jes1111 Im new to all this, Ive only been at it for 6 months. So like you I have been doing a lot of research. One thing that has helped me massively in that research has been flying. Theory and research are one thing but practical application is a huge aid to working out many issues that wont appear during the research phase. I would suggest you knock together a simple junker and start flying, it will give you a slightly different perspective toto some things. For example, orientation. There is tons of reference to orientation online and its something that we think we can understand when reading about it however flying and reading about it are 2 different things. Different types of craft have different orientation issues and also some of the tools we can apply to assist with orientation differ from craft to craft.
I built a Hexa and immediately found it harder to keep track of orientation when I went either higher or further away. Simple fix I thought, put some lights on the rear arms so I can see which is the rear of my hexa. That still didnt solve the issue completely as When I got higher I could see my Hexa was facing the way I wanted but I couldnt tell if it had a slight tilt forward or a slight tilt back, which in turn has a bearing on whether the craft is moving forward or backwards. The problem here is that the further away you go or higher you go the smaller the craft appears and hence it becomes harder to tell if your stick movements are doing much. So I have relalized the way I have my lights mounted all the way along the arms doesnt help me with this and that I need to use different coloured lights on both the front and back and in smaller lengths. I wouldnt have worked this out without experiencing this problem first hand even having read as much as I could on the subject. Thats one little example but there are many other real world things I have been working through slowly.
I also initially thought I would be doing a simple up, click, down operation but there will be situations where it wont be that simple. I have shot in the Algarve and wouldnt mind betting some of the house you will be looking to photograph might have cliff to views with not much room to stand in front of the house and sort out a flying position in the air to take a photo. You will need to be able to fly nose in and there is only one way to be able to do this and its practice and lots of it. I cant emphasize enough how important the ability to nose in fly is, some people learn how to nose in very quickly, most dont.
Also getting the right shot means you need to be able to position the craft in the air exactly where you want. Flying practice will help with this and it would be a good idea to have some flying time under your belt well before you build your workhorse. I was recently involved in the shooting of a big budget TV advert for Mountain Dew. I got a lucky break in being involved and I made sure the producer knew how inexperienced I was and that the approach needed to be if we got something of use it was good but the mostly likely scenario was we wouldnt and I needed to be thought of as a possiblity rather than an actual tool for the job. It was brilliant because it opened my eyes to what was going to be required to be able to do AP successfully as part of my business. The biggest eye opener was that i realized I needed to become very very good at flying.
Until then I had the view that I could simply put the craft in the air, point it where it needed to look, go click and land, job done. Practical reality is that its not always that easy and becoming proficient at flying takes time and plenty of it.
I really believe flying a simple junker of a craft for practice will help a huge amount with your design process for what you want to do. The other thing is there is a double buzz here. One buzz is its a lot of fun to fly, even just a simple hover in the backyard, the other buzz is getting footage or stills back after a flight. Even low res snaps or rubbish video from a wobbly circle in the back yard is a buzz.
I really would urge you to start flying something even before your main design craft, it will really help in the design process and you will have a bit of fun too.
No, haven't flown at all.
The system I'm developing will be "guided autonomous flight", controlled by OpenPilot Pro/INS and a laptop/tablet. Although I'll need to master basic "manual" flight with an RC transmitter during testing phases, it will be no more than "up, click, down again"
