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Why Helicopters over Drones???


ajnkzn

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Can someone who is in the know explain to me why you still see 1 - 3 helicopters doing the filming at big races like Epic, Tankwa Trek etc?

 

Surely it's 

 

a) cheaper

b) more environmentally friendly in terms of fuel and noise and servicing etc

c) safer

 

to have drones and pilots deployed along the route at key points that warrant filming?

 

I am obviously wrong but it seems like a bit of a "look at me" thing for race directors et al to zoom around in choppers.

 

I am obviously not suggesting that no helis be involved, one has to have heli Medivacs available.

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I also thought about this while watching the Dakar. Why not lock a drone onto a car, and where the car goes the drone goes? Much more footage than the 30 minute repeats. And the proper drones can calculate when they need to return to base when the battery runs out. 

 

Same as the drones. Surely if the race is in moerlandspan, getting authorization to fly below 150 meters can not be that difficult?  

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Did this Lily drone ever make it to market?

 

Would be awesome if they asked one member of a team to use a follow drone like this.

 

Guess the limitations are the 20min battery life and live broadcasting from a drone.

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To fly a drone beyond visual range requires airframe licensing that is economically unrecoverable for the operators.

 

Range is limited by weight and battery capacity.

 

Not many pilots in the system who are capable and licensed to fly bvr.

 

Loiter time is limited

 

Close up visuals are hard to track. Most drones use wide angle lens cameras

 

The technology is existent

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Did this Lily drone ever make it to market?

 

Would be awesome if they asked one member of a team to use a follow drone like this.

 

Guess the limitations are the 20min battery life and live broadcasting from a drone.

No the DJi mavic beat it to market with similar features

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Run-time. Pure and simple. Multiple hours vs minutes. Unless you're talking military or super high level commercial drones, which come with their own problems and pricing issues.

 

 

Live feeds vs recorded feeds.

 

^^^^^^^^

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This, too. Live feeds also introduce their own issues wrt weight and such. A military drone is not a small thing...

Well they can be. Depends what you want it to do. Anything that flies long range missions will need fuel and a facility to refuel. So if tight spaces is the only option then we're talking about a rotary wing airframe.

 

Control bvr will need to via satellite or rf amplifier which brings additional problems wrt access to satellites or RF licensing.

 

Like you say if its military spec it's going to be big money and the insurance on that is more expensive than hiring a chopper per hour.

 

It's not an easy problem to solve on a sports media company budget...

The problem is essentially economics and a few legal hurdles with the FAA and CAA

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Well they can be. Depends what you want it to do. Anything that flies long range missions will need fuel and a facility to refuel. So if tight spaces is the only option then we're talking about a rotary wing airframe.

 

Control bvr will need to via satellite or rf amplifier which brings additional problems wrt access to satellites or RF licensing.

 

Like you say if its military spec it's going to be big money and the insurance on that is more expensive than hiring a chopper per hour.

 

It's not an easy problem to solve on a sports media company budget...

The problem is essentially economics and a few legal hurdles with the FAA and CAA

Yeah, as soon as you introduce range and longevity (of service) you get mucho problemo. 

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