David Moss of the Round House, Little Thetford told us about his Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) recently. He uses a DroidWorx Hexacopter UAV from his Sky High Imagery business to take both vertical and oblique photographs of land or property. See brief history of aerial photography below and some of David’s images further down.

David previously used a telescopic mast to take aerial views; he now only uses this mast for time-lapse photographs—preferring the convenience and speed of his UAV; subject to weather conditions of course. David has two camera’s which he uses on the gyro-stabilised platform of his UAV, including a Sony Alpha SLT-A77.

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The version of Hexacopter David is using has a nine minute flight time, an 11kg^* capacity, a range of 6km and can be controlled manually or by GPS. In either case, the UAV has an auto-safe facility which will land the vehicle back at its take-off point if it detects any issues such as low battery, loss of GPS or loss of the control signal. It is not necessary to have a UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) accepted license to own and fly a UAV of 20kg or less in the UK unless, like David, you intend to use it for commercial purposes. You must still follow the CAA publish regulations (CAP722)^† such as being aware of controlled airspace and not endangering anyone or anything. David obtained his BNUC-S CAA license in June 2012.

John Parish is also one of our local aerial photographers. He took the aerial view of Little Thetford which is part of our web site page header. See more of John’s aerial views in our gallery. John prefers to use his aircraft rather than a UAV.

^*An 11kg mass initially at rest falling from a height of 120m (400ft) under the influence of gravity hits the ground at about 50 m/s (112 mph) with an impact force of nearly 200KN (20 ton-force)
^†See also CAA publications UK-CAA POLICY FOR LIGHT UAV SYSTEMS (PDF) for a general guide and CAP 658 (PDF) for all non commercial regulations—i.e. for model aircraft

Brief history of aerial photography

Aerial photography has been practised since the mid-nineteenth century. For example, balloonists such as Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820–1910), took pictures over Paris in 1858 from his tethered balloon. The aerial photographic record of the UK’s first commercial aerial photography company, Aerofilms Limited of Hendon (1919–), was sold to English Heritage in 2007. This wonderful historic archive of oblique photographs of (mainly) the UK can be found in their Britain from above collection. There is a beautiful oblique view of Ely Cathedral from the air in the collection, taken by Aerofilms in 1920.

Some images from David Moss taken in Little Thetford about two weeks ago

Vertical view of the Round House from 50ft © 2012 David Moss	Vertical view of the Round House from 100ft © 2012 David Moss
Vertical view of the Round House from 200ft © 2012 David Moss	Vertical view of the Round House from 300ft © 2012 David Moss
Vertical view of the Round House from 400ft © 2012 David Moss