Category: SkyVector

Leasowe Lighthouse

By mere chance I stumbled across Leasowe Lighthouse while searching on Trip Advisor for restaurants within walking distance of Leasowe Castle ― spoiler alert:  There aren’t any…  The lighthouse is also briefly visible in the distance on Tinks’ flight over Leasowe Castle, from minutes 1:26 to 1:32.  Listed as Europe’s oldest brick-built lighthouse, I immediately knew that I had to unleash Tinker Bell on it…

Built in 1763, the lighthouse was in use until 1908 ― unlike the Lower Leasowe Light, that was also built in 1763 closer to the shore, but destroyed by the sea soon afterwards.  Historic records while ambiguous would suggest that the initial reflector installed was a parabolic mirror, which would make it the first reflector of that kind to ever have been installed in a lighthouse.

When it was closed in 1908, records indicate that the lighthouse keeper at the time was a Mrs Williams, which makes it the only lighthouse at the time known to have been occupied by a female keeper.  After becoming a tea room of all things for a while, it was vacant for an unknown length of time before becoming the base for the ranger service of the North Wirral Coastal Park in 1989.   It contains an exhibition for the ranger service, and is occasionally open to the public, though my understanding is that nothing of the original fittings as a lighthouse has survived.

Postprocessing was the same as with Tinks’ flight over Leasowe Castle.

As a side note, Tinks was not alone on this flight.  Only seconds after I launched her, a couple launched a DJI Phantom from the nearby parking lot.  For a moment I was contemplating to abandon the flight, especially since I was not sure that the other pilot had seen Tinks.  However, the other pilot did not seem to want to film anything in particular, and was flying over the meadows and the beach, so I decided that the risk of continuing with the flight was probably low as I was concentrating on the lighthouse.   The other drone is briefly visible in the video around 2:00, overflying the parking lot.

After I completed my flight I walked over and watched the girl land her drone while her boyfriend / fiance / husband had to hold down their dog to prevent it from going ‘fetch’ on it.  We had a quick chat afterwards.  Her Phantom was purchased second hand, and it would appear that she was flying it merely for the sensation of flying it, rather than for any specific purpose, and was not keeping any records of her flights…

Drone flying is certainly becoming more popular, and a while back two drones being launched independently of each other in the same place by mere chance would have been a really rare occurrence…

Leasowe Castle

Next, Tinker Bell stayed at Leasowe Castle Hotel. Not her choice, but rather the place was booked for me by my company. It is a really nice hotel, but it is also in the middle of nowhere, and thus was not ideal for the purpose.

However, since I was staying here anyway, I asked the concierge on Tinker Bell’s behalf whether she could do a fly-by of the hotel. The concierge had no objections, Air Map gave me the thumbs up, and off she went.

Interestingly, even though Air Map gave me a thumbs up, Tinker Bell complained about being in a Category D Zone. I checked on Sky Vector after the flight and indeed we were in a Category D Zone, but only from FL15 upwards ― so for a drone only in reach if the safety limits are switched off, and Tinker Bell’s were not. Clearly, the built-in safety mechanism does not take Flight Levels into account ― bearing on the safe side, I guess, but still a bit annoying…

Anyway, Leasowe Castle was built in the 16th century, and in spite of my misgivings about its isolated location, I have to admit that it is very picturesque. Virtually nothing is known about the original castle, not even who built it with any degree of certainty, or why ― there is nothing here really that needs protecting ― but eventually it became a family home, a home for railway workers, and finally a hotel.

Video edited on iMovie using my MacBook Pro.  For the first time I used the time lapse facility of iMovie to make the movie more concise.  This is not a BBC documentation after all…  I did consider sending the video through Quik for further compression, and at some point may still do so, if nothing else but to satisfy my curiosity what Quik will do with it…

Astro Park in Armagh

Tinker Bell‘s next adventure was going to be the Astro Park in Armagh.  This was actually my first commissioned work.  When Mel was over to see Northern Ireland, we did visit the Planetarium, but it was pouring down so heavily that we grudgingly decided to give the Astro Park a miss.  Mel hence requested that I get Tinks to make a nice video instead, so that she can look forward to her next visit when the weather will hopefully be better…

Pre-flight planning with SkyVector and Airmap. I do actually miss the “everything in one App approach” from Hover, but since it has proven unreliable, I do not really have a choice in the matter.

Video feed this time observed on my iPad rather than my iPhone, and indeed the feed was much more reliable and smoother, proving that my previous problems were not with the DJI Remote Controller, but with the limited memory and processing power of my iPhone.

