Droider
Drone Enthusiast
DW are niow offering RTF systems.. A brave step or natural progression?
Time will tell.
Dave
http://droidworx.co.nz/products/showroom/
Time will tell.
Dave
http://droidworx.co.nz/products/showroom/
Aeronavics / Droidworx Brave Move for DroidWorx - Offering RTF systems
- Thread starter Droider
- Start date
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
I can see a need in the near future for aerial roadside assistance. A guy can come out with a drone and a hook to pull your RTF out of the statue's arms. Got your new RTF stuck in the neighbors tree, give em' a call.
Razzil
Member
It only makes sense. We spend hours reading, learning and some rich kid walks along and gives you a bad name. I think regulating it via certifications is a must today. You need one for pretty much everything else. It's to the point now, I can't even fly in my backyard anymore. Every time I sit down I hear helicopters and airplanes flying over the house. I'm starting to feel like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.
dazzab
Member
Yes, I think you have this right. If you read between the lines on their site there are other indications as well. The new materials in the Ti series apparently meet some type of certifications as well. I think it's clear they are positioning themselves as providers to commercial and gov orgs. They also are offering a flight school. Perfect excuse for a holiday in New Zealand.
Efliernz
Pete
They are now offering basic and advanced training packages. I know that in New Zealand, there is a push for "commercial aerial photographers" to have a UAS Operators Certificate. NZ CAA has issued only 10 certificates so far. There are a lot of operators though
While not difficult, they do require you to pass PPL exams in met, law and hold a radio operators cert as well as pay for a demo visit to them.I have a full-time job so paying for a UAS Cert isn't on the top of the list (and 9 out of my last 10 commercial shoots were from a commercially chartered Cessna as road works progress shoots have less OSH paperwork when you never walk on the site).
With the CAA leaning on people world-wide, I am not surprised to see turnkey and training at all. Good on them.
Now... off the shed to finish another trainer for a NZ Droidworx-owning newbee
Posting tomorrow Pete
(40Km from DW Central...)
Droider
Drone Enthusiast
If certification is required it would certainly help the professionals. But WHO is going to say a MR is safe to fly I wonder? Just Manufactureres of craft like DW or other builders using various manufacturers bits and bobs... mmmm It will certainly hit the independent system builders.. Just think of all the hoops... CE certification of all used components, WEE compliance just for starters!
Guess DW will have all that covered and along with training they could steel the show certification is required...
Dave
Guess DW will have all that covered and along with training they could steel the show certification is required...
Dave
Last edited by a moderator:
I wonder where this will leave all current machines that are already registered to fly. With all the regular maintenance that has to be carried out, who will be able to carry this out and even the new "RTF" machines that come from the likes of Droidworx. Are we looking at Certified service agents and MOT's in the future??
Droider
Drone Enthusiast
Linda does not know the meaning of failure. Its not an option for DW ;-) It has to be perfect or not at all.
Dave
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
That rules out DJI flight control then.
matwelli
Member
They are now offering basic and advanced training packages. I know that in New Zealand, there is a push for "commercial aerial photographers" to have a UAS Operators Certificate. NZ CAA has issued only 10 certificates so far. There are a lot of operators though
I have a full-time job so paying for a UAS Cert isn't on the top of the list (and 9 out of my last 10 commercial shoots were from a commercially chartered Cessna as road works progress shoots have less OSH paperwork when you never walk on the site).
With the CAA leaning on people world-wide, I am not surprised to see turnkey and training at all. Good on them.
Now... off the shed to finish another trainer for a NZ Droidworx-owning newbee
Pete
(40Km from DW Central...)
going way off topic - shows how its changing when an Avid MR user finds it easier to charter a plane for photos
Would be interesting to pursure the requirements around using a microlite Pete ?
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/aircraft/aircraft/auction-602044145.htm
Last edited by a moderator:
Efliernz
Pete
Matt
Unfortunately NZ CAA rules forbid you to take commercial photography from a microlight - it must be a commercial ops rated aircraft + pilot! Saying that, I may just have access / an offer from someone that owns a Zenair 701 with removable doors...
IMHO - this "commercial ops" crap with MR's and full-size is an example $$$ for CAA. When I can legally fly a model within the CAA regs (under 400' etc) or full-size and take personal photographs legally - but as soon as I want to charge a $ for a photo I suddenly need CAA paperwork, I am struggling to see the need for the regs. But I am saying that as someone that understands the model flying regulations and who is a member of a national model aircraft association...
Pete
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
Ridiculous isn't it!
And they can hardly trumpet 'Safety and Security' either because for that they need to target the Mile-High YouTuber Phantom A-Hole type, not the conscientious and already responsible semi-pro's looking to step up a level.
Steering ... or rather, sharply veering ... back towards the topic .... as RTF seems to be a healthy business for resellers it is nothing less than a logical move for the manufacturer to offer the same service.
I am curious. I always build from parts so I have not seen how an RTF purchase arrives. An RTF Sky Jib must arrive in a positively gi-normous huge box!
Last edited by a moderator:
SMP
Member
YES!! HUUUUUUUUGE!!! Has to ride on the Roofrack of the truck and dimensions were a ginormous pain in the @ss to get shipping companies to deal with it. Note, shipping company, not airline, not fed ex, not UPS, not DHL. Hence the reason for the Folding X8 forthcoming. Did I mention Huge?>?
dazzab
Member
What other options would you recommend?
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
I am not in a position to recommend anything. I only know MikroKopter and the DJI Wookong M and there are other options out there.
My experience has clearly demonstrated that the DJI system could be brilliant, but it has also illustrated that their product and software releases have become unreliable and there is no room whatsoever for unreliability in this sort of field.
Mikrokopter developed their system to a relatively mature level and then sort of went off the boil. Holger would produce a little firmware update now and then that would introduce some fancy new feature that nobody really wanted but the basic flight control has been reliable for a good healthy period of time now. The recently released add-on modification for the MK FC2.1 board has really sharpened up the previously loose Altitude Hold and, given that the rest of the system is pretty trouble-free, MK is always going to be a pretty safe bet.
Neither of the above two has a particularly shining track record in after sales service. MK went through a patch of poor quality control and poor back up service a year or so ago, prompting a spate of disgruntled comments around here, and now it is DJI who are getting the bad press. The reason is that the MK stuff is working reliably and the DJI stuff is not.
In the context of this thread, Droidworx really do care about the quality, reliability and appearance of their products. As Dave said, "It has to be perfect or not at all". So knowing this, it is hard to imagine DW fitting the DJI flight system to RTF kits because it is Droidworx' reputation on the line when the MR falls out of the sky, somersaults into the ground or disappears over the horizon.
It is up to DJI to repair their own reputation by not only improving the reliability of their products but by also learning how to support those products and the customers that buy them.
I have something new coming to the MR world that eliminates all of the major problems. It is based on APM but the one feature common to all MR's is that they rely on speeding up one set of motors and slowing down another set to induce a yaw. This is where the system starts to fall apart and it and gets worse as the wind increases, This is because the otherwise easy task of leveling the craft in pitch and roll gets interfered with when the less than positive yaw correction gets thrown into the mix. The yaw function on my controller is dumbed down to almost zero and another system controls yaw. It also floats on water, has six motors and could be flown over people because unless dropped from the Empire State Building it wont harm you even if it did fail ( which it wont.) It has a spectacular zoom function and stabilisation system and there are no moving gimbals involved. It is totally waterproof.
GROUCM = Get rid of unwanted camera movements.
GROUCM = Get rid of unwanted camera movements.