Drones - video and sound a new form of train watching?

Here is another cool video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWedSayZ64A

SkyNet is coming.....

Oh no its already here....

Another video with sound...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Tk_C5B8OU

Really like the tulip trestle one as well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRFyX_oFIDY

I have a DJI Phantom II Vision drone but it does not record sound. The plan is to take it over to Enola to shoot video . If it works out I will post here.

Brad

Makes everything look like a model railroad.

Now though we will here the complaining about how some people had a perfect shot of the 844 or 765  lined up and at the perfect time some jerk with a drone dropped it into view. And you thought people walking in front of you was a pain

(yea I am not a fan of those things)

cool video. Did you notice they had the smoke unit on the lead locomotive turned off.

What the heck is sky net?

OK J Daddy when are you going to come over and film my basement railroad ?

Clem k

Never watched any of the Terminator movies??

your not missing anything... he is referencing this beast...

Actually I think it ran out of smoke fluid right in the beginning of the shot!

I had fun watching this video last night... great fall colors:

http://vimeo.com/109689700

No, I guess that term came from that movie?

Some good videos.

Basically what we have today in the US, but the robots were more benevolent in the  movie

I shoot photography commercially and take aerial photos. I've been doing this for almost 3 decades. In my area is is becoming harder and harder to rent a high wing aircraft (like a Cessna 172) to use for aerial photography. Most places around here are schools and have sold them off for low wing aircraft. So now I am looking to purchase a drone for my work. Here is what I will be getting once it is released at the end of the month or next.  It has auto take off and landing, uses GPS for location and has sensors to tell it how far off the ground it is even for indoor flying. It allows for live video feed from the drone to an tablet like an iPad and the camera has a built in 3-Axis Gimbal for Stabilizing Camera, Captures 4K Video and 12MP Stills and the radio has a 1.2 mile range. Pretty amazing piece of equipment! Also the sounds in the video of the trains are dropped in post production. The drone props create noise that would drown out the trains.

It's not my video, but I know who shot that.  Sound was recorded separately from a 2nd camera, and overdubbed in post.  You aren't going to get any usable audio over the noise of the drone itself.

I was thinking of purchasing this one... did not know you could make money with them... prices are really coming down.

The phantom can be controlled via an Ipad... very cool. This has an electronic gyroscope connected to the camera to eliminate any jerkiness of the drone movement.

This YouTube video of the 261 used a lot of shots from a drone camera as well. You can see the shadow of the drone craft in a few shots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...4lglYx52HIvXDIpPMGkw

Al,

what is the make and model of the drone?

Brad

Brad,

http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1

After the latest release of Lionel's catalog items this will be the only version I can afford....

How about one of these.

Not a fan of this.  Very dangerous activity.

What do you perceive to be so dangerous with this?

For those that DON'T want to learn to fly a drone, try the latest gadget!

Airdog and Airleash! A competely autonomous camera drone.  Push a button the leash, the drone takes off, and when done push a button on the leash and it returns home again.  Pretty cool.  Russ

https://www.airdog.com/showcase

LOL!  almost fell off my chair... the "mini me"

drone...

You really don't know?

- could be carrying a camera or could be something more deadly

- could lose control/malfunction and crash and hurt someone

- just last week, a promotion at a restaurant had a drone crash into a woman's face

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...ed-article-1.1858159

http://www.myfoxal.com/story/2...ith-man-hit-by-drone

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropoli...lls-man-in-brooklyn/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...-building-video.html

http://www.reuters.com/article...dUSKBN0G62I620140806

Rich I imagine your opinion of them may be a bit worse the first time you cross a bridge or exit a tunnel and one is hovering a bit too low to the tracks in an effort to get that awesome shot of the 765.

Like anything else there are some good uses with these, but I have already seen too many people who think its a cool new toy and try to get too near to something with little real knowledge how to use it.

"Like anything else there are some good uses with these, but I have already seen too many people who think its a cool new toy and try to get to near to something with little real knowledge how to use it"

Chris you hit the nail on the head... its really not the drones...it will be the idiots operating them.

Conversely, with a drone camera, look how many idiots will be kept off of the tracks.

Pretty sure the same things were said about the automobile at some point....  

What do you perceive to be so dangerous with this?

Ok... Buckle up.  Here we go.

If the videographer / pilot has permission from the railroad and operates his Forward Person View (FPV) aircraft with a spotter and the drone never leaves the spotters visual line of sight.  Then I do not have a problem.

However, too many people operate these things over public areas without any permission and do so alone sometimes flying miles away.  The drones have automatic "Return to home" GPS if the pilot get's disoriented or the batteries get low.

In my 20+ years of RC aircraft modeling it is not a case of if you crash, it's a case of when you crash.  Even the BEST pilots are not beyond mechanical failure.  And the RC industry does not have strict maintenance, reliability and inspection standards that the full size aircraft industry has.

Let's examine this comment above...

The plan is to take it over to Enola to shoot video

Is the pilot going to seek permission from the railroad prior to doing this?  So now the engineers not only have to worry about the rail yard and the tracks and the crew, but now they have to worry about a drone flying around their cab?

Is the pilot going to seek permission from the FAA?  Enola is in line with the flight path for final approach to Harrisburg International. 

In the 1st video above, the pilot was flying backwards.  Did he have a visual of his aircraft or was he using his FPV camera to ensure he got a great shot of the train?  Did you see how close he almost came to the light pole?  What if he hit that and crashed into the street of cars below or pedestrians?

Don't get me wrong... these things are cool.  They have great technology and the everyday Joe can get some really neat video of stuff they have never seen before.  But from my experience there are more stupid pilots then there are safe pilots following rules.

If you like these things... better buy yours now.  Because in a short time the government is going to do something about it and either shut it down or regulate the heck out of it.  I just hope in doing so they don't come after us regular AMA model flyers.  But I fear we will all be affected.

Ron

which is why you need a license to operate one

I have mixed feelings about personal drones. While they look interesting and fun, misuse could create a whole new class of problems.

And you may need a license for drones as well if the FAA has its way in the near future.