alone caused the crash - Flying over people, when it is completely against the safety guidelines.
My concerns here are firmly rooted in the ground and I am not speculating something out of the blue. A few months back, I was at a wedding, and saw a multiorotor do aerial photography. It flew over people, many times as low I could feel its prop wash. The flier was more concentrated on getting the 'right shots' than on keeping the model away from people.
Truly an appeal to all AP fliers - Please take this very seriously. Rules are not meant to be just posted, read and forgotten. Since no one is enforcing the safety rules on us we should undertake this responsibility ourselves and observe strict regulation in the benefit of our community
I do sincerely hope that no such incident takes place, but this might not be the case, unless measures are taken by people to understand and observe self regulation.
Commercial interests should never come in way of safety measures , and hope our small community takes heed of this .
Some Guidelines:
The new breed of multi rotors and AP-first pilots need to be aware of things like :
A. Where to fly and where NOT to fly -
20 km around airports - NEVER to fly.
Over groups of people - NEVER to fly.
Even if getting close up or good shots are paramount - NEVER to fly over people.
B. Always have a flight plan before flying
C. Always have a spotter having a visual reference of the multi copter
D. NOT to fly under any influence of alcohol.
E. LEARN to Manually fly a multi-copter.
F. REMEMBER at all times that GPS, and all its related safety measures ( IOC, RTL etc ) can be lost in a split second. Hundreds of factors affect GPS and I cant list enough incidences have come across. For the un-initiated, heres one - solar flares cause a wipe out of GPS signal. I have first hand experience of this.
G. Keep your model ALWAYS in Line of Sight.
H. ALWAYS have a flight plan before flying. Do not fly and then think.
I. MAKE Check-lists. It is easy to forget things which may lead to catastrphc failures, when under commercial pressures.
J. Do Thorough PRE Flight and POST flight inspections. KNow the failure points, critical points on your machine.
K. DO NOT TRUST the Auto pilot features. Even if its the best. Remember they CAN fail. and when they will, and safety guidelines are not followed, injury will happen.
L. Always have a first aid kit in your flight set. You can carry a zillion equipment, wires and connectors and not a small box with first aid ? When a prop cut happens, it will be essential to stop bleeding.
Happy flying all !
