Practice, and training make perfect. Or at least prepared.
Texas Hill Country is full of interesting, and challenging terrain. To keep flying skills honed, a pilot needs to challenge themself regularly.
On this day I selected a spot along the river with that has a small but fast moving tube shute, just above the Horseshoe tubing section of the river. The objective was to get as low, and close to the water, fly up the chute, but maintain smooth flight while not crashing.
The following example is the best of several runs made that day, flying the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom in cinematic mode.
Lessons:
- flying in tripod and cinematic mode drastically mutes inputs and performance of the drone
- planning and previewing the flight path in a higher performance mode is advisable, see exactly what angles are required and obstacles that need to be cleared before using the more cinematic modes
- have a plan in case you crash into the water, position someone downstream to recover the drone if it goes down; littering up rivers is not an option.
