=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 273 ===
Title: LDO 273 - From Zimbabwe With Drones (whilst keeping still)
Recorded: 2020-11-19
Hosts: Tony "TheTonstar1" Marchant, Klaudyna "Kaja" "BlueOwl" Wrochna, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Andy
Guest(s): Tawanda Chihambakwe
Total audience: 2,148
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3sp8REG6zY); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/933425194-letsdroneout-ldo-273-from-zimbabwe-with-drones-whilst-keeping-still.mp3)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6lPWSMBL5k

[0.0] Curry: Welcome to Let's Drone Out, the original and best drone theme podcast.
[5.0] Curry: We record the show live on the Thursday night on youtube.com forward slash Let's Drone Out
[10.0] Curry: and our lovely patrons help with the editing costs.
[12.0] (Patrons): These are...
[13.0] Curry: Wacky Wes
[14.0] (Patrons): Mikey Dred
[15.0] (Patrons): Art Faulkner
[17.0] (Patrons): Carlos Campos
[19.0] (Patrons): Thank you
[20.0] Tony: Hello, I'm a tree recovery
[22.0] AndyRC: Let's Drone Out now
[51.48] Frank: Good evening and welcome to Let's Drone Out.
[54.48] Frank: We have a couple of very special guests this evening.
[57.48] Frank: Thank you very much for Tawanda for coming on.
[60.48] Frank: Thank you very much to Blue Owl for coming on and arranging this tonight.
[65.48] Frank: From what you were saying, Blue Owl put us in touch as Tawanda is part of a group of drone users
[75.48] Frank: that Blue Owl has been working with through her work.
[79.48] Frank: Tawanda is part of this new group and it's the first group I believe
[85.48] Frank: using racing quads that Blue Owl has been aware of.
[90.48] Frank: So, you know, obviously we're going to be very interested to hear what's going on with that.
[95.48] Frank: But there's also, and Tony was very excited about this and sending all the links all around.
[103.48] Frank: I believe you've been working on a book as well that's just been released.
[109.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yes, yeah, I just published a book called Drone Professional One, so that's out.
[115.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, I'll give you links to Amazon. You guys can go check it out. That's pretty cool.
[119.48] Frank: Definitely have those in the show notes and in the description below, absolutely.
[127.48] Frank: So I guess kind of kick things off.
[132.48] Frank: So how long have you been flying?
[136.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Jeez, I'd say about four years now is how long I've actually been flying.
[143.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And yeah, so I started off with racing quads.
[147.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Started off with your, we call them your what?
[151.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You call them your whoop, your mini whoop kind of thingy.
[157.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, those ones.
[159.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I started out with those, couple of those, bought about six or seven of those.
[164.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because we went through a whole bunch.
[166.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I used to follow, I don't know if you know RC Sailors.
[169.48] Frank: Oh yeah, absolutely.
[171.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I used to follow those guys a lot.
[173.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So whatever new drone was coming out, I tried to kind of buy it.
[176.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I had all sorts of different kinds of drones.
[179.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Then moved over to actually getting proper quads, proper racing quads.
[185.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: A couple of which we actually, I think there's about two that my friend and I,
[190.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: we actually put the parts in, put the frames, the motors, the ESCs and everything.
[195.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And kind of just put it together and started teaching ourselves how to fly.
[198.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Got a couple of radio controllers there.
[201.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then yeah, kind of fell in love with them and just got to any,
[207.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: we have like a, almost like for you to be like a park.
[211.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: For us it's just like an open space, open field near one of the sports centers,
[216.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: sports clubs, and just go out and just fly and that kind of thing.
[219.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Our summers are long here, so it's really cool.
[222.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we have a lot of time to just, you know,
[224.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: whizz around and just fly and that kind of thing.
[226.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I crashed enough the times.
[228.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I mean, but I used to find it cool because I mean,
[230.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: we had these tall like trees and there was one time my drone came down
[234.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and hit almost every single branch coming down.
[237.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[238.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And it must've been like more than 10 branches.
[240.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Came down and it was just one of the props, you know,
[243.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: one of the propellers that would damage.
[244.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I was so happy.
[245.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I was just like, Oh, this is it.
[246.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: This is the dream.
[247.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah, that's kind of where I got started.
[250.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[251.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then obviously move over to commercial drones and that kind of thing.
[254.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But the fun was always in the quads.
[256.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[257.48] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cool.
[258.48] Tony: Um, we got a bit of, um,
[261.48] AndyRC: microphone noise from someone.
[263.48] AndyRC: Can you hear a bit of noise coming from someone?
[265.48] AndyRC: Yeah. Like a shuffling noise.
[268.48] Tony: Everyone stay still, but speak.
[271.48] Tony: I think it's to wander.
[276.22] Tony: I think you're.
[279.22] Tony: Stay still.
[281.22] Tony: Stay dead still.
[283.22] Tony: Stay dead still.
[284.22] AndyRC: Are you on a, are you on a laptop to wander?
[287.22] AndyRC: Have you got like a microphone on the left?
[289.22] Tony: You can speak.
[291.22] AndyRC: If your laptop's got a microphone,
[297.22] AndyRC: it might be picking up hand movement on the desk and stuff.
[300.22] AndyRC: So is that where your mic is?
[303.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Uh, my mic is on my, my headphones.
[307.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[308.22] AndyRC: Oh, it's on your headphones.
[309.22] AndyRC: I might be the lead.
[311.22] Tony: Can you, can you try to keep that still, please?
[318.22] Tony: Yeah, it's definitely that.
[321.22] Tony: Hold it there.
[322.22] Tony: Don't move.
[323.22] Tony: So where are you?
[325.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Where are you based to wander?
[327.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Uh, so I'm in Zimbabwe.
[329.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, yeah, Zimbabwe in the capital city called Harare.
[333.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Harare.
[334.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, that's, that's where I live.
[336.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cool.
[337.22] Tony: Have you been flying race drones for what, four years, you say?
[342.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, I'll say yes, but that makes it seem like I'm a professional.
[348.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I've been doing it and I've been going professional.
[352.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Hey, hey, that's, that's what's commercial drugs.
[356.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[357.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's commercial.
[358.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I definitely don't want to put myself anywhere in the league.
[361.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: When it comes to racing drones,
[362.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I feel very shy because I know there's some really good people out there.
[365.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah.
[366.22] Tony: Well, yeah, you've got to be like 14, 15 now to be, to be good.
[371.22] Tony: You've got to be young.
[376.22] Curry: Do you go out racing and stuff to enter?
[378.22] Curry: Are you just about sort of going out with friends and having fun and
[381.22] Curry: crashing into trees more?
[383.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, definitely more the crashing into trees, having fun.
[386.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, I was actually having a chat with blue owl and I was just telling her
[389.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: that I think, um, the challenge that I have here in Zimbabwe is that most
[394.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: people at that stage and almost everyone's at that stage of just
[397.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: discovering it.
[398.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And they're just having fun, you know, getting the quads in the air.
[403.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Everyone's kind of, there's so many, um, of the camera drones,
[407.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: commercial drones that people have that the moment you give them a racing
[410.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: quad, they get confused.
[412.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So, so we don't have any like professional or even semi-professional
[419.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: kind of racing going on.
[420.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So it means the quality of even, you know, people who are racing here, it's,
[424.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: it's purely for fun and just hobby.
[427.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, yeah, I think that's where we're at right now.
[430.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[431.22] Frank: I think that's the best sort of events though.
[433.22] Frank: Right.
[434.22] Frank: And I mean, my favorite events to go to are the ones where it's kind of,
[438.22] Frank: everyone's kind of pretty local and grassroots and kind of all very
[442.22] Frank: supportive and kind of helping each other out.
[444.22] Frank: And, and it's not so kind of hardcore competitive, but it's, it's a bit more
[449.22] Frank: of a fun, fun way to spend your time.
[453.22] Frank: So yeah, that sounds like a good fun.
[455.22] Curry: So I've always been about, sorry, because I've always been about like the
[459.22] Curry: meetups rather than the racing sort of getting together with friends and
[463.22] Curry: getting all up in the air together and just chasing each other around.
[465.22] Curry: And inevitably it turns into like, I can hit that gap.
[469.22] Curry: No, you can't.
