Kodo Wrap Up
After about 3 hours of flight time, I was confident with the Kodo in beginner mode. I was able to immediately take off and maintain a decent hover. Every time I crashed it was due to making adjustments that were too extreme mainly due to panic on my part.
In this video, I recorded a little footage using the Kodo’s built in camera.
As you can see, it’s really just for personal amusement and nothing more. Sadly, the microSD card that came with the Kodo was defective and after a couple of uses became unusable resulting in about 30 minutes of lost video. Be thankful I lost that video and did not include it above. :)
Another hour or so of flight time spent flying the quad backwards (facing me) was very useful and helped if I wanted to change the direction of the quad and maintain control.
The Kodo has been a great learning tool and will continue to be so as I will use it to practice with instead of practicing with the larger Quads. And speaking of larger quads, it’s time to talk about what we have settled on with regard to a production grade quad that will fly a gimbal mounted HD or better camera.
The DJI Way and managing the pilot’s risks
After a great deal of research, we have concluded that, ultimately, the DJI Inspire 1 will be our UAV of choice for production. As noted in part one of this series of blog posts, we have calculated the cost of investment and ROI.
What I have not spoken about much yet is risk. And there are a wide variety of risks associated with this type of work including, but not limited to:
- You book a gig to shoot aerial. Either before the gig or during the gig you crash the UAV or suffer some other form of catastrophic failure. Goodbye gig unless you have a backup.
- You crash the UAV and cause damage to other persons and or property. This can happen even with the best pilots. The UAV can have a failure in flight and go out of control. The pilot can make a mistake.
Let’s talk about the first one there. In an effort to provide us with a backup system to the Inspire one, we have identified the DJI Phantom 3 Professional (P3P) as a viable backup platform. The P3P has the same camera as the Inspire 1 so the footage will match. It lacks the stability and much of the capability of the Inspire but it offers these advantages beyond matching the camera:
- It’s relatively inexpensive: $1259
- It can withstand more of a physical impact than the Inspire
- It’s easier to repair than the Inspire 1.
This will be our first purchase. We will order the following:
- DJI Phantom 3 Professional
- 1 extra battery
- Prop guards
- Case
We are getting this case:
Which is a generic version of the same DJI case that goes for $150.
Depending on when we take delivery, best case we will do a maiden flight with it around the weekend of the 12th. I will, of course post following that flight.
Now, on to the second item there.
Insurance
Ya gotta have it. You will need to extend your business liability insurance in the event that you damage property or injure someone while in the course of filming with your UAV.
If you do NOT intend to use your UAV for business, you can get insurance by joining the AMA. It’s the most reasonable price you will find for this kind of insurance.
Regardless of your use, everyone needs damage insurance for their UAV. Our research has identified only ONE underwriter of this type of insurance:
Looks like really nice coverage. We are early in the development of both UAVs and the cottage industries that are popping up to support them outside of the realm of the neighborhood hobby shop. More options will appear as the UAV world matures. Right now, we are just babies with this technology.
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