Archie wrote:for some hunts you want it to be a challenge
stihl88 wrote:Having recently acquired one myself i thought I'd shift some discussion in a recent thread here where it belongs.
Understanding Drones aren't for everyone they clearly have a place in recreational/professional shooting. How far you go comes down to personal preference, you just have to determine your threshold i.e. will you stick to using it for general scoping/scouting on pest animals and humane recovery of game species or will you go further and use it for scouting and herding of game species.
A few videos of such activities as follows:
- Sighting in firearms - Shooting with drone 1000 yards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6AS3Dau3iI
- Recovery of game - Top Ten Drone Deer Recovery Moments from 2022-23 Season https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQ128aoTwA&t=56s
- Scoping the lay of the land - Flying DRONE VS Sambar DEER - DJI Mavic MINI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAIlvL_h_dQ
Aside from a shooting aid i can see additional benefits such as;
- Property surveillance
- Monitoring agricultural activities
- General safety i.e. bushfire monitoring or just knowing when you need to clean your gutters!
At this stage I'm not aware of any laws preventing the use of drones for recreational shooting other than the CASA's usual drone rules such as keeping the drone within your line of sight at all times.
This is what i use, range is about 20 kilometers!!!
My experience with it so far is nothing but positive. Video quality is great and it virtually flies itself. In future I'll be attaching a Thermal camera to it but as there's no off the shelf options it will be a fairly extensive add-on that will require a mish-mash of parts to accomplish and will end up being something similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTbsvgiypa8
Anyway, i hope this is helpful to anyone hesitant or never paid much thought in pulling the trigger on something like this. I've got mates who refuse to use them, some who are interested in using one for monitoring livestock and some in law enforcement who are keen on using it for remote recovery type operations keeping them safe and increasing chances of recovery of life.
Archie wrote:Mate... if you’d seen me shoot offhand, you’d back the animal with the antlers...
More to the point though, and I know it’s silly, I’ll never give a pig a chance (and I’ll take shots on pigs that I wouldn’t on other animals) - but - for some hunts you want it to be a challenge. If you had planned a weeklong backpacking hunt for sambar and you saw one when you got out of the ute at the car park it would kind of take the fun away.
animalpest wrote:Archie wrote:Mate... if you’d seen me shoot offhand, you’d back the animal with the antlers...
More to the point though, and I know it’s silly, I’ll never give a pig a chance (and I’ll take shots on pigs that I wouldn’t on other animals) - but - for some hunts you want it to be a challenge. If you had planned a weeklong backpacking hunt for sambar and you saw one when you got out of the ute at the car park it would kind of take the fun away.
And we talk about "ethics" but that doesnt apply to pigs
bladeracer wrote:I've been considering it.
Do you need line of sight for control? I'd like to be able to send it down into some valleys that I can't see into. I assume you can "fly" it by viewing what it's seeing but can you still control it when it's out of sight behind a hill or a heap of trees?
No, technically you can fly wherever you want, just look at the live feed on the screen to see where you're going. Mine has obstacle avoidance so that will decrease your chance of hitting something you couldn't see as it applies the "brakes" if it thinks it's about to hit something. Having said that the live feed image quality on the DJI drones are amazing so you don't need this extra feature if you're cautious.
Regarding thermal, I bought one of those plug-in thermal cameras that connect to your phone. If the drone camera has USB-C input could I simply plug the thermal into it and cable-tie to the drone? The camera is pretty good but doesn't have any zoom. I might be able to spot a rabbit in the grass at 100m by eye (in daylight), but I'm not at all sure I'd pick up the thermal signature in the tiny screen of my phone.
Unfortunately it will need to be plugged into a Raspberry Pi board which also needs it's own battery-power supply with voltage converter and a video transmitter to send the video signal to a separate screen with a receiver attached to display the feed. All up it needs to be under 100g if you're flying the mini <250g Drones, ideally 50g max! The other away around this is to step up into the DJI drones that have onboard Thermal capability but you're looking at $5-6k +++ which isn't too bad considering a Thermal scope with same image sensor starts around the $4-5k mark!
Something else that occurs to me, if you had this with you in the bush and got into difficulty without a phone signal could you potentially use it to let somebody know you were struggling and where you are?
Absolutely you could, attach a note to the drone with your co-ordinates and fly it to the nearest road junction or populated location and you'll increase your chances of survival.
stihl88 wrote:@Jorlcrin
Have a look at the following factsheet, if you get a drone below 250g you should be good to go.
Jorlcrin wrote:stihl88 wrote:@Jorlcrin
Have a look at the following factsheet, if you get a drone below 250g you should be good to go.
I dont think the insurance company was concerned about my proximity to an airport; I think they have decided to view drones operating as potentially raising our rural propertys' insurance risk.
The sort of drone I'd consider useful for our purposes, will exceed the 250g limit.
Thanks for the fact sheet, though; some handy things to know in there, as far as what the authorities expect..
bladeracer wrote:
Significantly more likely with RC aircraft I would think.
bladeracer wrote:Anybody know of any instances of a drone starting a fire? I would think the likelihood is pretty remote but maybe it happened somewhere and insurance companies have been burned by it before?
Flyonline wrote:How so? Petrol, sure but battery operated wouldn't be any different. Don't know the stats, but I'm guessing these days most RC planes are now electric
I do know of one instance where a glider shorted across powerlines and was burnt out completely. Ironically, the electrics still worked - it was just the carbon that got fried in the airframe
Personally, I am cautious with flying with Lipos on hot dry summer days as a crash could cause a runaway battery starting a fire. Probably overkill as I've never had any batteries catch fire (and I've totaled a few planes in my time), but I'd hate to be the cause of a fire.