Drones, the good, the bad and the ugly

If you type the word drone into google you will get over seven million results.  Typing the word drone into google trends you can see the graph will show the interest start to creep up around 2014 and spiking before Christmas every year since then. 

The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for war-fighting was the Austrian incendiary balloon attack on Venice and occurred in July 1849, serving as a  balloon carrier  (the precursor to the  aircraft carrier)  in the first offensive use of  air power  in  naval aviation. 

In more recent times, a  drone  is essentially a flying robot that can be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems, working in conjunction with on-board sensors and GPS 

Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles seem to have been around for a long time but as technology has evolved they have become more commercially available to your average Joe. It seems like you can’t go anywhere these days without seeing a flying object going 40mph overhead recording you in 4k video. Police departments across the country are buying drones that they can use for surveillance and related activity. Surveillance and the ability for drones to get into hard to reach areas gives you a different point of view and is a big advantage of the technology. If you look online you will see many different ways they can be used this way, there are countless news stories out there and new ones cropping up every day as we figure out what they are capable of. Some recent stories include weighing a whale and finding a man who had been on the run for 17 years hiding in a cave.  

Some other popular uses include construction sites, precision agriculture, structural safety inspections, journalism, conservation as well as military. For better or for worse there is no denying that drones are here and they are here stay. With so much potential companies are taking this opportunity to offer these services from one man bands to large established business’ with multiple employees. In the UK there is no such thing as a drone licence. However, there is a necessary permission put in place by the CAA. If you are employed by a company to fly a drone for commercial purposes, then you or your company must have a PfCO.  

The latest contraption I come across was a drone used in the water industry. The drone had a camera attached to it and was encased in a large sphere cage (it reminded me of one of them fairground rides that shoots a caged ball up into the air on a bungee). It was used for inspecting the inside of large tanks or pipes where it is difficult, dangerous or impossible for a human to clamber in and inspect themselves. The cage itself acted as a protection barrier for the device to bump into the wall and the drone would remain safe. Used in the same industry there are others that have thermal images cameras on them which can be flown over pipeline routes to detect leaks, you can imagine how much easier this must be making the job of finding the leaks, having the ability to cover vast areas in a small amount of time. 

Recently in the news there was a report of a drone getting dangerously close to Heathrow airport causing the airport to be put on lockdown and all flights were put on hold, triggering a considerable amount of chaos for airline companies and commuters. After a lot of flak to track down the operator and find out their motive it turned out to be a climate protestor. I think this shows how hard it is or would be to enforce regulations especially when it comes to flying in unpermitted areas, just look at the news stories of criminals using them to smuggle contraband into the jails.  

Drones, like a lot of technology have the ability to do good or bad, whatever your experience with them there is no denying that they can be incredibly useful if used in the correct way. What is worrying is how accessible they have become over the past few years and how hard it seems to regulate them.  

Another major use would be in the film and photography industry, I have a small DJI drone not much bigger than the palm of your hand but it can still record in full HD at 60FPS. I like the dramatic footage that can be produced by a drone used in film making. Slowly flying across landscape or revealing a different scene can create intense videos especially if you have a high quality camera with a stable gimbal. They can also create cool looking photographs as they give you a view that makes you wonder how the photograph was actually taken. I saw a close up picture of the liver birds in Liverpool, I was puzzled for a while as to how it was actually put together and I later found out it was with a drone. Check out the video below of some shots I got when on holiday in the Algarve, Portugal.