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When a Drone company gets footage for another drone company

Discussion in 'CineStar Showcase (Photo/Video)' started by Shaun Stanton, May 16, 2016.

  1. Shaun Stanton

    Shaun Stanton Active Member

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    My company Flytcam Motion Pictures was hired by another sUAS company in the state of New Mexico "Silent Falcon" to do an industrial promotional video for their company. It was a bit of a challenge as their aircraft, one bad-A fixed wing UA on the market, flew like a banchie out of hell. It had a min airspeed of 35 MPH. In Moriarty New Mexico home of the best gilder flying in the world, they are at 6300 feet. That translates to a 42 MPH True Airspeed. Which means this thing is moving fast. The Chief Pilot for Silent Falcon stated by their ops manual that they had to fly at a min IAS of 45 MPH which means this thing was moving over 50. I tried to chase it several times with an Inspire. Nope the max I could get out of it was 52MPH. What to do? Well I dusted off the relic a "Wright B Flyer of UA tech," the Cinestar X8! Hand propping all 8 engines to get it to light off, carrying a Ronin-m and a A7S and a 100mm lens flying in full manual I managed to get 62 out of the rig in full throttle barreling out of 400 feet to match its 300'ish altitude. In one minute I hit min load voltage. I had to back off on the throttle stick it in easy fly for me mode (Atti) mode. Let it coast to a comfortable 45 and continue letting the fixed wing fly through its course. It took several tries as we were shooting 100mm to maintain safe aircraft separation criteria. We managed to pace the fast fixed wing plane when the hi-tech could not do it. Disclaimer: This was the first time flying heavy in full manual! Manipulating AerosimRC helped quite a bit to get a feel for the heavy in full manual.

    Flytcam produced the entire video.
    Credits:
    Editor and Producer: Luke Davis (IA 600)
    Pilot for Flytcam: Shaun Stanton (IA 600)
    Pilot of the Silent Falcon: Trevor Briggs
    Aerial Camera Operator for Flytcam: Luke Davis (IA 600)
    Aerial Camera Operator for Silent Falcon: John McClellan
    Ground Camera Operator: Allen Hrynick (IA 600)
    Voice Actor: Fernando Gonzales (SAG)
    Special thanks to Aerosim RC.

     
  2. Jason Herring

    Jason Herring Member

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  3. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    Well done, Shaun.
    That's quite a sophisticated machine! Given regulatory issues in the US and many other countries, what is their target market? Military?
     
  4. Shaun Stanton

    Shaun Stanton Active Member

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    I think the military is on one of the primary target markets. They are actually an approved system on the new 333 master list that the FAA is issuing with 333's since mid March. They weigh 35 pounds so it is less then some mega movie making machines. I think there is a market for a lot of civil use industrial and agriculture applications. I know they are testing sensors for pipeline inspections.
     
  5. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    Seems like they'd require clearance to operate BVLOS though, right?
    How's that being worked into clearances nowadays?
     
  6. Shaun Stanton

    Shaun Stanton Active Member

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    Ye
    Yeah they would need a special COA. BNSF has one, they are testing different BLOS in my state. There is a permanent notice on the VFR sectional in New Mexico for some BLOS flying from SFC-1200.

    Here is an article of BNSF using a Scan Eagle.http://gpsworld.com/faa-pathfinder-test-inspects-rail-tracks/
     
    Steve Maller likes this.

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