[470.22] Curry: Well, I can hit that gap and you just end up with a big pile of hearts.
[473.22] Curry: But that's, I think that's the best, the best times.
[475.22] Curry: Sorry, Frank.
[476.22] Curry: I interrupted.
[478.22] Frank: I was going to say, so what's the, what's the name of the group that you're
[482.22] Frank: sort of meeting up with at the moment?
[484.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we call it Drone Racing Zim.
[487.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So Z-I-M short for Zimbabwe.
[490.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And that's, it's basically a community of people who are currently,
[496.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: who currently have racing drones, racing quads.
[501.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then guys who are interested in actually building their own and some
[505.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: guys who are just like super keen to want to get in this space, but are kind
[509.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: of like on the fence.
[511.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[512.22] Frank: So how many of them are you that's in this, in the group?
[516.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: About 36.
[518.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Wow.
[519.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's quite a big group.
[520.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[521.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But I mean, it's a big group in terms of the numbers.
[524.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like we're all like on the one like platform.
[527.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So, but kind of like a WhatsApp group as well going on.
[530.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But we've got a lot of spectators, people who are like, yeah, that's cool.
[534.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Hey, and supporters type of thing.
[537.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: People with actual quads, I'd say maybe about 11 of that number.
[543.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then a couple of guys with like your little, what are these, DJI sparks
[549.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and things like that, that they're like, yeah, I'll come and I'll join, you know,
[553.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: type of thing where you guys are having your races.
[555.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We had an event.
[556.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we used to host events.
[558.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I've been hosting like kind of like meetups, like you mentioned, Carrie Kitten.
[562.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So hosting meetups.
[564.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I remember our second meetup when we hosted,
[568.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: this must have been like three years ago, someone came with an inspired two.
[574.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I was like, hmm.
[576.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And started flying around as inspired too.
[578.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And we're all flying racing drones.
[579.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I'm like, ah, not quite what we're looking for.
[583.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But look, I think we're all just here for the fun and for drones and that kind of thing.
[588.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah, we've got a lot of enthusiasts.
[590.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[592.22] Tony: That's pretty cool.
[593.22] Tony: How did you meet?
[594.22] Tony: How did you meet?
[595.22] Tony: Oh, I've got a mention blue owl.
[597.22] Tony: I've been shouting that.
[598.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, I've been reading the comments.
[603.22] Tony: How did you two get to find each other?
[607.22] BlueOwl: So I'm actually the very lucky person to work with these guys and other flying gloves.
[615.22] BlueOwl: I work for the NGO Go Creates Network that Tawanda and his team is a part of.
[622.22] BlueOwl: So this is pretty cool.
[624.22] BlueOwl: There are 30 more flying gloves like this all around the world, not only in Africa,
[629.22] BlueOwl: but also in Latin America and Asia.
[632.22] BlueOwl: And yeah, I get to meet all these crazy people specializing in all kinds of things
[639.22] BlueOwl: who just fly drones all around the world.
[642.22] BlueOwl: And then you get to see their work and see their projects.
[646.22] BlueOwl: That's really great.
[648.22] BlueOwl: And I'm basically the very humble technical support for anything that's going on
[655.22] BlueOwl: whenever they need help with flying or processing data.
[660.22] BlueOwl: So like we said, Zimbabwe is the newest flying labs who joined us not too long ago.
[667.22] BlueOwl: But we have two more just coming up as we speak.
[671.22] BlueOwl: Basically, we are launching them soon.
[673.22] BlueOwl: So the network is growing.
[676.22] Frank: That's cool.
[677.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, but to be honest, when we met with Tawanda a few weeks ago,
[683.22] BlueOwl: when we talked for the first time, I think we started with the work call.
[689.22] BlueOwl: And then we stayed for like one or two more hours just to talk about drones,
[695.22] BlueOwl: like outside of the working time.
[697.22] BlueOwl: And what was really cool about his story, well, one of the cool things was that
[704.22] BlueOwl: he actually sees the importance of knowing how to fly manually,
[712.22] BlueOwl: not just pressing a button, doing your job and then landing.
[716.22] BlueOwl: I think there is still complexity in doing projects like this,
[721.22] BlueOwl: even if you do press a button to take off and land, there is still the complexity.
[726.22] BlueOwl: It's just somewhere else.
[727.22] BlueOwl: But I really appreciate the pilots who really take the time to not only fly the DJI drones,
[734.22] BlueOwl: but also to learn how to fly manually.
[737.22] BlueOwl: This is really great.
[738.22] BlueOwl: And another thing, sorry.
[741.22] BlueOwl: You see, guys, I started talking now I can't stop.
[744.22] Tony: It's good, it's good.
[747.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, another cool thing that I remember from our call is that you guys,
[757.22] BlueOwl: well, Zimbabwe Flying Labs, you guys actually really care about teaching the kids how to fly as well
[763.22] BlueOwl: and spreading the, you know, well, yeah, teaching people, you know,
[768.22] BlueOwl: at least to show them that it can be a career that you can have.
[771.22] BlueOwl: You can be a professional drone pilot.
[774.22] BlueOwl: This is really cool.
[775.22] BlueOwl: I really love that.
[776.22] BlueOwl: Yeah.
[777.22] Frank: So how did you end up going, because obviously, like Bluel, you were saying,
[781.22] Frank: you're sort of helping out with data processing of that kind of thing.
[785.22] Frank: So how did a group of racers then end up getting to the point where there's kind of the Flying Labs
[793.22] Frank: and kind of applying the technology in a slightly different way?
[798.22] Frank: Or is it more about using the flying, the quads as a way of just kind of including more people in it?
[806.22] Frank: Or is there kind of that technical data processing?
[811.22] Frank: Is that kind of thing now becoming more of what you're doing?
[816.22] BlueOwl: For me, it's always been my job.
[819.22] BlueOwl: So I actually started with data processing first, and only then I started flying different things.
[826.22] BlueOwl: So I started with FPV, but yeah, it's very much connected, one field with another.
[833.22] BlueOwl: So I actually studied photogrammetry and remote sensing.
[837.22] BlueOwl: That's like asking for being involved in the drone industry.
[844.22] BlueOwl: So that was pretty cool.
[846.22] BlueOwl: But yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to kind of integrate FPV and racing
[855.22] BlueOwl: and freestyle racing quads into the whole world of humanitarian projects and flying for work.
[866.22] Curry: I like the idea of a sort of, what do you call it?
[870.22] Curry: I've forgotten the name of it now.
[872.22] Curry: The photography you do to build up the 3D models.
[875.22] Curry: What's its name again?
[876.22] Frank: Photogrammetry.
[877.22] Frank: Photogrammetry, thank you.
[878.22] Curry: I like the idea of doing that on a racing quad,
[880.22] Curry: but only having enough concentration to do this couple of stripes.
[884.22] Curry: So you've just got this building geometry, which is just two faces.
[890.22] Curry: All the rest is like, yeah, I was diving something else then.
[892.22] Curry: I didn't get that bit for you. Sorry.
[895.22] BlueOwl: Yeah, I know that probably wouldn't work.
[897.22] BlueOwl: But I really like the idea of involving the kids and teaching the kids how to fly FPV.
[903.22] BlueOwl: FPV to me at least is more fun than flying DJI.
[909.22] BlueOwl: Again, it's kind of two different things, but it's still...
[913.22] BlueOwl: Well, it's my whole world, you know?
[916.22] BlueOwl: I've posted the data, I've applied DJI drones for work,
[920.22] BlueOwl: and then after hours I fly freestyle.
[923.22] BlueOwl: So I would like to find a way to kind of incorporate the two.
[928.22] BlueOwl: But I think Tawanda is doing a good job at incorporating racing drones into the more professional side.
[937.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, maybe I can just chime in here.
[940.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So the interesting thing about it is, for me, the way I actually got started was deciding on which two to go with,
[952.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: just because, yeah, it's all drones, but then you've got the quadcopters and the drones,
[956.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and then, you know, everyone's kind of like...
[958.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's almost like everyone's on two sides in a sense.
[962.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But I actually decided to go for the racing drone side because it was all manual,
[967.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: because I really want to understand the tech and how drones actually work.
[970.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I didn't want to go for the auto kind of setup that most people are used to now.
