Learning to fly a radio controlled (RC) copter

After the initial excitement and enthusiasm became the desire to shoot aerial video well, my first thoughts about getting ready for aerial video shooting was that it may not be as simple as it looked in the adverts.

So what were the risks and what could be done to minimise those risks.

Risks:

1. It may be to hard to learn to fly remote controlled (RC) aircraft - SKILL
2. You loose control of the RC aircraft - SKILL
3. The aircraft crashes requiring replacement or extensive repair - COST
4. The camera carried on the RC aircraft is damaged, destroyed or lost by falling from or crashing with the aircraft - COST
5. The aircraft hits and damages property or hurst bystanders or yourself - SAFETY
6. You might be doing something illegal - LEGAL
7. You might find it difficult to get permission to fly from landowners - PERMISSIONS
8. It might prove unaffordable to reach an acceptable quality level for the video or photos - COST

Having thought about the risks I decided to think about how I could learn to fly RC to start addressing the SKILL related risks.

I asked myself - does learning to fly a RC helicopter or quadcopter help you on your way to shooting aerial video or aerial photography? The web research I did was contradictory to say the least.

Let me be clear. I was a complete beginner with RC flying. A Christmas gift from my wife of a small indoor RC helicopter with contra rotating rotorblades was a fun start. However the number of crashes was far from encouraging. I eventually got a semblance of control over the craft and started to consider a larger aircraft which could potentially be able to carry a camera.

Fixed wing was out because the aerial video shooting I wanted to do would require hovering. So that left RC helicopters and multicopters.  The larger helicopters I researched came with the added issue of requiring significant additional skill to control pitch and yaw. Pitch and yaw is where the tail boom swings left or right using a smaller propellor which needs to be controlled to oppose the rotational forces when the main rotors spin faster.

Now honestly this seemed to be pushing into the distant future the day when I would be good enough at this skill to hold a heli steady for filming.  I tried this on a simulator (covered in a later post) and decided that I would crash a lot and it would take months at the very least for me to get proficient with larger RC helicopters. Just my view as a beginner.

That left multicopters. The cheapest and most common multicopter being the quadcopter with four propellors - one at each corner. Web reviews indicated that they had some inherent stability over single rotor helicopters. So they looked promising and that's where I headed to research and learn next.

So does 'Learning to fly a radio controlled (RC) copter' help prepare you for aerial video/photography? I would say that if you are already a skilled RC helicopter pilot then yes it would help a lot. You have learned about transmitters, receivers, battery issues (if you fly electric powered helicopters), where to fly and you may be a member of an RC group who will give help and support. Is that that whole story for aerial video/photography - no it's not. If you are just starting out like I am the best suggestion to gain basic skills is a simulator. Will it be just like the real thing? No. But it will help and virtual crashes cost nothing!