High Flying Grandma

Ocean Pines Sunrise

The most recent backup of my computer shows that I have 1,210,476 files on my computer and external hard drives.  My guess is that 1,190,000 or so of these are photographs and more that 1.1 mil of these are of the Rochester, NY area where I lived for 30 years.

Shooting Rochester's High Falls, or the shoreline of Lake Ontario or views along the Erie Canal were fun, until you'd done them over and over and over and just couldn't find a new angle to produce a unique view.  And so that is when I started thinking about getting a drone.

My first drone cost about $100 and I figured if I didn't like it or couldn't master the skill, that wasn't a huge investment.  When it arrived I had to put it together and charge all the batteries, which each provided about a 5 minute flight. I studied the instructions and watched the You-Tube videos numerous times and finally took the drone to the park to fly it.

It immediately took off and it was gone!  I pulled all the levels and tried to down the craft but it was gone.  I had no control over it.   It was the quickest $100 I ever lost.  I felt totally defeated as I walked around the park looking for an 8 inch bright blue quadcopter.  Drone piloting was not for me. A couple of people in the park asked me what I was looking for and joined into the search.  Finally someone spotted the aircraft sitting on a sidewalk in one piece and no obvious damage.  Unbelievable.


For the next several weeks. I googled drone piloting and read every article and watched every video I could find.  Finally I had the nerve to try it again.  This time I went to an empty soccer field and slowly launched the craft about three feet high.  Again, it began to fly off but I was able to down it.  Launch again, fly off again and down it.  Over and over.  Needless to say, I got great exercise that day retrieving the little blue drone from every corner of that soccer field and beyond.  The unit had a camera and I experimented with taking photos before downing it.  That evening I checked the memory card to see that I had photographed nearly every blade of grass on the soccer field.  This was not as much fun as I thought it would be.

Fast forward about 3 months.  My husband had the dreaded appointment for a colonoscopy.  Once he is comfortably sedated, I wandered down the street to Costco. There I found a huge display of fancy drones for $1000 with a full 2 week money back guarantee.  A guy drooling over the display said his brother had this model and loves it.  So I bit the bullet and went to check out.  There, a young, spunky cashier asked who I was buying it for and he nearly choked on his chewing gum when I said it was for me!  I guess the typical drone buyers is not a short, overweight and near-sighted grandma.

I was back in the doctor's office long before my husband came too and even had a little time to scan the instruction book.  I was pleased to note that drone remote controls are all set up alike and once you can fly a drone, you can fly most any drone.  Fortunately, my husband found great humor in the fact that I waited until he was under the influence of anesthesia to make the purchase and so soon I would find out if my lack of success was due to the drone or my piloting skills.  Unfortunately, it rained for the next 5 days.  The anticipation of getting out and launching my first flight about killed me.

Needless to say, my first flight was a success and I've probably launch it more than 100 times since.  I still get some crazy reactions for not being the typical pilot but that is part of the fun.  One of the best was going through airport security as I headed off to Europe.  "There's a drone in here!" the officer said as he searched my carry-on.  "Is this YOURS?"  he asked.  When I nodded yes, he broke out in a big grin, gave me a thumbs up and wished me good luck on my photo endeavors.


I'm still enjoying trying to capture that unique angle.  I love seeing the marsh in abstract from overhead or comparing how a location looks from 20 feet, 100 feet up to 400 feet.  The shots with this article were recently taken at the mouth of Manklin Creek and provide a vantage point that I could never accomplish if I was a well grounded individual. 

I had never done anything like fly a drone before.  It was truly a "step outside my comfort zone" moment.  And occasionally, I still break out in a little sweat as I mentally go through the pre-flight checklist.  Sometimes a little self-doubt slips in but then I'll hit the take-off button and life is good as I view planet Earth from above.