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Remote Control Aerial Platforms - part 5 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Mike McNamee Published 01/12/2012

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Building progress work is an obvious application.

Safety

Airframe and bystander safety is a vital consideration. A minimum of £5m of third party public liability cover is required by the CAA, but some organisations demand higher than this, eg the BBC requires £20m but that can go even higher if celebrities are at risk.

The airframes will auto-return to base and land under radio failure conditions, but battery management is absolutely vital. Telemetry measures and sends voltage data and high-pitched warning tones for low voltage, but the pilot must ensure that they have sufficient charge in the tank to make a controlled decent if they are working high. It can take a full two minutes to descend from the maximum allowed 400 feet - much quicker if the batteries are exhausted! By using a rolling recharge programme (with as many as four batteries on charge at any one time) it is possible to keep flying with regular returns to base. Charging time is around 40 minutes. The actual flight time depends upon payload but about six minutes is typical, with a two-minute safety margin on top of that. In very rough terms halving the payload will double the flying time.

The camera of choice for many users is the Canon 5D but Quadcopters were very interested in both the weight and capabilities (we took prints!) of the Fuji X-Pro we took to show them.


The Costs

Airframes with a capability of lifting a GoPro start at around £800 and go up to £12,000 for a heavy lift rig. The setting up costs, including insurance (starting at about £1,500 for public liability plus another £750 for insuring the airframe against loss) are obviously high, a photographer would need to formulate a good business plan before embarking upon a flying career! However, Quadcopters are available for commercial hire starting around £1,200 per day excluding expenses.

That might give you the opportunity to test the water before you took the plunge.


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1st Published 01/12/2012
last update 21/07/2022 08:46:25

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