Hi there,

at my company (film making) I've been assigned as a drone assistant. My tasks include everything around the drone except for actually flying it (ocassionally I do control the camera though).
I've read a lot of stuff and considering the actual planing, getting the required permissions etc. and I'm fairly confident.
Our drone is a Inspire 1 RAW. Now I do have a few questions, but so far my research didn't lead me to any satisfying answers, maybe you can help me?

1) Connectivity issues
I know it's a drone and a 100% stable video feed isn't something we can just expect, however our Inspire seems to be off quite bad and it keeps getting worse. In every single flight, the video connection (mainly of the slave operator, but it keeps affecting the master more and more) usually cuts off, laggs for a few seconds. And that's fairly frequent, not a single minute without this issue, which is quite a big deal. Anyone here who has any ideas? The drone itself is from 2018, the controllers however were bought in 2017 (the drone was destroyed and therefore replaced once due to a technical issue (most likely failing motor)). So I consider the controller might be the cause of the issue. Any thoughts on that?

2) By any chance, is there a possiblilty to have a 3rd operator on the drone who can check the drones position on the map (would make our flights easier so we have a navigator that could warn us from flight restricted areas). Since we only have 2 controllers and I don't know if the inspire does support more than that, I'm really unsure about that.

3) I've read that a lot of propellers are supposedly unbalanced, is that really true, if so, is it recommened to fix that?

I'd be indefinitly grateful for every single answer.
Thank you in advance!

1. Try different device(s) with existing dual RC setup, perhaps more powerful processing/memory wise. Naturally radio communication is heavily distance and environment dependent. You must be prepared to experience shattered video feed at around 1000m radius, assuming VLOS maintained all the time. No miracles here ...
2. No. Plan your missions before flight studying the map.
3. A myth. I've checked several sets of original DJI props and they're all reasonably well balanced without a need for intervention.

This is a good guide, well done. I'd add that in addition to preparing for questions that you can answer, you need to be well prepared on how to answer questions that you don't know the answer to - know how to fail gracefully on a tech question. Too many people spend so much time studying for the answers to any possible question that they think they are covered, and don't have a contingency plan.










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