I’m growing very tired of the rampant drone paranoia and I feel the need to debunk some drone myths.  I hate to even use the word “drone,” because most people equate them with unmanned military aircraft which are used to spy on the enemy, or used as weapons.  Most of us who fly what I prefer to call unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), are not interested in spying on anyone.  Many are hobbyists who love the challenge of building these vehicles and flying them.  Others are professionals who use them for aerial imagery, mapping, thermography, real estate, fire prevention, search and rescue, or agriculture.  I dove into this platform to shoot photos and videos of golf courses.

Fear

Most people fear what they don’t understand, and drones are not well understood.  The natural reaction to these devices is negative.

#1 Camera Limitations / Wide Angle Lenses

One big paranoia is the “invasion of privacy” aspect.  Sure, a “drone pilot” could fly an aircraft over the neighbor’s backyard or near the neighbor’s bedroom window and take photos or video.  What most people do not realize about the cameras on most of these aircraft is that they’re equipped with very wide angle lenses. Think GoPro, a camera designed for action sports where the subject of the video is close to the camera, but the background is still in focus. In order to get a clear photo of someone in their backyard or their bedroom with such a camera, the aircraft would have to practically be up against the window.  Even then the limited capabilities of the camera would make any photos or video extremely difficult to capture.

Forget zoom lenses.  Almost no camera equipped UAV’s have zoom lenses because of the weight and vibration.  Weight means lower flight time and more tweaking to the craft to keep it balanced.  Vibration of the aircraft is magnified with bigger zoom lenses, making it nearly impossible to get a clear photo or video with a zoom lens.

I remember talking to a friend who hated drones.  He said, “I hate those things.  They’re an invasion of privacy.  You could use that to see if I’m home.”  This is such an uneducated statement.  How could one tell if someone is home by taking a wide angle photo of the house?  Take a look at the photo below and tell me which family is home and which one is at Disneyland.

Who is home and who is not? Can you see the naked lady in her bedroom?

There are better and less obtrusive ways of finding out if someone is home (so one could presumably rob them). First, one might KNOCK ON THE DOOR. If nobody answers, there’s probably nobody home! One could also check Facebook or social networks. Great posts like “the family just arrived for our vacation in the Bahamas” reads like “come rob us blind” to a crook with a computer. One might even use a telephone to call the residence. None of these three are-they-home solutions require buying a $1,500 remote control toy, plus $400 for a camera!

Here’s a better solution for catching photos or video and invading someone’s privacy.  How about using a telescope?  How about a DSLR camera with a powerful zoom lens?  Perhaps some binoculars?  All of these allow the “spy” to be fairly far away, hidden from view.

Now THIS is a much better way to covertly snap photos of the fat neighbor sunbathing nude…

#2 Noise

These craft are not quiet by any means.  UAV’s can be as loud as a weed whacker or lawnmower.  My hexacopter is almost as loud as a gas powered riding lawn mower, plus it is airborne so the sound travels even farther!

Check out this video for an idea of the sound:

#3 Wind/Weather

Most of these small remote controlled aircraft are unstable in wind and can’t fly in bad weather.  An unstable craft is not a great platform for a spy camera! It could be quite difficult to keep a UAV/drone airborne outside the neighbor lady’s window and in the perfect position to pick up any kind of photos or video with no wind at all.  Mix in a small breeze and the “spy” would spend more time trying to line up the shot than his batteries would allow.  See next list item.

#4 Short Flight Times

Most small aircraft like the drones we are talking about here have very limited ranges and limited flight time.  These battery powered devices have flight times between 3-10 minutes on average, with a few able to make it 10-20 minutes.  Both of my aircraft which have cameras on them range in flight time between 7 and 10 minutes.  After that?  I have to land and change batteries.  Very efficient for spying!

#5 Short Range

The range on most of these craft is very limited, and much of the control is via “line of sight,” meaning the flyer has to see the craft to guide it.  Some are equipped with more sophisticated FPV (first person view) equipment, but that equipment has its limits as well.  So if the drone is blocked by buildings or too far from the person controlling it, the signal will be lost and possibly the craft.  Very few flyers have aircraft which are capable of longer range flights, and/or flights in which their radio signals can pass through or around buildings or over a few hundred feet.

#6 (BONUS thanks to Anthony C. ) The Drone is Visible

The best spy is the one who can do his job without the target realizing it.  The best spy is one who is not seen or heard.  The noise of the drone makes it heard as mentioned in #2 above.  Due to the need for relative close proximity to the target, the drone will be VISIBLE.  Many drones are equipped with lights to allow the user to know which direction the craft is flying and indicate remaining battery life, GPS lock, and other things.  These lights make the drone even more visible, especially at night.

Don’t Flatter Yourself

A neighbor saw me flying a small quadcopter (about 350mm wide) and was very irritated.  She said to me, “that thing can steal phone conversations!”  Despite my correcting her and telling her she should be more suspicious of her own government stealing her private conversations and information, she still believed my toy helicopter was recording her every word.

