Oxford from my drone

I’ve had a drone for a few years now. It cost £30 from MenKind (if you’re not familiar, the spiritual successor of the Gadget Shop).

While it’s sort of fun to mess about with, the reality of cheap drone plus English weather means the slightest gust of wind will yeet the whole thing into the nearest hedge. Sure, you might argue that I have the hand eye co-ordination of an earthworm, but you can’t be too surprised that something this low budget isn’t particularly good.

The camera, in the words of one of my oldest friends, takes footage “like the CCTV they show on Crimewatch of the last time that person was seen alive”.

Anyway. Inspired by the lovely aerial footage seen in many YouTube videos these days, I decided to widen the budget a bit, and found myself a DJI Mini 4k on eBay:

My drone

I got a decent deal on the drone itself plus a spare battery and a carry case. And much to my delight, this thing is a lot better at stabilising itself, so even an amateur like me can make it go roughly where I want it to. The camera footage is excellent quality, although you do need to add a decent MicroSD card to the budget for it to go on.

This was also a good opportunity to make sure I was up to date on all the regulations. At the time of writing, as I understand it, for a sub-250g drone like this you need:

  • An operator ID stuck to the aircraft
  • A flyer ID indicating you’ve passed the multiple choice test from the CAA

You don’t have to have insurance for hobbyist use at this weight, but it would be mad not to given it’s about £40 for a year and it’s very possible you could damage someone else’s property by accident.

More on my YouTube channel when we get some better flying weather (so, next Easter or thereabouts…)