[976.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So in doing that, I got a deep dive into the space,
[980.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and what I quickly then saw was that, you know what, this is probably the best way to teach anyone.
[984.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: If you want to be a good drone pilot and the guys who then go and get their licenses and that kind of thing,
[990.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: you actually need to learn the manual way first.
[993.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I just take it similar to like, you know, kind of like in my country here, driving, for example.
[998.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We still have manual transmission.
[1000.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Manual transmission is still a big thing here.
[1002.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't know if it's a big thing there.
[1005.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But when someone's willing to drive a car, they're supposed to be trained on manual transmission.
[1011.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Then, you know, automatic is not something people get tested on here.
[1014.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You can't really test automatic, you know, which is good.
[1018.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think it's still a good skill to have.
[1019.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So for me, the drone side of things was like, in fact, the drone racing side of things was that to say,
[1024.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: if you really want to be a pilot, you've got to know the ins and outs of it.
[1027.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because even those guys who fly, and us now, who fly DJI's, you tell them what's an ESC.
[1034.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: They're like, huh? What's that? Do you know what I mean?
[1037.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like, they wouldn't even know the ratios in terms of your motors, you know.
[1041.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: What's the difference between having a motor that's like, you know, 2300 versus something else?
[1046.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Do you know what I mean? They don't know, and they don't understand the tech itself.
[1051.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I'm like, yeah, so you're not really a pilot.
[1055.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You know, I mean, yeah, you're just doing the easy stuff.
[1059.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I love going into now, like what Blua was talking about is like, now I saw that I was like,
[1064.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: look, I think the only way to teach people about drones is to show them this side first.
[1069.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Show them the quads first. Get them to play with that first.
[1073.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Get them to figure out and actually learn how to fly a drone properly, right?
[1078.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Without all the auto stabilization and all this stuff.
[1081.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Then if they move over to this stuff, that's something else.
[1084.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But they really at least understand how the tech works.
[1087.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So then we started going into schools, starting to try to teach, you know, every chance we get.
[1092.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So by the time that we started getting into schools, we had about 13, 14 of our own little racing quads.
[1100.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we'd go into schools and then just, you know, like have kind of like fun days and open days
[1104.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and just like fly drones around and let the kids crash a lot. Yeah.
[1112.22] Tony: Tawanda, can you please not move?
[1118.57] Tony: Come on!
[1120.57] Tony: You speak and this happens.
[1124.57] Frank: It might work quite well. If you hold the lead just slightly away from you.
[1132.57] Tony: There we go.
[1134.57] Tony: There we go.
[1136.57] Tony: It goes onto a podcast and it's going to be trouble taking it.
[1141.57] Curry: So Tawanda, what have you been doing in the commercial space and have you managed to,
[1146.57] Curry: if you're doing stuff there, are you getting your sort of regular race drones involved in that sort of stuff as well?
[1154.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So in the commercial space, I do a lot now.
[1156.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I started off with the racing side and then I moved up to commercial probably about two and a half years ago.
[1162.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then, so basically, here's just a quick one.
[1167.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I was spending quite a bit of money on the drones and then it wasn't doing so well at home
[1173.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: because too much money is going towards buying racing drones.
[1176.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So then I was like, nah!
[1178.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've not heard that before.
[1181.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've never heard that before.
[1184.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So then I figured, look, I'm going to have to go the commercial way so I can earn money to go back and spend on the drones.
[1195.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1196.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: No, seriously, ultimately, my plan was, and I was telling Blue all this, I was saying, like, when we started,
[1201.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: we reached out to, what's his name?
[1204.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Nicholas Hrabowski from DRL1.
[1208.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't know if you guys know him.
[1210.57] Frank: Sort of an important thing, but not particularly.
[1213.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, from DRL, not DRL1, DRL, Drone Racing League in America.
[1220.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we started to him, you know, and they're doing some amazing things there in the States,
[1225.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: really pushing the industry, the drone racing space.
[1228.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Anyway, we reached out to him and then we're like, hey, we want to connect.
[1231.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We want to do all these cool things.
[1233.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we wanted to now host events.
[1236.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So my dream, this was my dream, guys, when I started.
[1239.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like, this is my very first dream.
[1241.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I was like, I want to host a world championship drone racing event in my country at,
[1249.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: we've got like this cool, super nice resort town called Victoria Falls.
[1253.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's supposed to be one of the, it's one of the seven wonders of the world.
[1256.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I wanted us to create like a racetrack in the wild.
[1259.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[1260.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's what I wanted.
[1261.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like elephants and, you know, well, we're not going to, we're not going to fly any elephants.
[1267.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Well, then we'll be close.
[1270.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We'll be pretty close.
[1271.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[1272.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We'll be pretty close.
[1273.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But like, I wanted to like really set up like a cool, like massive obstacle course.
[1277.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You know, like the whole, there was one that I saw the world drone, the one in Dubai or
[1283.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: something like that.
[1284.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: The one where Luke, your guy there, Luke.
[1287.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1288.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1289.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1290.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1291.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I think Tony was talking about 15, 16 year old.
[1293.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think, I think Luke was 16 when he won that.
[1295.57] Tony: I think he was probably younger than that, but yeah.
[1298.57] Tony: Yeah.
[1299.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1300.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1301.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I was following that.
[1302.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I was like, no, the next one needs to be in Africa in my country and people come.
[1306.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1307.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1308.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And we do it here.
[1309.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So that was my thing.
[1310.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But yeah, we're a long way off.
[1313.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Keep the dream alive.
[1314.57] Tony: Cause it would be a, it would be a, um, it would be a bloody lovely trip.
[1320.57] Tony: I'd love to go to Africa and do that.
[1323.57] Tony: Yeah.
[1324.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1325.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1326.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So then I had to move over to the commercial side because I couldn't bankroll by more
[1330.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: drones and repairing and stuff.
[1332.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like I was showing you all, I've got like a box.
[1335.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, just, I think I've got a box full of like little quads.
[1338.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I mean a little propeller, sorry, little props and stuff.
[1341.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then like a whole bunch of broken parts.
[1343.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, yeah.
[1344.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1345.57] Tony: How do you find getting parts to them?
[1348.57] Tony: Is it easy?
[1349.57] Tony: Is it hard?
[1350.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Is it expensive?
[1351.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Now it's super expensive.
[1354.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, back when I started, um, it was a lot easier.
[1358.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, yeah.
[1359.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cause I think just the economy here has gone south and all sorts of things.
[1362.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And that's also what's made things slow down is back then.
[1365.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like when I started 2016 back then, um, 20 and 2017 people had like expendable
[1370.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: income and they could spend money on buying things like this.
[1373.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Now, now I'll have maybe one or two people the whole year who will come up to me
[1378.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and be like, I'm really serious about buying a drone.
[1380.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I want a racing drone that is, and that I want you to help me.
[1383.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Can you help me get it?
[1384.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then getting it here, um, if we buy, cause we, we normally get stuff just from
[1389.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: straight from China.
[1390.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we just order stuff from China.
[1391.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then like I ordered something in February.
[1394.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It got here in September type of thing.
[1397.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And these are like, and I was buying a run cam and I was buying new motors for
[1403.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: my work era.
[1404.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, and then other stuff just got like, it didn't get here.
[1408.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'm still waiting for some, some parts.
[1410.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, so, so now it's a nightmare.
[1414.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's not, yeah, it's not.
[1416.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So now getting into the space is tough.
[1418.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I think we've just got, we've got a lot of missing pieces that we need to,
[1422.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: you know, get our racing drones fixed and to get things back in the air again.
[1426.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But yeah, um, hopefully I think things will get better.
[1429.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Hopefully next year we'll see.
[1431.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Um, yeah, but it'll be good to get like, because it's tough to get the community
[1434.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: going because people will, will reach out to me, but like, Hey, how do I get
[1437.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: started?
[1438.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then I tell them you have to order online and then they kind of like lose
[1442.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: interest after a while.
[1444.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1445.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah.
[1447.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1448.57] Frank: Yeah.
[1449.57] Frank: But that's sort of waiting time to actually get stuff.
[1451.57] Frank: I can imagine you got kind of got bored and found something else to do.
[1455.57] Tony: Well, it's drank drone techs.
