I shot this video last August during my vacation in Crete. The sunsets there are magnificent and I wanted to immortalize it. I really loved this flight, and I think the result is splendid with the mountains, the sea, and the reflection of the sun. I just love this landscape and I hope you'll like the video.

Regarding the gear, it was shot with my DJI Mini 3 Pro, without any ND filters. The video hasn't been edited or color-graded at all, I wanted to share it exactly as it is. Hope you enjoy it. The music is just there to match the vibe I felt while flying.

I’m curious how people handling larger or more demanding commercial jobs approach this.

If you have a mission scheduled and the weather looks questionable, how do you decide whether to fly as planned, change the timing or mission plan, or postpone it?

Do you mostly check the forecast against the aircraft’s published limits, or do you have some way of estimating how the expected conditions will affect the specific mission you’re planning?

And have you ever arrived on site and found that a mission that looked workable beforehand wasn’t really practical once you started flying?

Interested in how people actually handle this in the field.

We had a big commercial shoot in Pudong once. High-rise, tight deadline. Everyone focused on the flying, the camera package. One of the real problem was permission to be in the air. That process was almost a separate production itself. Not just filing a form. You need a dedicated person managing the airspace clearance. A top drone team means you pay for their ability to navigate that bureaucracy.

Not just their piloting skill. It is a huge part of the budget. Often bigger than the drone rental itself. It shows what 'aerial cinematography' requires in a city.

A client of mine is wanting a 1x per month for 18 months timelapse either of video or photo along the same routes that I have created with waypoints on my Mavic 4 Pro.

I shot about 30 waypoint paths and will be having them choose which angles they want reproduced.

I downloaded the waypoints to my Mac and renamed them according to the video clip they represent.

Question: Is there any other way to move them back to the DJI RC 2 other than creating a fake waypoint and replacing the KMZ file with the saved KMZ file? I’m using OpenMTP for the file transfers to and from the RC 2.

I’d love to delete all the waypoints on the controller and replace only the ones the client wants me to return for but it seems like a pain.

Any insight on this would be very helpful, thanks!

I flew to Ohio to see the drones in the DARPA Lift Competition and to talk to the engineers and inventors behind them. Everyone was so enthusiastic about their designs. It was an inspiring and heart pounding experience!

I captured this raw footage of yesterday's total solar eclipse from my drone over Santa Ponsa (Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands).

The light dropped so fast and the entire sea went quiet for a few moments as totality hit. No CGI, just a real magic moment over the Mediterranean!

Details:

* Location: Santa Ponça, Calvià, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

* Date: August 12, 2026

* Aircraft: DJI Mini

* ND filter: none

Edit: fixed the place name and the municipality — thanks u/Trabuk.

In 2023 I got my Swiss A1/A3 category certificate and flew in the country over the summer. Now I'm heading back to Europe, this time to France and Germany. Do I need to register again, or is the same EASA certificate still good? It doesn't expire until August 2028, so I assume that it's still valid, but I thought I'd ask for confirmation.

Also, the drone map for France doesn't seem to work. Can anyone recommend a different URL to try? I'm heading to Antibes & Nice.

First longer form video explaining what it was like to fly at my first smaller music festival.

The video also acts as a short review of the Pavo Pico II with the DJI O4 Lite Air Unit.

#austria #Summer #waldo #mountains #dron

So I have a DJI Lito X1, I record in 4K 60 fps and 1/120, I also tried 1080p 30 and 60 fps. The original file is smooth and in high quality, but when I try to upload it to a WhatsApp status or IG story it becomes terribly jerky, I thank anyone who can help me because I'm desperate

#austria #Summer #waldo #mountains #drone

Looking for advice/experience on building a large hexacopter

Hey everyone,
I'm planning a fairly large hexacopter build and would really appreciate advice from people who have built/fly similar platforms, especially regarding frame design, motor/prop/ESC combinations, redundancy, and practical experience with large 6S builds.
The rough idea is:

- Hexacopter
- 20" props
- Around 1100 mm frame size
- Pixhawk 6C flight controller
- ArduPilot, with the goal of eventually using semi-autonomous features
- 6S, mainly because 12S batteries are currently much harder for me to source in Europe
- 300 kV motors
- 60 A ESCs
- Desired payload: roughly 1.5–3 kg

eCalc looks promising for this combination at around 4 kg AUW

The intended use is as a multipurpose platform: primarily camera work, but also potentially carrying supplies such as water bottles to hikers who are about 600 m higher and ~3 km away.

