RC Plane Chase Using a Drone

[xviper]

Chasing a plane with another plane and keeping the subject plane in frame is hard. When done through goggles, it may be even harder. I've tried and it's very hard. Chasing a plane with an FPV quad is very, very hard. A young fellow who used to fly with me tried to do this and he is a very good FPV quad pilot and he was able to only capture my plane in frame for about 25% of the time. As good as he was, I believe he needed to be an "expert" FPV quad pilot (like a quad racing pilot who ranks high in competitions).
Another guy I fly with is also a fairly good quad racing pilot and he too, was only able to keep my plane in frame for a small percentage of the time. I guess being "fairly" good is not enough to chase a plane and keep it in frame. The best that can happen is the video is mostly full of scenery. The worst that can happen is a "mid-air".

So having said that, what are the odds that at any given flying field, you have someone who is at that high a level of quad racing skill?

[Turbinefancy]

Son is getting pretty good shooting at my plane from different angles. Some close calls though....

[Hoomi]

Yeah, we have at least a couple of guys flying FPV rigs on their planes, though I haven't seen them try to do chase videos yet.

I just go with the keychain camera mounted on the plane, so I record in-flight video, while flying line-of-sight.

[Turbinefancy]

Oh, did I mention there’s a head tracking cam in the Spitfire meant for dog fighting... hehe

[Turbinefancy]

Hoomi,

There’s always the option of putting the FPV camera on the plane, if you don’t call it a drone...

[Hoomi]

Nice!. Unfortunately, we can't do drones as video chase aircraft at our field, as our proximity to Marana Municipal Airport put our club in the position of needing to institute a firm "no drones" rule, to keep the airport from objecting to our presence.

[Turbinefancy]

Son chased my Avios Spitfire with race quad; at a safe distance this time. 80% playback speed to make footage look like full scale.

[Turbinefancy]

Apparently, chasing planes with a drone is a very niche pursuit. It takes two well coordinated flyers to turn out good results. Or there is always the easier route of using slow-motion;) My son and I recently started flying together to get better at this. He uses a race/freestyle drone which has proven to be much better suited than AP drones.

Here is a video of him chasing my Freewing P-51D Old Crow (too close):

[rifleman_btx]

I would love a good A10

[F106DeltaDart]

Hey Deltadart, I've been to that field before, long ago I came home on r&r from Iraq and had a twin edf F14 I had shipped to my friends house there, and we tried to fly it at the field there, but was severely underpowered and crashed. I thought it was a nice field to fly at for sure. That was pretty much when I ended my love for edf planes as well.

That’s awesome rifleman, you are welcome back here anytime you are in the area! Sorry to hear about the 14 though. As for Edfs, they have come a looong way in the last couple of years, ever since Motion got involved. Might need to get you on the sticks of the F-86 or A-10.

[rifleman_btx]

Hey Deltadart, I've been to that field before, long ago I came home on r&r from Iraq and had a twin edf F14 I had shipped to my friends house there, and we tried to fly it at the field there, but was severely underpowered and crashed. I thought it was a nice field to fly at for sure. That was pretty much when I ended my love for edf planes as well.

[Turbinefancy]

F106,

Cool videos with very cinematic music. You are right about the speed difference between typical plane and Aerial Photography drone. So here are a couple more tips to setup for success:

5. Ideal lead plane should be large, bright scheme (large contrast with back ground), and can fly slowly - best flown with partial flaps to lower stall speed

6. Fly the AP drone inside the turns of lead plane to keep pace even while flying slower....

[F106DeltaDart]

I've done a few videos this way, and it works quite well with one exception. The main issue I've had is the speed differential. Almost always, even a slow flying airplane will outrun an AP quad. A race quad like Flite Test uses would work much better, but you'll need a very skilled pilot and some specialized gear. Here's what I've come up with working with my friend to get air to air from his Phantom 3:

[Turbinefancy]

You are right to be cautious. The Flite Test guys has an audience to entertain and often opt for dramatic/comedic effect of close miss or crash over prudence to get views. Also since most of what they fly are given to them as review items, they don’t suffer the sting of a crash like us. The average RC flyer with hard earned dollars invested in their equipments should approach formation by paying attention to safety first. Like the BlueAngels or Thunderbirds, when first starting out to practice formations, they are very far apart from each other and only after countless practices of the same routines do they get to as close a formation as we see them perform.

I would offer some tips for anyone starting out with formations:
1. Find a very smooth stick with good eye sight that has a passion for flying formation as flight lead.

2. He needs to also be patient flying mundane maneuvers like race track patterns over and over until chase plane can get familiar with sight picture of Airplane in the air and close the formation.

3. Flight lead need to clearly communicate what moves he will do next with chase. So chase can anticipate and make appropriate moves to stay in formation and not rely only on reaction to what he sees on screen.

4. practice, practice, practice! It takes time for lead and chase pilots to develop a feel for each other’s flying. Do not expect to have close formation shots on the first few flight.

Hope this helps for someone getting into formation flying. It requires precision in flying and results in very challenging and rewarding experience. When done well, the flights are exhilarating and videos are awesome. Here’s a great example:

[rifleman_btx]

I'm kinda 50/50 on this, as I seen flite test crack up a few planes as well as other people trying to film their planes with drones. I mean if both pilots understand, and are ok with the risk involved, all good, but it's not something I'm comfortable with no mater the skill of the other pilot.

[Turbinefancy]

Besides FliteTest and vendors, I don't see too many videos of RC plane chase using drones. But I think our planes are so beautiful in the air and deserve to be seen in all their glory close-up in their element, and the best way to do it is with a drone! So share your RC plane chase videos here!

I will start off. I admit race/free style quads are best suited for the job. But at the moment, all I have is a DJI Mavic Pro, so I make do the best I can. The following was shot using Mavic Pro with Goggles RE with head tracking enabled.