[1457.57] Tony: Like it's, it's updated within weeks.
[1460.57] Tony: You buy something a week later, it's out of date anyway.
[1464.57] Tony: Exactly.
[1465.57] Tony: Can you imagine waiting that long?
[1467.57] Tony: It's like, Oh my God, this is prehistoric.
[1470.57] Tony: Problem.
[1471.57] Tony: That's the problem with tech.
[1472.57] Tony: You buy a phone and it's out of date in the next couple of months, you know,
[1476.57] Tony: you're going to have to do so fast at the moment, but that must be hard
[1481.57] Tony: waiting that long for stuff.
[1483.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1484.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And also like the racing gates, that's a big space as well, where we don't
[1488.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: have enough of the proper things.
[1491.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You know, what I would want is those proper, I don't know whether you call
[1495.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: them timed or whatever it is, where at least when you fly through, it just
[1499.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: like sets off that you've gone through the markers and that kind of thing.
[1502.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Rather than having cones, cones and hoops, you know, that I'm like, nah, we
[1507.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: can't keep doing that.
[1508.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Do you know what I mean?
[1509.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like, yeah, we need to kind of move up a bit.
[1513.57] Curry: I do remember the sort of when we started out putting sort of quads in our
[1518.57] Curry: meats and let's make a racetrack and it's like, we'll just make some hoops out
[1523.57] Curry: of stuff and we'll build them and we'll put some phone random.
[1526.57] Curry: And it's like, this hoop is invisible unless you're like one inch away from it.
[1530.57] Curry: There's a big difference between homemade and the ones with like the proper
[1534.57] Curry: coding around it where you can see where you're going.
[1536.57] Curry: It's crazy stuff.
[1538.57] Curry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1543.57] Tony: It'd be great if, maybe I've talked about this before, some UK pilots and
[1553.57] Tony: American pilots and stuff.
[1556.57] Tony: If we have spare things that we could donate somehow to places like Zim where
[1563.57] Tony: it takes so long to get things.
[1565.57] Tony: Because I've got, you know, I've got props, I've got motors that I don't use
[1569.57] Tony: anymore that I'd love to somehow build some kind of community where you put in
[1576.57] Tony: the bits you don't want and send them to places that, you know, where you maybe
[1581.57] Tony: can't afford them or it takes so long to get there and I'd like to do something
[1586.57] Tony: like that.
[1587.57] Tony: Maybe we can talk off air blue owl and to wonder about doing something like that
[1591.57] Tony: maybe.
[1592.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, definitely.
[1593.57] BlueOwl: And I'm sure there would be even more people in, even in our network, there
[1599.57] BlueOwl: would be many more pilots who would be interested to really, like you said,
[1605.57] BlueOwl: Stowanda, you know, learn how to drive in manual and learn what it is instead of
[1615.57] BlueOwl: just flying a DJI.
[1617.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, just, you just make me think of something because I actually, because I
[1623.57] BlueOwl: kind of work on one side and then spend my free time on the other side, you know,
[1628.57] BlueOwl: I'm kind of in between the two worlds.
[1630.57] BlueOwl: I really, I'm not a fan of, you know, the shaming that's going on.
[1637.57] BlueOwl: I don't like the fact that FPD pilots really criticize the DJI pilots and the opposite
[1645.57] BlueOwl: as well.
[1646.57] BlueOwl: If you're a DJI pilot, you know, the FPD guys, they just fly for fun.
[1650.57] BlueOwl: It's nothing.
[1652.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, you don't do anything really.
[1654.57] BlueOwl: And I'm not really a fan of that because, like I said, I'm sort of on both sides of
[1661.57] BlueOwl: the story.
[1662.57] BlueOwl: So, like I said, the complexity of the project is actually still there.
[1668.57] BlueOwl: I mean, you could have, and there are a lot of, you know, DJI pilots who might just
[1674.57] BlueOwl: take off and land with their phone.
[1677.57] BlueOwl: And that's fine because they do a ton of other useful stuff.
[1682.57] BlueOwl: They are, they might be super good at making videos or editing photos.
[1689.57] BlueOwl: They, you know, there is a, let's say there is an earthquake, earthquake in the Philippines.
[1694.57] BlueOwl: And because we have these local groups, the flying labs, there is somebody who can just
[1699.57] BlueOwl: take their phantom, even though they don't know how it works.
[1703.57] BlueOwl: They don't know what's inside.
[1704.57] BlueOwl: They can collect the data.
[1705.57] BlueOwl: They can help people when they need it.
[1708.57] BlueOwl: So, yeah, I'm not a fan of, you know, being kind of divided.
[1715.57] Curry: It's the opportunity to combine, too.
[1717.57] Curry: I mean, a couple of weeks ago, we had on the person's name, I've forgotten, who flies
[1722.57] Curry: commercially and is over here filming a lot for the UK TV programme Top Gear.
[1727.57] Curry: And he was a traditional commercial pilot, flying in spires and phantoms, getting the
[1732.57] Curry: normal sort of high up shots.
[1733.57] Curry: But recently he's been flying race drones with, albeit with the DJI HD system quite
[1739.57] Curry: quite helpfully and doing all the car chases and stuff like that as a completely sort of
[1744.57] Curry: different type of flying that they can cut into their programme quite nicely.
[1748.57] Curry: So there is an opportunity for lots of crossover in the commercial space.
[1753.57] Curry: So that doesn't have to be in fighting between what commercial pilots do and what FPV pilots
[1758.57] Curry: do. It's all, it's all the same stuff.
[1760.57] Curry: And then we then we can get back to fighting amongst the guys with nitro planes and stuff
[1765.57] Curry: instead.
[1770.57] Tony: Yeah, I fly both.
[1771.57] Tony: I fly DJI stuff and race drones, freestyle drone.
[1774.57] Tony: I'll fly anything like this.
[1777.57] Tony: You can only get with the DJI stuff.
[1780.57] Tony: You know, I love using both Sunday.
[1783.57] Tony: I'm going to go out Sunday and I'm going to Canva Castle.
[1787.57] Tony: I'll be taking my Inspire to do shots of that.
[1789.57] Tony: But I'll be racing or freestyling on the beach with my other race drones.
[1794.57] Curry: I'll tell you what you haven't done, Tony, which I have.
[1796.57] Curry: And that's FPV the dog.
[1797.57] Curry: Why haven't you done that yet?
[1798.57] Curry: I've done it.
[1800.57] Tony: She's so small.
[1803.57] Curry: She's as small as my dog.
[1804.57] Curry: It's fine.
[1805.57] Curry: You just you just make up a little darkness.
[1807.57] Tony: My dog is the size of a cat.
[1809.57] Tony: Have you seen that?
[1811.57] Frank: She also wears a cowbell occasionally.
[1813.57] Frank: I mean, she does wear a cowbell.
[1815.57] Tony: It looks smaller on the Internet.
[1821.57] Tony: That's only on her mountain biking so I can hear her.
[1824.57] Tony: If she stops for a wee or whatever, I can hear her behind me.
[1828.57] Tony: She stops.
[1829.57] Tony: That's why she wears a bell.
[1830.57] Tony: It's not animal cruelty.
[1834.57] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience,
[1837.57] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it's played audio only,
[1840.57] Frank: censored to please the iTunes people, hosted on the Internet,
[1843.57] Frank: forwarded through to your podcast provider, downloaded,
[1846.57] Frank: playing on your device and is now playing in your ears.
[1849.57] Frank: All thanks to our Patreons.
[1851.57] Frank: Consider joining them and you'll also get other online benefits.
[1854.57] Frank: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[1859.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you know what's interesting is like Blue Owl, for example,
[1863.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: like she's she's actually brilliant.
[1866.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: She's been very modest.
[1867.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: She is brilliant.
[1869.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, she's very modest about flying labs network.
[1873.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So she was talking about that and just being a part of it.
[1876.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And she actually holds a lot of the things together and does a lot of
[1879.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: work there.
[1880.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like she was saying with data processing software side of things
[1885.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: as well as, you know, helping get everyone up to speed and,
[1889.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: you know, training people.
[1891.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So the flying labs itself is actually a very powerful platform.
[1897.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yes, I've flown in the G dog.
