A couple of you have private messaged me about the Octocopter we use. Here is a 30 second commercial we created using the helicopter that will first air tonight at the Grammys. I don't know exactly when it will air as they apparently sell airtime up to the last minute. No reason to watch if you just watch the link below. We shot another one that aired during the Super Bowl locally last week.
Seemed like those dogs were in octocopter pursuit. Cool Newsvan, too.
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Cool shots, but I have to admit I'm more interested in the technology of the octocopter itself. You must have a really good RC pilot to trust them with an HD camera onboard.
Herb
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I fly the basic jobs and we have two pro pilots for the difficult jobs. The first part of the video below was taken from a couple hundred feet by the pros.
Tell us what UAV setup you are using? I've been following the UAV industry for a year now and about ready to start up a Seattle based business primarily for state and university contracts until the 2015 FAA regs are finalized. I'd love to pick your brain! Perhaps you want to expand?
It's an Octocopter by Quadcopter. I would not buy form them. Customer service is terrible and the chopper did not work as advertised. It only does half of what it's supposed to do. Working on building one scratch.
Works great for still photos and that's what I will continue to use this one for. Building one for just video.
I may be in Seattle with it in the next few weeks for a project.
I have friend that works for xpro helicopter in Bend Oregon. Theirs are used in the x games and various outdoor sports venues. The owner is dedicated and service seems good. I'm building an FPV plane right now to throw in the van to scout out cool areas that are unreachable for me. I do a lot of winter exploration where the plane would be really cool. The technology is absolutely amazing now. What I priced only 5 years ago at several thousands is now only a few hundred for better technology. I love the quad copter idea but the learning curve has kept me away since I can fly planes pretty well. Haywood do you have a video repository anywhere?
Vandiesel, I don't have a library of video from our projects. Most have been spliced into larger projects for clients. I have the few clips above from the news stations in the above posts and a short behind the scenes video of ours onset below.
I'm building an FPV plane right now to throw in the van to scout out cool areas that are unreachable for me.
I'm also very interested in achieving this. I learned to fly a "Draganfly" quadcopter six years ago with aerial scouting ahead in mind, but eventually got too frustrated. I'd love to try again with today's technology.