Suspend the scolding for a moment...

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...about everything that's unsafe, reckless, blah blah blah blah about this video. It's all been said a million times here, and I'm not arguing with any of it. That's not the point of this thread. The footage in the following video has been shot -- it can't be unshot. So let's talk about the content, okay?

I didn't shoot this. It's quite long, but it captivated me enough to watch the whole thing.

I had goosebumps. That feeling in my gut you get when you go over the top on a roller coaster. At some points, it kinda scared me.

Much of this was because I'm a drone pilot. There were things that only someone who has flown can imagine what flying their own bird in that video feels like. Non-pilots can't make the connection.

So, what do you think?

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Yeah I've seen that footage before and from a cinematic point of view it is well done and requires obvious skill by the drone operators. Yes it also rivals the behaviour of road users that I see most days and you try and steer clear of it. Would I ever try something like that? No I wouldn't as I wouldn't have the confidence to do so and it ticks all the wrong boxes and feeds into the confected outrage that some sections of our community thrive on.
 
Pretty sure that's one of Dirty Birds vids. He does some fairly daring stuff with Litchi and multiple birds. I think he ran the same waypoint mission on two birds and launch them seconds apart.
 
You reminded me to go check Ditybird’s vids for updates. Haven’t seen him around here for a while- a shame as he seems to be a good guy. Probably the most skilled autonomous flight planner I have seen work from.
 
Dirtybird was a great contributor to this forum for a while, but got sick of all the people on this forum who think they are the "drone-police" so he's not too active anymore, but he probably still lurks around from time to time i suspect....... he's quite a Litchi master, all his work is simply fantastic.... Salute to Dirtybird!!
 
Dirtybird was a great contributor to this forum for a while, but got sick of all the people on this forum who think they are the "drone-police" so he's not too active anymore, but he probably still lurks around from time to time i suspect....... he's quite a Litchi master, all his work is simply fantastic.... Salute to Dirtybird!!
From his YouTube page.

"A Phantom is usually the unsung hero capturing the action behind the scenes, but today the Phantom is the star of the show! Join Phantom 3 Standard "Darth Videous" trailing sister ship "Miss Ruby" on a 17-minute, 7.2 mile, non-stop, thrill ride as the pair soar high above Baltimore in an epic night version of "Follow the Leader."

P3 Standards. Both! Impressive. Next week I'm going out on an edge and fly mine a new distance record of 700 feet!
 
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Pretty sure that's one of Dirty Birds vids. He does some fairly daring stuff with Litchi and multiple birds. I think he ran the same waypoint mission on two birds and launch them seconds apart.
The birds are stock & each is running autonomous Litchi flights based on "The Baltimore Run" mission. Chase bird "Darth Videous" is set to start ~25' behind lead bird "Miss Ruby" on point. Waypoints are identical except the chase bird is set +10' at each point to maintain a degree of vertical separation. This mission only needs some slight tweaking of camera angles to get 100% coverage of the lead bird throughout the entire flight. Note: This flight is 7.2 miles in length with 75 waypoints & near constant altitude changes. Not 100% perfect but it is pretty damned amazing how close the birds executed this mission.
 
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His flight plan was very well calculated and executed, he's a very good pilot, programmer and videographer, I would not attempt that but he did a dang good video(s). You just can't plan this type of flight path with google earth you have to go and verify elevations and obstacles, I'm sure this took many hours of planning before he sent his birds out.
 
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I didn't see anything here remotely (no pun intended!) dangerous. If you haven't flown by tall buildings like that before it's very deceiving how close they appear on the screen. I almost freaked out when I turned and all I saw on the display was glass and steel! Looked like I was 10 feet away when I really was 300 or more. I think it's the way the buildings just fill up the screen it makes them look a lot closer than they are.
 
One wicked cool video. I would be thrilled to have the skills to do that with ONE bird, let alone two.
 
From his YouTube page.

"A Phantom is usually the unsung hero capturing the action behind the scenes, but today the Phantom is the star of the show! Join Phantom 3 Standard "Darth Videous" trailing sister ship "Miss Ruby" on a 17-minute, 7.2 mile, non-stop, thrill ride as the pair soar high above Baltimore in an epic night version of "Follow the Leader."
I laughed out load at "Darth Videous" :D

His youtube channel is amazing!
 
The birds are stock & each is running autonomous Litchi flights based on "The Baltimore Run" mission. Chase bird "Darth Videous" is set to start ~25' behind lead bird "Miss Ruby" on point. Waypoints are identical except the chase bird is set +10' at each point to maintain a degree of vertical separation. This mission only needs some slight tweaking of camera angles to get 100% coverage of the lead bird throughout the entire flight. Note: This flight is 7.2 miles in length with 75 waypoints & near constant altitude changes. Not 100% perfect but it is pretty damned amazing how close the birds executed this mission.
This has inspired me to try a small (very small!) "follow the leader" mission with my P4 and Mavic today. It looks really fun.

However, I don't have the cohones to try anything like what he did... hence my wetting my pants watching his video :D:D:D
 
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Very neat video. My concern about flying a mission like this would be interference. My guess is he probably flew missions on this flight path previously.
 
Very neat video. My concern about flying a mission like this would be interference. My guess is he probably flew missions on this flight path previously.

This was a Litchi Waypoint Mission, so unless your "interference" concern is with GPS or compass, it's not relevant to this type of Litchi flight. The complete mission is uploaded to the birds before leaving the ground.

Nothing for the pilot to do except wait and have happy thoughts for the safe return of the aircrafts.

BTW, I agree, very neat.
 
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Wow! Very impressive bit of programming or flying or whatever you wish to call it.

Some serious detail work went into that, especially dealing with the amount of moveable cranes throughout the video.

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