Edited in iMovie on my MacBook Pro.

Hover is not Reliable!

As usual, I did my preflight preps today with the Hover app, first at home ― my location was shown to be outside any controlled airspace ― and then again just before take-off.  Again, Hover  gave me the thumbs up and green light, and so unsuspectingly I commenced Tinks‘ take-off sequence.  It was only at that point that the drone itself gave me a “You are inside Zone D” warning.

Cross-checking with SkyVector, it turns out that I was well within the Zone D Controlled Airspace of Belfast City Airport, and flying there would have been at the very least highly unprofessional, and depending on flight profile could possibly have been illegal.  Checking with Hover again, this zone was indeed neither shown on the map, nor picked up in the pre-flight checks.

This unfortunately leaves me with no choice but to abandon Hover, and in future do all my preflight planning with SkyVector ― which is a pity, because Hover was a nice one-stop solution for drone flight planning.  SkyVector on the other hand is a tool for private pilots’ flight planning, and as such is not geared towards drone flights, and lacks some functionality that drone apps usually have, like automatic location detection or weather forecast.  Since it is aimed at pilots, it also shows a lot of information that is irrelevant for drone pilots, and is hence a lot harder to read.

I shall keep looking, and see if there are other, more reliable apps out there for drone pilots.  However, after this incident I do not think that I will ever completely rely on any of those apps again, and will probably always check the VRF maps on SkyVector, just to be sure…

Update 14 June 2018:  I have now started to use AirMap, which seems more reliable than Hover, if maybe somewhat on the paranoid side of things, but that is better than not flagging up when I am inside a controlled airspace.

 

Dundrum Castle

Tinks next outing was a planned one. Looking for a strongly three-dimnensional object to celebrate Mel’s first visit to Northern Ireland, I was going through the list of ruined castles in the Province, and Dundrum Castle in County Down ― not to be mistaken for its namesake in County Dublin ― came up as a strong candidate.

After a short drive, we arrived to find the castle sitting beautifully overlooking Dundrum Bay and the Mourne Mountains. There were a few visitors, but enough space to fulfil the 30-meters-separation requirement for take-off and landing required by law, and the groundkeeper who was mowing the lawn had no objections to flying drones ― apparently it is done quite frequently there. So, with a clear conscience, Tinks took off and shot the following footage:

Dundrum Castle was constructed by John de Courcy, a Norman invader. The exact date is unknown, but he launched his invasion in 1177, and was ousted in 1204, so the castle must have been constructed between those two dates. It is thus closely related to Carrickfergus Castle, and must have been constructed shortly after the latter’s completion.

The castle withstood the siege of Hugh de Lacy during his struggle for dominance with John de Courcy, but was conquered by King John of England in 1210, who added the central round keep. The latter is unique in Northern Ireland, and is tactically and strategically superior to the square keeps other Irish castles featured at the time ― in 1210, it was cutting-edge defence technology. In all likelihood, Welsh masons had to be brought in ― presumably by King John ― to implement this in Ireland until-then unknown type of fortification.

The castle remained in English hands until the Parliamentarians withdrew from it in 1652 for reasons unknown. My best guess would be that with the Irish Confederate Army defeated, the Parliamentarians no longer saw a strategic requirement to hold the castle. With the war won, continuing to maintain the castle was presumably deemed unjustifiably expensive. The withdrawing Parliamentarian troops demolished the castle upon their departure, presumably to prevent Irish rebels from taking possession of the empty castle and turning it into one of their strongholds.

A mansion was later built sometime after 1660 to the South of the ruined castle, but anecdotal evidence has it that the owners overexerted themselves financially in the venture, and went bankrupt before the mansion could be completed. The mansion fell into disrepair and was ruined sometime between then and the early 19th century.

The movie was manually edited in iMovie again after I decided to abandon Quik. As a result, the movie is much longer than the previous two. In spite of annoying me in many ways, Quik did have the one advantage of forcing me to keep my videos short and concise. In future, I may try a mix-and-match approach, where I probably pre-edit the movie in iMovie, but then use Quik to shorten it.

I also have decided to play completely by the rules now, and only use royalty-free background music ― on this occasion “Evil Twin” by Movie Theatre. While I personally think that current copyrights are too harsh on people who use for non-commercial purposes a copy of a song they have legally acquired and paid for, the bottom line is that whether I agree with it or not, it is against the rules…