Future for New Solo Owner

everyone will have to decide for themselves about the future of solo
I am at the very least encouraged that the change of direction may turn out to work in solos favor
 
I use my own solo at the course I work at. It really isn't very hard to set up a cable cam in mission planner that will closely follow a fairway and then orbit the pin to look back at the tee. You can even set a rise and fall in elevation so it looks like the path a ball would take. Even with a good antenna trees are still an issue so it doesn't hurt to follow solo in a golf cart if you are flying low or plan shots so you can stand in a good clear area with the controller. I do get video loss through trees sometimes but solo still keeps flying fine and follows the cable unless it loses GPS. Our course is in a residential area so there is always the possibility of stray WiFi signals causing issues so I stay ready to fly manual if needed. Just a few things I noticed about golf course flying. Since you are developing them this might not apply, but golfers and geese don't like drones and both will attack if you get to close. Fly early before tee times.
 
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I use my own solo at the course I work at. It really isn't very hard to set up a cable cam in mission planner that will closely follow a fairway and then orbit the pin to look back at the tee. You can even set a rise and fall in elevation so it looks like the path a ball would take. Even with a good antenna trees are still an issue so it doesn't hurt to follow solo in a golf cart if you are flying low or plan shots so you can stand in a good clear area with the controller. I do get video loss through trees sometimes but solo still keeps flying fine and follows the cable unless it loses GPS. Our course is in a residential area so there is always the possibility of stray WiFi signals causing issues so I stay ready to fly manual if needed. Just a few things I noticed about golf course flying. Since you are developing them this might not apply, but golfers and geese don't like drones and both will attack if you get to close. Fly early before tee times.
Sounds cool- post some video if you can.

Many years ago, I lived on a golf course in Phoenix. Some guy attached a hook of some sort underneath his RC helicopter and would fly to the green behind my house. There, he would snatch golf balls before the golfers got there after teeing off.

He was very unpopular and one day karma struck. A golfer was close enough to the green to throw a club at the rotor-winged thief just as it was scooping up a ball. In a million-to-one throw he struck and downed the bird.

Several other golfers pounced on the sputtering beast and proceeded to pound the daylights out of it with their putters. (Try counting all the "P" s in that sentence, eh?)

Before the pilot could arrive, they raced off in their cart never to be identified.:rolleyes:
 
I use my own solo at the course I work at. It really isn't very hard to set up a cable cam in mission planner that will closely follow a fairway and then orbit the pin to look back at the tee. You can even set a rise and fall in elevation so it looks like the path a ball would take. Even with a good antenna trees are still an issue so it doesn't hurt to follow solo in a golf cart if you are flying low or plan shots so you can stand in a good clear area with the controller. I do get video loss through trees sometimes but solo still keeps flying fine and follows the cable unless it loses GPS. Our course is in a residential area so there is always the possibility of stray WiFi signals causing issues so I stay ready to fly manual if needed. Just a few things I noticed about golf course flying. Since you are developing them this might not apply, but golfers and geese don't like drones and both will attack if you get to close. Fly early before tee times.

Hey mountain!
The smart shot set-up you describe is exactly what I was thinking and am hoping to be able to do with my solo if I can get things sorted out. (see other thread). I had been wondering how much I might fight trees along the way. Of course a lot of my courses don't have many trees so maybe I will not have too much issue.
 
Just keep points of interest for the camera in mind as you make the cable. They are much easier to add in as you set up the cable than to put in afterwards. The tree thing is mostly just a little static until the tree isn't between you and solo anymore but it's a good idea to keep line of sight anyway. My videos are on my laptop and I will post one if any are recoverable or just make a new one after we finish aeration. The laptop was in a car fire and I haven't tried yet to see if anything is recoverable off the HD. I was waiting to post to YouTube until I finished all eighteen holes and the fire happened when I was only done with seven of them. I will probably have to make new ones after we finish aeration and I am not so busy but I saved my work in Mission planner so it shouldn't be an issue. I just need the time and a phone call to the airports(within 5 miles of two of them) to tell them it's going up again.
 
Cool. Ooh, hopefully you can save the info on your HD.

I am finding it pretty easy with the cable to set up nice shots. Maybe because I am the architect I already have the visions in my head. ? Light seems to be the bigger challenge. We are renovating a club here in Boise and a good portion of the work is basically a blow-up and new design with some new land so it is a nice combo of new construction evolution and renovation and transformation of other holes. Stayed late yesterday after the construction guys left at 5:30 and got some very nice shots with some great light and sky.
 
I have the mission planner files so it will be easy enough to replicate again if I can't. I missed a good opportunity to catch the course covered in a light ground fog the other day. That will teach me not to leave solo at home. The whole course looked like an old scary movie with fog covering patches of ground all over. It's nice to see you are figuring it out. A lot of it just comes down to trying things and seeing what works for you.
 

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