[1899.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've flown in the big falls.
[1900.57] Tony: I have.
[1901.57] Tony: That must be cool.
[1902.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I really would love to do that.
[1904.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right, right, right.
[1905.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1906.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I got so much cool footage.
[1907.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Y'all.
[1908.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Have you got a YouTube channel?
[1910.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I do, but my YouTube channel is actually called the African drone
[1916.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: professional.
[1917.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you guys can look that up after it can drone professional.
[1921.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But on there, I'm just talking about the drone industry.
[1923.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So it's dead boring.
[1926.57] Tony: Come on.
[1927.57] Tony: We need a second channel.
[1929.57] Curry: African drone professional gone wild or something like that.
[1932.57] Curry: Right.
[1933.57] Curry: Right.
[1934.57] Tony: Right.
[1935.57] Tony: Right.
[1936.57] Tony: Right.
[1937.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1938.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So guess what?
[1939.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Starting January, I'm working on my show real.
[1943.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[1944.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right.
[1945.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So first of January or second of January, I'm publishing my show real
[1948.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: or some of my work over the last year or so.
[1950.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's going to be epic.
[1952.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's going to be epic.
[1953.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: All right.
[1955.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then next year.
[1957.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[1958.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'll start posting more content of like stuff that I actually
[1961.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: shoot.
[1962.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But right now I'm just, it's just a platform where I talk about the
[1964.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: drone industry and trying to help people who want to get in this space
[1967.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: to take it more seriously.
[1968.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But that's more for commercial drone stuff.
[1970.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I had a channel called drone racing them, but I'm telling you this,
[1975.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: but please don't go to my channel because there's nothing there.
[1979.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like there's like one video and then I'm like, not proud of it.
[1982.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And please don't go and see it.
[1984.57] Tony: I think the link's been put in the chat already.
[1986.57] Tony: And I remind you to hold your microphone away.
[1990.57] Tony: Okay.
[1991.57] Tony: I'm holding it up.
[1992.57] Tony: I'm going to tell you off every time.
[1995.57] Tony: Sorry.
[1996.57] Tony: I was going to say, what, what is it?
[2000.57] Curry: What's the good stuff in Zimbabwe to look at?
[2002.57] Curry: Because Africa is a big place.
[2004.57] Curry: Zimbabwe is down the bottom, isn't it?
[2006.57] Curry: Close to South Africa.
[2007.57] Curry: Because we always think Africa, we think the elephants, we think the
[2011.57] Curry: savannahs, but it's a big place.
[2013.57] Curry: Is there stuff exciting to get out and film there as well?
[2017.57] Tony: Yeah.
[2018.57] Tony: Who lives in England?
[2020.57] Tony: What?
[2021.57] Curry: You've got nothing.
[2022.57] Curry: I was just saying, we live in England.
[2024.57] Curry: It's like, what can we film?
[2025.57] Curry: Right.
[2026.57] Curry: The tree today.
[2027.57] Curry: Grass.
[2028.57] Curry: Grass.
[2029.57] Curry: That's how exciting it got.
[2031.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2032.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So my mom-in-law, she actually lives in England and my father-in-law.
[2037.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'm going to say shout out to them so that I can send it to them.
[2040.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Bye, guys.
[2044.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2045.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So they're in Luton.
[2046.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah.
[2047.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: All right.
[2048.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[2049.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2050.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2051.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cool.
[2052.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So don't worry, guys.
[2053.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'll be coming up soon.
[2054.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[2055.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Very soon.
[2056.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Just wait for, you know, the pandemic to finish.
[2057.57] Tony: I'll be up there.
[2058.57] Tony: Okay.
[2059.57] Tony: Yeah.
[2060.57] Tony: When you do come over, if you want to hook up and fly with any of us a lot, give it shout
[2062.57] Tony: us, shout us, and we'll come fly over here.
[2065.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'll come and watch you first.
[2067.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then I'll decide whether I'm going to fly with you.
[2070.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Okay.
[2071.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because I don't want to get embarrassed, you know.
[2073.57] Frank: Yeah.
[2074.57] Frank: I mean, you bring something along and you rung what you've rung.
[2077.57] Frank: That's it.
[2078.57] AndyRC: That's it.
[2079.57] AndyRC: You clearly have never flown with these guys.
[2081.57] AndyRC: You will outperform them into the world.
[2085.57] AndyRC: Thanks, Andy.
[2086.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I feel like you are.
[2087.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I feel like you're good now.
[2088.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2089.57] AndyRC: Well, that's what I did though.
[2090.57] AndyRC: These, funnily enough, we did all meet up at Luton, didn't we?
[2094.57] AndyRC: Maybe a couple of years ago.
[2096.57] AndyRC: I was like, I don't want to fly in front of these guys.
[2099.57] AndyRC: Then when they started smashing into things, I was like, oh, they're just like me.
[2106.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's it.
[2107.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's so cool.
[2108.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's so awesome.
[2109.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But yeah, please guys, I've put a link into the book.
[2113.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I co-authored a book.
[2115.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's called Drone Professional One.
[2116.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And basically all that book is really talking about is how drones are being used across
[2122.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: different industries.
[2123.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you guys know this kind of stuff.
[2125.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But it's covering things like how drones are being used in healthcare, insurance,
[2129.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: security, agriculture, etc, etc.
[2131.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Which is kind of like the space that I'm involved with.
[2135.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I have my own drone company.
[2137.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So before I joined Flying Labs, I've got my own drone company, commercial drone company,
[2140.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: that does drone services.
[2142.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And you know all that kind of jazz.
[2144.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So we do a lot of kind of work in that space for agriculture.
[2148.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We actually have a crop spraying drone.
[2151.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cool.
[2152.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, we also just do crop and process assessments.
[2155.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We do some work for infrastructure construction as well.
[2159.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We'll start to get into a bit of telecoms.
[2162.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I mean, it's not the cool like fun, fun stuff.
[2165.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But it's like it has value.
[2167.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So it brings value to our clients and makes sense to them and that kind of thing.
[2171.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then now like a big part of what I'm involved with is education.
[2175.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'm really, really big on education.
[2177.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've always been just even just for the tracing drone stuff.
[2179.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So now what the Flying Labs is allowing us to do is we're actually building out a curriculum,
[2184.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: a youth program that's going to, well, there really is a youth program that's just been released.
[2189.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And we're going to be helping also to add to that youth program,
[2192.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: which is going to be basically a platform to help anyone who's like young.
[2196.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So whether you're like junior school, middle school, high school, whatever,
[2199.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: or even like college to learn about drone tech in different ways and that kind of thing.
[2205.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And that's where we get to decide how kids learn about it.
[2208.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'm definitely going to include them learning obviously about, you know, quads, right?
[2215.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Or they get into doing everything else or just alongside it.
[2219.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You know what I mean?
[2220.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because I don't think it'd be holistic if we just taught them how to fly.
[2223.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think, you know, kids need to learn how to build, you know,
[2226.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and basically learn how to program and code as well.
[2230.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And that literally lays the foundation for the work that we're doing at Flying Lab,
[2234.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: which is like delivering things like, you know, humanitarian work.
[2237.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And there's some like, for like AFAS, we want to do stuff like drone healthcare,
[2242.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: drone deliveries and all that kind of stuff.
[2244.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And you know, all that kind of stuff when you're actually building a system for healthcare delivery.
[2249.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you want to do drone delivery.
[2251.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Having a background in building quads and coding them and programming
[2256.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and getting them to fly is actually the foundation you need
[2259.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and will put you give you an advantage when you want to now develop like delivery systems
[2263.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: because you're going back to learning about payloads and balance and okay,
[2268.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and what size motors can carry what payload and how do I increase this and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[2273.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I think the foundation is in racing drones for a lot of the things that we want to do in development
[2279.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: that helps people and, you know, changes people's lives.
[2282.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, yeah.
[2283.57] Tony: I definitely, definitely think I should be on the team for building and...
[2289.57] Curry: You should be in the education class, yeah.
[2293.57] Tony: Yeah, I need to be in the class.
[2294.57] Curry: That's the one. How to join two wires together. Put down the duct tape.
[2299.57] AndyRC: It's your man, Tony, you see.
[2301.57] AndyRC: See this man here and don't do anything he does.
