Lady Gaga to Arlington - Planning Coordination Execution
The Big Game was fantastic and the halftime show gave the world another great drone show (not to mention Lady Gaga). Intel and their 300 drone sequence really set the show apart and I'm sure took concerted planning, coordination with the local authorities, security/enforcement and the FAA. There have been a few stories written about their efforts (thanks Ivan for sharing) - wired article
On a similar note, a friend recently saw Cirque du Soleil's Broadway show Paramour. In typical Cirque form it was mesmerizing and featured 8 drones flying around the stage and above the audience in perfect sync with the acrobatics of the show.
I thought I would share my experience helping a friend take some drone images of his Lockheed 12 at the Arlington Airport (KAWO). It really all starts with planning. We talked about what was needed and came up with a list of items to address before this could happen.
1. Where did we want to film - at the runway!
2. When - in the morning to get the right lighting (decided this over a month before)
3. Who did we need to coordinate:
Flight Crew
FAA
DJI (we were using DJI drones)
Observers
Insurance and Legal Paperwork
Flying at an airport is a daunting project and we took it very seriously -- we certainly did not want to set back the drone industry by having an incident. Surprisingly the FAA and Local Flight Crew were the easiest part and we were able to get approval in writing from the Airport Operations Coordinator.
The hardest part was working with DJI and their geofencing service - the web page for submission was tricky... learning that only Apple devices were supported, proving identity, providing drone serial numbers (we wanted to fly 2 drones), processing multiple submissions and of course communicating with the Chinese staff and the ensuing language barriers certainly complicated things as well. That said, I wouldn't want to place any blame on DJI , the entire industry is going through growing pains and I'm sure that their user experiences will improve as the industry matures.
Overall I believe that geofencing is a critical piece of the infrastructure in keeping the average drone operator safe - but I will say this took weeks and did not turn out exactly as I would have expected. No doubt, the drone industry is in its infancy, and I am happy to be a bit of a pioneer, but with quite a bit of effort, we had all the approvals - now picking a date to fly.
I'm based out of the Seattle area and weather is very unpredictable in this part to the country in November - we looked at the forecast and decided that a few weeks out looked ideal. As it turned out, the forecast was spot on... I coordinated with one of my team members (Alex) and Morgan (the airplane owner) the day before, and the decision was made to launch.
I put the drone on the back of my motorcycle, meet Alex in Kirkland and headed up to Arlington. The weather was overcast, but perfect for filming.
We meet Morgan and his flight crew and they pulled the plane out of the Hanger, and started it up - pretty awesome to hear the engines roar to life and think that this plane was part of WWII and was flown by one of the instructors that trained Howard Hughes.
The plane taxied out to the end of the runway and we were met by the local FAA representatives in her Prius and she takes our team and the drone fleet in the car out to the end of the runway.
Now the pressure is on to get great shots and see if things will work as planned. Rather than flying two drones at once, we decide to fly one at a time - mine first and then Alex's.
it turns out that you need to reauthorize with the DJI app - so I have my drone powered up (note very cold), and now have to enter in my credit card info even though I had provided them with the details earlier. This process takes valuable time (as we are under time limitations with the FAA and local KAWO staff), and I started to get concerned. Finally, we get Destiny (the name for my drone) aloft and then have some additional settings to deal with regarding flight distance. The delays actually causes the battery to get cold and now we're faced with reduced maneuverability until the battery heats up.
The shots look good and I am now out of battery - time for us to use Alex's drone. We use the Litchi app instead of DJI's and find that there is no geofencing to deal with and he gets some great footage. We get the drones back, upload our logs to droneCOMPLY for analysis. and then upload the video and images and provide them to Morgan for use in his marketing materials. The FAA is happy, Morgan is happy and we are feeling great --- our Big Game of sorts --- planning, coordination and execution is a winning formula!
-Hos