Assuming I had the technology to spy on her, what is to gain for a person like me to spy on this lady?  She’s not a supermodel bathing naked in her backyard.  She’s not rich.  She doesn’t have top secret information I could sell to foreign governments.  I have no interest in her, her private matters, her private parts, or her phone conversations.  Most who fly remote controlled aircraft would say the same.  They’re not interested in spying on people.  Pilots are interested in the challenge of building, maintaining, and flying these aircraft.  Many also like capturing great photos and fantastic videos of scenic things like waterfalls, mountains, golf courses, lakes, boats, sports… I could go on.

Conclusion

So IF a drone owner like me actually wanted to spy on a neighbor, which I do not, the cheapest spying drone setup is a $1,500-$2,000 loud craft which is hard to pilot (only in favorable weather) which would have to be right up against the window, or just a few feet from the target.  It could only fly for 3-10 minutes before having to return for a battery change.  Once the aircraft is in place and able to capture video/photos, the image is super-wide and doesn’t show much detail but for items within a few feet of the camera.

Sounds like a reasonable spying solution.

Friday I was competing in a local golf tournament at the area’s most scenic golf course.  As the tournament was to start at 10 a.m., there was an opportunity for me to get some flyover videos and photos of this great place.  As the sun was coming up over the mountains and the morning dew was glistening, I found a perfect spot to launch the big hexacopter.  From this spot on the 2nd tee I’d get holes 1, 2, 3, 10, and 11.

Upon power-up though, two motors beeped constantly and the SuperX flight controller LED light indicated problems.  The bird was not fit to fly.  I sat there looking at the absolute beautiful conditions, blue morning sky and sunrise, and NO wind.  I was gutted at missing this opportunity.

My first guess was that somehow the two motors (5 and 6) needed to throttle calibrated again.  Friday evening I started the calibration, but since the power was out at my house I couldn’t work too well on the bird.  Over the weekend I re-calibrated the transmitter’s stick ranges, re-calibrated motors 5 and 6, and re-calibrated the compass.

The motors still beeped and the LED indicated errors.

At that point I decided to change the motor outputs and see if other motors would behave the same on the flight controller’s 5 and 6 servo leads.  Sure enough, other motors would beep if plugged into 5 and 6.  Conversely, plugging motors 5 and 6 into 1 and 2 servo outputs on the flight controller resulted in them booting properly and being ready to arm.  That process eliminated the motors or ESC’s being the problem.  The problem was the flight controller itself.

I plugged the SuperX into the computer to see if the configuration was perhaps reset to a quadcopter instead of a hexacopter.  That would explain why only motors 1-4 would arm.  The flight controller shows up like a hard drive on the computer when plugged in.  That’s when I realized what the issue was.  The software which drives the flight controller was GONE.  Somehow the files were deleted or corrupted.

Simple solution, right?  Reinstall the software.  Not so simple.  To get it, one must log in to the XAircraft website and punch in the “unit ID number” which is found…. wait for it… when you run the software!   I had to send out feelers to the online community and to XAircraft for someone to send me the file SuperX.exe.  It took two days, but I finally got my hands on it.

Once the files were back on the controller I was able to find my unit ID, which I’ve now saved in case something like this happens again.  I successfully downloaded and installed the firmware to the controller and upon first tests, all motors were able to arm.

At that point I had to undo some of what I’d done over the weekend.  I had recalibrated motors 5 and 6 with different transmitter throttle endpoints, thinking maybe something was wrong there.  So I recalibrated throttle for motors 5 and 6.

I nervously took the bird out to the driveway and launched it.  It drifted quite a bit and something was off.  It only took a second or two of flying to realize that the yaw axis was reversed.  Left was right when rotating or when banking.  I had to land and reconfigure.  Landing was quite challenging and nerve racking as the bird was drifting and the yaw controls were reversed.  I managed to land without damage.

At that point I realized it was probably a good plan to do the ENTIRE setup/calibration over.  It was the only way to make sure everything was correct.  After doing that I took her for another flight.  This time the bird flew solid.  The yaw axis was correct and it responded as it should.  I’m thinking I might go back down to 1.1 on the gains instead of 1.2.  Also the gain knob somehow has been set to -33%, rather than zero.  I’ll have to fix that.

Conclusion

It took three days (not 24/7 hours) of troubleshooting to diagnose and solve the problem.  The copter is 95% back to where I had it prior to this issue.  I’m not sure what caused the files on the flight controller to simply disappear.  I’ve read that virus protection software in Windows could be a cause, but I run a Mac most of the time.  However I do have to run Windows to configure the software.  I theorize either some kind of static problem, or perhaps in running Windows and Mac simultaneously with the controller plugged in something was messed up.

I’ll certainly be more cautions when attaching the FC to the computer and when I’m powering it up or down.

I’ve got that other 5% of tweaks, then I can get back to finishing off my FPV setup.