[2304.57] AndyRC: Don't copy him.
[2306.57] Tony: I have used chewing gum to join wires together once.
[2310.57] Tony: It was only once.
[2313.57] Curry: Well, that's about how long it lasted.
[2315.57] Curry: You'd think less than learn pretty quickly, wouldn't you?
[2317.57] Tony: I know. It's bad, isn't it?
[2320.57] Tony: No, that's really good. That's really good.
[2322.57] Tony: I can only fly if I can't. I'm not very good at building, but I know where you're coming from.
[2328.57] Tony: It's good.
[2330.57] Frank: You've built a few things, Tony.
[2333.57] Tony: Monstrosity cycle.
[2335.57] AndyRC: I think if Tony had the choice, or didn't have the choice, should I say,
[2339.57] AndyRC: he would have to get the chewing gum out and build quite a stuff
[2342.57] AndyRC: until chewing gum stopped working and it cost him so much money
[2346.57] AndyRC: that you'd have to do it properly. You'd have to learn how to do it properly.
[2349.57] Tony: If I can, I used to do it. Before I met all you guys, I did it.
[2354.57] Tony: I've built stuff that's flown before, but I just do not like doing it.
[2360.57] Tony: I just like the flying part. Some people love building,
[2364.57] Tony: like there's people in the chat who's like,
[2366.57] Tony: I'd rather build, look, see, blue hands go round up.
[2369.57] BlueOwl: I wouldn't rather build, but I love building.
[2372.57] BlueOwl: It takes me ages because I just like the process so much that I never want to finish.
[2376.57] BlueOwl: Really? I just can't know.
[2380.57] Curry: People not only like it, but are so good at it.
[2383.57] Curry: All the wires are laid out beautifully and everything's perfect.
[2387.57] Curry: But then it's like, oh, I don't want to risk flying it now.
[2390.57] Curry: And it becomes like the hangar queen, isn't it?
[2394.57] Tony: I have got some ornaments. I didn't build them, but I have got some.
[2399.57] Tony: I won't ever fly them.
[2401.57] Tony: They're just totally built quads sitting in my special place.
[2405.57] Tony: See, look, I love building. I enjoy building.
[2408.57] Tony: Look at all this. I enjoy Clive.
[2412.57] Tony: My hands, I was afraid.
[2417.57] Tony: I don't think I've got the given one.
[2420.57] Tony: No, no, no, don't even say that.
[2422.57] Tony: That's not part of the fun.
[2424.57] Tony: The fun is sitting on your chair, flying. That's the fun.
[2428.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: No, you're flying something you've built yourself.
[2431.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's like super, like you've achieved.
[2434.57] Tony: Yeah, I have done it. I don't like it.
[2438.57] Curry: I can't do it nicely. I can't do it neatly.
[2442.57] Curry: It's a ball of wires, but it still works.
[2446.57] Curry: Yeah, as long as it works.
[2448.57] Curry: It starts off with great intentions.
[2450.57] Curry: And then it's like one thing goes a little bit like that's a bit long,
[2453.57] Curry: then we'll just tuck it in there and then that's a bit short.
[2456.57] Curry: Let's just hammer that thing.
[2459.57] Curry: It all goes...
[2461.57] Curry: That's why I enjoyed building the thing out of Frank's box of nothing so much,
[2465.57] Curry: because it was already broken.
[2467.57] Curry: I just had to like mash it together with tape.
[2471.57] Curry: Yeah.
[2473.57] Tony: Look, there's so many people of it.
[2475.57] BlueOwl: Yeah, there's also the set-up part, and that's something that I don't enjoy.
[2480.57] BlueOwl: That's why I switched it.
[2483.57] Tony: Yeah, Peter Flyton setting up the kiss, setting up the cameras.
[2489.57] Tony: The worst bit is tuning as well.
[2491.57] Curry: I don't do tuning. It just needs to work.
[2494.57] Tony: It just needs to work.
[2496.57] Tony: Luckily enough, the Peter Flyton stuff and kiss and that are just so good now.
[2503.57] Tony: Back in the old days, back six, seven years ago,
[2507.57] Tony: when it was coming out of the box, it would just be like this permanently,
[2513.57] Tony: and then you had to tune.
[2515.57] Tony: But now we can pretty much load any five-inch frame up with Peter Flyton.
[2520.57] Tony: It flies pretty good.
[2524.57] Tony: We're lucky now.
[2526.57] Tony: The props don't break when you look at them.
[2529.57] Tony: You used to look at my props and then snap.
[2534.57] BlueOwl: Bad things.
[2537.57] Tony: The good old days, no sims, nothing like that.
[2540.57] Tony: We never had sims.
[2542.57] Tony: God, I sound like an old git, don't I?
[2546.57] Frank: What's your current FPV set-up in terms of,
[2550.57] Frank: what's your favorite FPV quad that you've been flying?
[2555.57] Frank: What goggles have you got? What radio are you flying?
[2559.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so for me, I've got different ones.
[2562.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I was actually trying to show Blue Owl a couple of them before.
[2566.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because of what Tony Star said, I don't feel so bad.
[2569.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'm currently flying two,
[2573.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: so there's two that I'm currently using right now,
[2577.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and they're straight out of the box type of ones.
[2582.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: The ones that we custom-built, yeah, they work, but they're not my favorite.
[2586.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't know if you guys know Wakira.
[2591.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, you heard of them.
[2594.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Wakira F210, so that comes with a Devo 8 radio controller.
[2601.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's what we're using right now.
[2603.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then in terms of my goggles,
[2607.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: my goggles are really wack, guys, they're really bad.
[2613.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think I've got, what did I show you?
[2616.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'll show you my racing goggles, hey?
[2618.57] BlueOwl: I don't think so.
[2621.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think there might be in the cupboard right now, actually.
[2627.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I might need to get them for you guys.
[2629.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Go on, go on.
[2630.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Go on, show us what we're using now.
[2633.57] Tony: But when you come back, remember to hold your microphone.
[2641.57] Tony: Smash bang all up.
[2644.57] Frank: Have you been able to get out and fly much recently?
[2648.57] Frank: No, not so much yet.
[2650.57] BlueOwl: So just a few moments ago, we just started.
[2657.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Here's like a sort of custom situation going on there.
[2662.57] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Here are my goggles.
[2668.22] Tony: Are there...
[2669.22] Tony: Like a box goggles?
[2671.22] Tony: Yeah, a box goggles.
[2672.22] Tony: Okay, let me put this on so that you guys can see.
[2676.22] Tony: Hi, Ishin.
[2678.22] Tony: Andy or no, what now? Ishin, what?
[2680.22] Tony: And then I've got...
[2681.22] Tony: Oh, sorry, I've got my headphones on.
[2683.22] Tony: Headphones, sorry.
[2684.22] Tony: Sorry, sorry.
[2685.22] Tony: Hold your microphone away from your t-shirt.
[2689.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Good boy.
[2691.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: All right, cool.
[2692.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: All right, so I've got these,
[2693.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and then I've got a couple of super old...
[2697.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: What are they called?
[2698.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: They're like the old, old fat chalks,
[2700.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: like the very second.
[2703.22] Tony: Dominators?
[2705.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Probably something like that.
[2709.22] Curry: Does the IPs keep falling out?
[2711.22] Curry: That's the...
[2714.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Probably.
[2715.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I've got these.
[2717.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, okay, cool.
[2719.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you guys see them?
[2720.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: They're VR...
[2721.22] Curry: Yeah, yeah.
[2722.22] Curry: So those are like...
[2724.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, exactly.
[2726.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So these ones are like...
[2729.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then...
[2732.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so these ones are like 480p type of thing.
[2735.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Then I'm also using an EA Sheen wizard thing.
[2740.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I think...
[2741.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: EA Sheen wizard, yeah.
[2742.22] Frank: Yeah, you know like that.
[2743.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, EA Sheen X220S or something like that.
[2746.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Something like that.
[2747.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: ST, something like that.
[2748.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Right?
[2750.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So those are currently the two that I'm using.
[2754.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then we've got our little custom thingies
[2756.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: that are going on here.
[2759.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't have all my radios here.
[2761.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've got one here.
[2764.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: This one.
[2765.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: This is like my beast.
