Fargo, North Dakota.

OK, so this isn’t technically a Cellpic. It is, however, captured from a truly mobile device. First, the backstory… One of the newest missions of Civil Air Patrol (CAP) involves the use of small unmanned aerial systems, in CAP parlance, sUAS Missions. In the common vernacular, drones. The sUAS class of device weighs between .5 (266 g) and 55 lbs (25 kg). In a word, “small”. In the last couple of years, I’ve gone through the steps needed to become a Commercial sUAS Pilot. The FAA calls this class of license a Part 107 and CAP requires that all of our members who wish to pilot one of these devices hold a Part 107 UAS license.

There will be more to this story in future posts, but for now, I thought I would share a “dronie” photo, a term equivalent to a “selfie” in Cellphone parlance. I’ve purchased one of these little marvels of flying photo technology and I am learning to fly it. They aren’t that hard to fly in automatic modes, but CAP needs pilots who can fly with precision without depending upon automatic modes often built into these devices.

About the photo: During one of my practice take off and landing sessions, I brought the aircraft to a hover a few feet in front of us and asked my wife, Lynn, to push the camera button to take a snapshot. The photo from the camera in RAW mode is 4056 x 3040 pixels (4K). Though usually prized for their video prowess, drones make very capable still cameras. This image was tweaked with Lightroom and Luminar Flex to bring out definition in the sky and overall detail in the image. The rule for Cellpic Sunday has not been changed… the image must be captured by a mobile device… after all, what’s more mobile than a drone?

John Steiner