03.12.19

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Into the Drone-iverse. As mentioned in my last blog, yes, the one that I said I would return to posting vaguely regularly, I have bought a drone. A Mavic Pro 2 to be precise.
Now the Blog will be a mixture of thoughts and musings and drone stuff as I get ready to be a fully licensed and bookable sound recordist and drone op.

Between the time I’ve bought the drone and now I reckon I’ve got about 30hrs of flying in. I got some done whilst on Gold Rush but since coming home things have slowed down, a mixture of family time and responsibilities then work and finally have meant that the opportunities to fly are few and far between. The time to focus on it is fast approaching. Let’s hope the weather holds for me.

I had to get “recognised” as a drone op sooner than expected. Luckily for me Abbie was watching BBC Breakfast one morning and on came the report saying that all drones – commercial and amateur – had to be registered and approved. Luckily no ops manual required – the thing that I think most people get the yips about – but 20 questions on a gov.uk site making sure you had a vague idea of how to be safe and polite with a drone.

With that done and now some stickers on order to have my “OP Number” emblazoned on the drone I am ready to fly – for fun – again.

My course is booked for the end of January, I tried to guess a time where I wouldn’t be booked to the max and that seemed as good a time as any. Luckily Heliguys have already said that they don’t have a problem either refunding the fee or transferring it to another date should I have something come in that conflicts.

Once the course is completed the next thing will be to get the Ops Manual completed, do the test and then I’m ready to fly and film. It’s really that simple isn’t it?

So, this first drone based blog will cover the first flights. Thankfully only the first flights and not a first crash. There were probably some moments an experienced drone pilot would have winced, but for a novice, I think I did very well.

The first flights were all done in Yukon, Canada. I purposely bought the drone before I left as I knew from previous experience that I would be in a) Wide open spaces with Very, very little air traffic or areas that would have restricted air space b) Sundays in Dawson City can be pretty slow after the phone call home in the morning and before the Prime Time football coverage starts in the Eldo. So learning the drone and getting some hours in seemed like pretty productive time spent c) Yukon is beautiful, so even if the shots were a little ropey the scenery would take peoples eye rather than anything else.

The video runs pretty long, a lot has been left on the cutting room floor believe me.

It’s not hard to find things to film in Dawson and surrounding areas, there’s plenty of things that catch the eye.

The George Black Ferry, Dredge Number 4, The Dome, Dawson City itself, Dredge Tailings on the outside of Dawson City and of course some of the more modern machinery that goes into Gold Mining all make an appearance as well as a little bit of Camp life as it’s lived by the Raw Crews.

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