"Rise of the Drone"

So, my former part-time employer, Mitch (owner of Tailwinds Hobby Center), wanted to try some air-to-air video with his drone, and became one of the first guest pilots to share airspace on the hill.  





I was looking forward to some high-def footage of my 3 meter B.O.T. cruising the sky and gliding gracefully to a landing in my front yard strip, but it was not to be this time around.   I let thing get away from me and pick a fight with a steel fence post...which it lost quite handily !!  On short final, the east wind (kinda rare here), spilling across the barn and trees, tipped the B.O.T. up on it's right wing, and the resulting turn put it behind the cedar tree...where it encountered the fence post!

The B.O.T. was packing a GoPro on each wing tip, and the one on the left wing was chucked into the weeds...found a while later with the help of the OTHER GoPro, which conveniently recorded it's departure, and gave us an idea of where to look.





I REALLY shouldn't have been making those jokes about busting the B.O.T.'s right wing to match the repair on it's left...



Guess I ought to buy myself some orange Monokote...



So....the 2 meter B.O.T. was hauled out, fueled, and had a GoPro stuck to it's nose.  The little glider had a lot more luck than it's big brother, and we shot several flights before sunset.  We need to work on our coordination, and need a slower plane.  The B.O.T.'s screaming Tee Dee had it blasting around Mitch's drone, so the next time out, I'll be flying Mud Dabber, my Sig Kadet Mark I at a lot more leisurely pace.



The B.O.T.'s GoPro photo of Mitch's drone:







Gonna crunch a video of the best stuff...we've still got some work to do to get some closer shots, but it was a lot of fun.