[2767.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, sorry.
[2768.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Here you go.
[2769.22] Tony: Is that...
[2770.22] Tony: What's that Futaba?
[2772.22] Tony: I can't even see what that is.
[2774.22] AndyRC: That's a World Carer one, isn't it?
[2776.22] AndyRC: World Carer?
[2777.22] AndyRC: No, no, it's not World Carer.
[2779.22] AndyRC: I think it's like Spectrum type of thing.
[2781.22] AndyRC: Oh, yeah, yeah, Spectrum.
[2782.22] AndyRC: Oh, yeah, Spectrum.
[2783.22] AndyRC: It's Spectrum, so...
[2784.22] AndyRC: Yeah, cool.
[2785.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so that's that.
[2786.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then I've also got...
[2789.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so obviously I've got the Devo 8, I think, as well.
[2793.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then I've got an X...
[2795.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't know if you guys know XK.
[2797.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, yeah, XK.
[2799.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've got an XK...
[2802.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's white.
[2804.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'll have to check.
[2806.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: XK something.
[2808.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then XK.
[2809.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Because XK got a very nice radio controller, eh?
[2812.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: They've got a very nice custom one.
[2814.22] AndyRC: Yeah, yeah, pretty good.
[2815.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I have a protocol XK.
[2817.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2818.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's very nice.
[2820.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But then it only works with this, so I'm just like, ah.
[2823.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's annoying.
[2824.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And they haven't brought out any new ones in like 10 years.
[2827.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's been a while.
[2828.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, it's been a while, XK.
[2829.22] AndyRC: They sort of...
[2830.22] AndyRC: They had a lot of nice 3D models that, as I was saying,
[2835.22] AndyRC: reverse prop that I checked up.
[2838.22] AndyRC: I haven't seen any of them from them for a good while, XK.
[2841.22] AndyRC: Exactly.
[2842.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But the radio controller's beautiful.
[2843.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It's one of the best that I've ever used or seen.
[2847.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2848.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[2849.22] Tony: Well, we all fly cheap radios.
[2851.22] Tony: Most of us fly the cheap Taranas radios anyway.
[2854.22] Tony: We just...
[2855.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[2856.22] Tony: They're really good radios, but we always change the gimbals in arms
[2860.22] Tony: to the nicer gimbals.
[2862.22] Tony: But they're just pretty cheap radios, to be honest.
[2868.22] Tony: As long as it works.
[2869.22] Tony: As long as it works, eh?
[2872.22] Tony: Yeah.
[2873.22] Tony: So, Tawanda, have you flown a plane, wings, or anything like that, FBV?
[2880.22] Tony: No, I haven't.
[2881.22] Tony: No?
[2882.22] Curry: I haven't.
[2883.22] Curry: Okay.
[2884.22] Curry: You have to do everything as soon as you get into FBV.
[2887.22] Curry: Start working a bit of this camera on a doggy's one,
[2890.22] Curry: another is on a wing, and start flying that around.
[2894.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You know what?
[2895.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I've been out to guys who fly model aircraft a couple of times, right?
[2899.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And I've been there, seeing them doing their thing,
[2901.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and I'm there, and then I pull up my door and do my thing next to them.
[2905.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But I have no desire to fly their, like, items.
[2909.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like, I just, I'm just like, nah.
[2911.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'm like, I'm happy.
[2912.22] Tony: Well, even if you put a camera on there, come on.
[2914.22] Curry: Are they just going in circles and doing boring stuff?
[2917.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, because then they have to do all this, like, climbing,
[2920.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and then it has to, like...
[2922.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You just pretend you're a god.
[2926.22] Curry: No.
[2927.22] Curry: It's much more exciting on a plane,
[2929.22] Curry: because when you come down low, you have all that ground turbulence,
[2932.22] Curry: and you're shaking around.
[2933.22] Curry: It's like, am I going to die or not?
[2935.22] Curry: And you just don't know.
[2937.22] Curry: It's good stuff.
[2938.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Try everything.
[2940.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'll try it next time.
[2941.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I just was like, nah, I'm happy with my racing drone.
[2945.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: That's fair enough.
[2947.22] Tony: I think we're all flying wings here, I think.
[2951.22] Tony: We all like flying them.
[2953.22] Tony: Wings, wings, yeah.
[2955.22] Tony: A lot.
[2956.22] Tony: Anything we can FBV.
[2958.22] Frank: Oh, really?
[2959.22] Frank: Andy's mate proved that you can make it out of a cardboard box as well.
[2963.22] AndyRC: Absolutely, yeah.
[2964.22] AndyRC: We don't need even anything other than a cardboard box to get a plane going.
[2969.22] AndyRC: That's it.
[2970.22] AndyRC: A bit of old tatty hardware.
[2973.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, some chewing gum.
[2976.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so you guys follow those guys.
[2977.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I don't know.
[2978.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I forgot the name of the guys who make planes out of cardboard box,
[2981.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and they've got some YouTube channel, and that's all they do and stuff.
[2984.22] Frank: There's flight tests that use a phone.
[2986.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, flight tests.
[2987.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: There we go.
[2988.22] Frank: Yeah.
[2989.22] Frank: They have some nice, specifically made, very lightweight foam.
[2996.22] Frank: This was not that.
[2997.22] Frank: This was an old crappy box that has just been cut up and had lots of tape on it.
[3001.22] Frank: But it still flew.
[3003.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: It still flew.
[3004.22] Frank: Yeah.
[3005.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So how come you guys don't fly then on the commercial side?
[3009.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: How come you guys don't do fixed wing then?
[3012.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You guys should be flying the EVs, right?
[3014.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Blue out, since they like all these things.
[3017.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: The EVs?
[3018.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: The EVs.
[3019.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, yeah.
[3020.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3021.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3022.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3023.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3024.22] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3025.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: A fixed wing.
[3026.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You should look for EB, so E-B-double-E.
[3028.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, EB.
[3029.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, EB.
[3030.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[3031.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And EBX and that kind of thing.
[3033.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[3034.22] Tony: A couple of us have flown commercially now and again.
[3039.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Oh, for the fixed wing?
[3041.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: No drones.
[3043.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, something for the fixed wing drones.
[3046.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Since you guys are flying planes, right?
[3050.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah.
[3051.22] Tony: Yeah, we've all...
[3053.22] Tony: Some of us have, but...
[3055.22] Frank: I think the main thing is because we're restricted to line of sight flying anyway, so we can't
[3064.22] Frank: go anywhere or do anything that we can't do with a quad, if you know what I mean.
[3070.22] Frank: If you're using a wing, it would generally be because it can go further and fly longer
[3076.22] Frank: and go faster and things like that, and that's just not particularly useful for anything
[3080.22] Frank: that you're allowed to do commercially in the UK at least.
[3083.22] Frank: So I think that's probably the big restriction.
[3088.22] Frank: But...
[3089.22] Frank: So what about you commercially?
[3091.22] Frank: What are you using at the moment?
[3093.22] Frank: I'm kind of imagining quite a large fleet of things from what you're talking about doing
[3098.22] Frank: and everything from kind of like healthcare to telecoms, so I'm just kind of interested
[3103.22] Frank: to know what you've got in your range of what you're using.
[3108.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, so healthcare is what we want to do.
[3111.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We're not in that space yet, but that's definitely a big, big goal of mine to do drone deliveries
[3118.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: for healthcare stuff just because of the need that's there in the communities in my country.
[3125.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: But in terms of our fleet, our standard is the Phantom 4 Pro, so that's a workhorse.
[3133.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So that's doing our mapping.
[3135.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: A lot of our small to medium scale kind of mapping work.
[3140.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then agriculture as well, just getting us data and information in that space,
[3144.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: as well as doing kind of like your 3D models and getting data for photogrammetry work
[3150.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: and that kind of thing.
[3151.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So you're Phantom 4 Pro, we've got about three of those.
[3153.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We've got a Mavic 2 Pro as well.
[3155.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We had an Inspire 1, it's kind of on its last legs right now type of thing.
[3162.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: We've just gotten a Mavic Air 2, which is cool, really cool.
[3168.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: The color's not bad on that one, and it's very nice and versatile.
[3172.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So that's kind of our range right now.
