Equipment:

• P4P (normal props)
• six batteries
• iPad pro
• Emlid Reach RS
• Maps Made Easy Map Pilot
• EZsurv PRK software
• Photoscan for photogrammetry
  

70% overlap, about 800 images
flight 90 meters AGL

Location: X-Lazy-R ranch Colorado (~10,000ft MSL)

Process:

Walked the property with the Emlid, captured 20 ground control points. Used existing features for GCPs that I (thought) could easily be seen from the arial photos.
Before arriving at the ranch, I'd cached images in Map Pilot, along with elevation data.
Using Map Pilot, flew a single mission, which turned into nine battery swaps. Note I had six batteries, so I was charging during the flights.

Lessons Learned:

• I couldn't detect any degradation in P4P flight performance despite the altitude. Batteries may have lasted 80% of normal, but the actual flight performance seemed normal....except for the noise. It was loud! I assume, unlike an engine, that the motors mostly maintained their efficiency at the higher RPMs.
• The flight took much longer than I 'd planned. I started in the morning, and the lack of sunlight forced a slow two meters/sec flight for the first 90mins of flight.
• Map Pilot does a great job of caching the base images of the flight plan......HOWEVER, if your device thinks it's connected to the Internet for a few seconds, say from a cell tower too far away to really provide access, you may lose the cached maps!!!!
• 90 meters AGL is higher than I normally operate when making maps, so my choice of ground control points wasn't great. Some I couldn't identify in the captured images.
  

Equipment:

• P4P (normal props)
• six batteries
• iPad pro
• Emlid Reach RS
• Maps Made Easy Map Pilot
• EZsurv PRK software
• Photoscan for photogrammetry
  

70% overlap, about 800 images
flight 90 meters AGL

Location: X-Lazy-R ranch Colorado (~10,000ft MSL)

Process:

Walked the property with the Emlid, captured 20 ground control points. Used existing features for GCPs that I (thought) could easily be seen from the arial photos.
Before arriving at the ranch, I'd cached images in Map Pilot, along with elevation data.
Using Map Pilot, flew a single mission, which turned into nine battery swaps. Note I had six batteries, so I was charging during the flights.

Lessons Learned:

• I couldn't detect any degradation in P4P flight performance despite the altitude. Batteries may have lasted 80% of normal, but the actual flight performance seemed normal....except for the noise. It was loud! I assume, unlike an engine, that the motors mostly maintained their efficiency at the higher RPMs.
• The flight took much longer than I 'd planned. I started in the morning, and the lack of sunlight forced a slow two meters/sec flight for the first 90mins of flight.
• Map Pilot does a great job of caching the base images of the flight plan......HOWEVER, if your device thinks it's connected to the Internet for a few seconds, say from a cell tower too far away to really provide access, you may lose the cached maps!!!!
• 90 meters AGL is higher than I normally operate when making maps, so my choice of ground control points wasn't great. Some I couldn't identify in the captured images.