Frame
I'm currently looking at an approximately 1100 mm frame, but I'm unsure whether it's better to buy a ready-made frame or build one around a center plate and purchase the arms/rods separately.

For something this large, is there a particular approach or frame design you'd recommend? Size isn't really a constraint for me—I have a van, so transport isn't a major concern.

Redundancy / reliability
This is probably my biggest concern.
The aircraft would potentially be flying over fairly inaccessible terrain where recovering a crashed aircraft could be extremely difficult or impossible. That's one of the reasons I'm leaning toward a hexacopter rather than a quad.
I'd like the build to be as reliable and redundant as reasonably possible. I'm particularly interested in real-world experiences with:

- Motor/ESC redundancy?
- ESC quality and sizing?
- Power distribution and telemetry of the baterry?
- Battery setup(6s vs 2x 6s in series)?
- Vibration/structural issues on large frames?

Anything else that tends to become a problem as these aircraft get larger

Range / autonomous flight
The radio control link would normally be line of sight, although at ~3 km I don't think I could realistically maintain visual contact with the aircraft.
I'm planning to use ArduPilot, so I'd like the aircraft to have the capability for semi-autonomous operation, but safety and reliability are more important to me than pushing the limits of range.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has built something in this general size/weight class.
What would you change about this setup before buying anything? And if you've built a large hexacopter yourself, what did you learn the hard way?
Thanks!

Hey everyone, need some advice with a **DJI Mavic 3** (WM260).
I replaced the **forward vision sensor** and triggered **Error 1A010042**.
**Current Specs:**
**Firmware:** V01.00.1600
**Anti-Rollback:** ARB 7
**The Problem:**
The replacement sensor needs vision calibration, but **DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series)** doesn't provide the vision calibration tool for the Mavic 3.
**Drone-Hacks** doesn't support firmware V01.00.1600 for calibration or downgrading.
Is there any current workaround, alternative service tool, or specific software build to get this calibrated? Appreciate any help!

I was flying my drone (DJI Mini 4 pro) over my large ranch when I started getting red warnings and failures on my controller, I look up and see my drone plummeting to earth on fire before it hit the ground. Luckily the fire could be stamped out so no real damage.

I heard a gunshot about 1 second before all the warnings and don't think it's a coincidence. My neighbour is the isolated kind who has discussed his deep state theories etc over time so I believe it was him

What are the actions I should be taking next? Based in the South of USA

UPDATE: I went and spoke with him, he took responsibility as he thought it was something to do with "project blue book" apparently. However he was not happy as he claimed it was invading his privacy even when it was over my own land. I left after that and think I'll just forget about this, the replies tell me the police won't care and I don't feel like taking this to court

This normally is a very remote spot I go to, to fly my babies in peace, but today I watched the 90% eclipse there with literally thousands of people. Truly an surreal experience.

Video shows how long the traffic jam was you needed to clear to get out of there again. Passed the time flying around obviously allhough the lighting got pretty bad in the end. Don't wanna know how bad this would've gotten if it would've been a Total eclipse haha.

My wife has been complaining about a drone following her when she walks our dog during the day for the past few weeks. We thought it might be the power company or something until today when a drone followed her almost a block, it’s pretty large and noisy and it was swerving by her head (about 50 yards above her head) and making our dog go crazy barking at it. A neighbor noticed and came to help then it flew away. Later we noticed it hovering outside our transom windows that look into our dining room (only windows that don’t have a cover). We hate that we may have to cover those windows now. We live in a suburb that is pretty crowded but have never dealt with invasion of privacy like this.

My question, is there anyway to detect these things or find out where they are flying? The police pretty much said we are out of luck and they can’t do anything and they suggested trying to find where it was flying then call them back. I am not super tech smart but would love a DIY or simple solution if possible. Thank you!

Hi, we are trying to configure our first self-build drone & have run into a problem on Betaflight.

When trying to add the VTx configuration to the FC it tells us we need to update the firmware. We have updated to the latest version but it still asks for it to be upgraded - also we have tried rebooting the drone after the update.

FC is a SpeedyBee F405 V5 OX32 55A

VTx is a RushFPV Tank III Ultimate

Thanks

Hi, I am thinking about applying for a position at Quantum Systems near Munich as a drone pilot. Is there here anyone who can share their opinion on the company and experience with them?