More boys and their toys : Ken Gibbs

BEWARE:  AN ARIAL, MECHANICAL TARANTULA

Recently, an XUNICEF member (I checked), who will remain nameless, wrote to me in some excitement because his son had given him a very expensive drone which he was busy trying to understand so he could ‘fly’ it.  The fact that he had, in the past, trained pilots to fly, seemed not to provide him with the necessary intelligence. . . .

His message to me:

I have a brief story from the other end of the spectrum.  We are talking very modern, cutting-edge technology -- a high end, hugely sophisticated drone, which after watching a video 40 times over 2 weeks and reading a lot, I got to fly yesterday.  Huge excitement made me realise I was not as hopeless and hapless as I thought!

My response to him:

Tut, tut, tut!  Boys and their toys?

I have a nephew who is a director of Xxxxxx and who spends a lot of time in the air, trouble-shooting for the company and is obscenely well paid for his troubles.  Naturally, his training was engineering and he and I share a quite effective philosophy about our various toys which require study to accomplish the handling of – if you get my drift.

Xxxx (his name) launches whatever it is and if it crashes, he gets his secretary to collect the remains and only then does he read the book of instructions to tell her how it should have been operated.  He applies the same approach to erecting a flat-pack Ikea bit of kit.  His poor secretary shakes her head any time there is a new parcel being delivered to their office.

Now, as far as your – probably quite expensive - drone is concerned, it’s best to remember that there is a top side and a bottom side so, before trying to launch it, ensure that the feet are ‘down’.  That way, when you start it with the control console, the drone should rise.  If you mistakenly put it on the ground the wrong way up, you’ll need new propellers. . .simple.  I hope that your drone comes with spare propellers?

You might want to consult your local air-traffic control people who are keen not to have amateurs operate a drone anywhere near an airport.  Here, where we have a very long runway at our local airport (Newquay) which is capable of handling jumbo jets because it is the first landfall for a lot of air traffic from the east coast of the USA and Canada, so is their default airport in an emergency.  A couple of clever dicks decided to operate their new drone near the runway, and found themselves locked up for their troubles.  Lost their toy into the bargain. 

I’m told that some people don’t like drones over their properties because they invade their privacy.  Thus, if you are operating your drone in any built-up area, make sure you fly high enough to be out of 12 bore, buckshot range. . . 

You improved my morning, muchly!