A new toy, er tool, has entered the fray over here. How many times have I desired to be able to add 100ft to my current position and photograph (or video) from a higher vantage point (To see this wish in action, see my blog post here)?

For a while, I have been eyeballing quadcopters. As the image quality of the cameras got better (and the lift improved to allow better cameras to be hoisted into the air), I found myself being tipped over the edge. A friend of my wife’s husband ended up with a Phantom and indirectly I received lots of feedback, mostly positive, about it and the camera rig. A Phantom lived in my Amazon wishlist for a few months until I finally was toppled by this video:

Hatteras from Justin Brown on Vimeo.

To me, Justin Brown’s work is lovely and his videos demonstrate the efficacy of using a quadcopter and GoPro camera. Since I am very familiar with the North Carolina subjects he shot and put on his Vimeo feed, I could definitely evaluate the quality of it. I salivated a bit longer then pulled the trigger.

The most important thing about quadcopters is learning to fly them and to control them properly. In the US, as long as you stay out of regulated airspace, do not use them in specifically banned areas, tread carefully when you fly, and do not attempt to charge for video you shoot (makes it commercial use and prosecutable by the FAA) you can enjoy this hobby (see this article. Nothing will layer incredible regulations on quadcopter use faster than folks who abuse the privilege and bring about the ire of the public and the government.

So, with this being said, it is quite obviously important to learn how to properly fly and control these possible projectiles! Consider this warning commentary about a quadcopter crashing into a busy Manhattan street! With this and other similar anecdotal stories ringing in my ears, I sought to figure how to properly handle this beast before firing it up.

The first good piece of advice came early and was easily heeded. Purchase a small “toy” quadcopter ($40-$80) and use it to learn basic control skills. With a small Hubsan X4 in hand, I could learn to fly indoors with something substantially lighter than the DJI Phantom 2. An additional benefit of learning with these small craft is that they tend to be far more twitchy and unstable than the 3-gyro, GPS-stablized Phantom platform. Learning to control these little guys makes the DJI seem “easy” in comparison (at least, in some respects). The key is to work on learning not only the controls themselves but then how to work the controls regardless of if the craft is oriented nose-out (facing the same way as the controller), nose-in (facing the controller – left/right and back/front are reversed relative to the controller), and every orientation in-between (e.g. side-in) which adds additional complication to the process.

A nice tutorial which really helped me initially is How to fly a quadcopter (part 1). It gave a good overview of some of the key basics that I, as an RC newbie, urgently needed. Quadcopters and RC helicopters are very similar in function. With this in mind, I have to also say that the Learn how to fly RC Helicopters series has been extremely helpful so far.

So, stay tuned to here and my video feed on Vimeo for some results from the quadcopter!