[3174.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: And then on the industrial side, we have one crop spray drone, 15-liter tank,
[3180.22] Tawanda Chihambakwe: called the Joyence JT-108 Pro.
[3186.22] Tony: That's really cool.
[3187.22] Tony: How long's that fly for?
[3189.22] Tony: Did I disappear or did he disappear?
[3195.04] Curry: There was a freeze up there.
[3197.04] AndyRC: I think he's disappeared, unfortunately.
[3199.04] Tony: Oh, Tawanda.
[3201.04] Frank: Either that or he's doing a very, very good impression.
[3204.04] Tony: He's doing a great job at keeping the Mavic choice.
[3208.04] Tony: Oh, no, what happened?
[3210.04] Curry: Hopefully he rejoined.
[3211.04] Curry: I was just thinking, is there an untapped market for these crop spraying drones?
[3215.04] Curry: You know these sort of party islands where everybody's partying and they're dicing around,
[3218.04] Curry: obviously not on this thing.
[3219.04] Curry: Can you just fill it with beer and you can fly over them for their mouths?
[3225.04] AndyRC: I think it'd be better to fill them with this, in fact, until the moment.
[3230.04] Curry: That's a good idea too.
[3232.04] AndyRC: Yeah, I think so.
[3234.04] AndyRC: Yeah, it is interesting.
[3235.04] AndyRC: The commercial side, we don't see much of it over here, really,
[3239.04] AndyRC: other than...
[3240.04] Curry: Tony's kind of looking at it more than anybody else.
[3245.04] Curry: I was never interested in it because it would involve me having to travel around
[3249.04] Curry: and I can't be bothered.
[3252.04] Curry: I have to do home stuff, basically.
[3255.04] AndyRC: I don't know how much demand there is for it.
[3258.04] AndyRC: Maybe it's these times, but I never see adverts or anything like that for we want such and such.
[3267.04] Curry: I think what happened is it was kind of like a dot-com bubble.
[3271.04] Curry: It was like everybody suddenly like, oh, I need to get commercial to do stuff.
[3275.04] Curry: Then I could sell my services to all these film companies.
[3278.04] Curry: Then places like the BBC said, why don't we just get our own drone pilots
[3282.04] Curry: and use them all the time for everything?
[3284.04] Curry: So I think it's sort of got a little bit oversubscribed.
[3288.04] Curry: I think a lot of people sort of dropped back out again because they sort of thought,
[3292.04] Curry: if I get qualified and get my commercial license,
[3295.04] Curry: people will just come and see me.
[3297.04] Curry: Of course, you have to sell yourself as a business and as a service to do that.
[3301.04] Curry: They weren't quite aware of that.
[3303.04] Curry: So I think it's a bit more streamlined now about what's happening.
[3306.04] Curry: But I don't know...
[3307.04] Curry: Obviously, we talk about the industry for filming and TV a lot,
[3311.04] Curry: but I don't know what's going on in terms of agriculture, in terms of photogrammetry,
[3314.04] Curry: in terms of inspection, that sort of thing, how big it is out here.
[3318.04] Tony: I think Blue Hell can dial in on that.
[3322.04] BlueOwl: So yeah, when we think about making videos, photos and so on,
[3326.04] BlueOwl: there's definitely a lot of people probably way more than needed.
[3332.04] BlueOwl: But the thing is, I think when you're specialized in something like agriculture
[3338.04] BlueOwl: or cargo or whatever, medical delivery, anything like that,
[3344.04] BlueOwl: then you actually start with another field
[3348.04] BlueOwl: and then you kind of work your way to the drones.
[3352.04] BlueOwl: And it's not the other way around.
[3354.04] BlueOwl: These are not people who say, I want to be a drone pilot,
[3358.04] BlueOwl: and then they figure out what they will specialize in.
[3361.04] BlueOwl: They become specialists in a very certain and very narrow field like agriculture,
[3366.04] BlueOwl: and then they happen to work with drones.
[3369.04] BlueOwl: This is what I usually see.
[3371.04] BlueOwl: So I guess when you're a specialist in your field,
[3375.04] BlueOwl: you'll know the network of people, at least in your country.
[3379.04] BlueOwl: And yeah, it's probably the work will find you if you are good enough.
[3386.04] AndyRC: Yeah, that's my problem.
[3389.04] AndyRC: That's just not good enough.
[3392.04] AndyRC: No.
[3393.04] Tony: And I keep working.
[3395.04] Tony: We know you can fly well, Andy.
[3398.04] AndyRC: After a couple of beers, maybe.
[3401.04] Frank: But on the topic of commercial flying,
[3404.04] Frank: next week we'll be having Robin FPV on,
[3407.04] Frank: and we'll get Robin and Tony talking about the A2 test,
[3411.04] Frank: which is going to be kind of a bit different come January
[3416.04] Frank: about what that really means.
[3418.04] Frank: So that will be interesting to talk about next week.
[3423.04] Frank: Have we got any final questions before we sign off?
[3427.04] Frank: Not from me.
[3429.04] Frank: Or anything else anyone wants to add?
[3431.04] Curry: It's like, hurry up and post your video to Andrew.
[3433.04] Curry: We want to see the...
[3434.04] Tony: Yeah, we just want to see the flying down Victoria Falls now.
[3438.04] Frank: Yeah, we definitely want to see all your FPV stuff.
[3442.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Cool, guys.
[3444.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Like I said, January 1st or 2nd, I'll have it up on my channel.
[3447.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: You're making this white, aren't you?
[3449.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, 100%.
[3450.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'm like promoting it right now.
[3452.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Can't you tell?
[3454.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So guys, African drone professional.
[3457.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Check it out.
[3458.04] Tony: We'll put all your links in the below of our YouTube channel.
[3464.04] Tony: Yeah, so hopefully we'll see you flying Victoria Falls soon.
[3473.04] Tony: Would you come back in a couple of months?
[3476.04] Tony: Tell us what you've been up to.
[3478.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Yeah, I'd love to.
[3480.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'm actually going to a conference on...
[3482.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: I'm involved with it,
[3483.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: but I've been invited to speak at a drone conference
[3486.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: in South Africa on Tuesday, Wednesday.
[3490.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'm actually leaving Saturday.
[3493.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So the day after tomorrow, I'm leaving.
[3495.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So I'll be going to South Africa, speaking at a conference there,
[3497.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: talking about Zumba with flying labs.
[3500.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: So yeah, some super cool stuff.
[3504.04] Tony: Excellent.
[3505.04] Tony: We'd love to have you back and roll on January
[3508.04] Tony: so I can see you, Victoria Falls.
[3512.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Nice.
[3515.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Thanks very much.
[3517.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Thank you so much.
[3518.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Thank you guys.
[3519.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Appreciate you, Frank, Kerry Kitten and the RC.
[3521.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Blue out, Tony.
[3522.04] Tawanda Chihambakwe: Thank you so much.
[3523.04] Tony: There you go.
[3524.04] Tony: We don't have to do our outro.
[3526.04] Tony: Thank you very much.
[3528.04] Curry: You should have done the intro.
[3531.04] Tony: My stuttering mess.
[3535.04] Tony: Don't ever do that again, Frank, and we're going to fall out.
[3540.04] Frank: Every time, Tony, from here on out.
[3543.04] Tony: Basket.
[3544.04] Frank: Until you do it.
[3545.04] Frank: I'm going to put you on the spot.
[3547.04] Frank: Yeah, thank you very much, everyone, for coming on.
[3549.04] Frank: This has been Let's Drone Out.
[3551.04] Frank: Next week, as we said, we're talking about the A2 test
[3554.04] Frank: with Rob and Effuvi and Tony.
[3556.04] Frank: This week, we have been Tony.
[3558.04] Tony: Bye.
[3559.04] Tony: Blue out.
[3561.04] Tony: Bye.
[3562.04] Frank: Wanda.
[3563.04] AndyRC: Yeah.
[3565.04] AndyRC: Andrew.
[3566.04] AndyRC: Good evening.
[3568.04] Frank: Kerry.
[3569.04] AndyRC: Bye.
[3570.04] Frank: And me, Frank, it's been Let's Drone Out.
[3572.04] Frank: Thank you, and good night.
[3573.04] Frank: Telemetry loss.