I can see wanting to always be at the controls, especially for what might get replaced with the waypoint mission, but as I've read through this thread, it's clearly not possible. As someone who can envision a shot in my head (let's say not of a moving object, but through a city or along a complex shoreline), it would be great to offload most of the piloting to my "virtual pilot" while I focus on being the cameraman. But where I envision a smooth, sweeping 90-degree turn while descending 75 feet, instead I get a stop, a pause, a 90-degree jerk in course that's so hard as to be painful, and finally a rapid decent before even moving on to the next waypoint. That's great for a grid pattern, shooting a series of photogrammetric images for Drone Deploy et al — yet worthless for the cinematic video footage I described above. The only point for an Eo II waypoint mission as it's currently implemented is to get the drone to a specific location — a single A to B — without having to hold any sticks down. This sucks, as it's pointless, an I hoped the
Evo II to be my cinematic/photography drone; I'd use my Skydio 2 for mapping or inspections.
So my actual question: Everyone talks about Litchi; is it capable of a smooth waypoint mission (with a compatible drone) or is it just another Drone Deploy/etc? I've got a "cinematic/photography" drone (at least when flown manually, and flying even just the basic shot I described isn't a no brainer — it's piloting that takes years of practice, which I'll guess I'll eventually get, but not in the urban area I envisioned that shot, and not before many, many hours — a good thing for sure) in the
Evo II, a sport-shooting (and surprisingly commercial work-related within months) with the Skydio, and one just to have the experience of flight (and probably the moments before hitting the ground at full-speed — eventually — I haven't even gotten to the sim yet. Don't drink and drone shop lol) in the DJI FPV.
If someone says yes to my Litchi question (which I'm pretty sure is yes), I'm afraid of ending up the Jay Leno of drones. But to answer many rhetorical and actual questions above about "who's flying" and "why wouldn't you want to be on the sticks", it's because some us have fully-realized cinematographic ideas, but it they would be **** if self-piloted. I think the notion of a smart virtual pilot has a lot of uses, and isn't a cheat especially for less experienced pilots. There are some things a computer/AI can do better than any human, and some cinematographic shots are one of them. Can you correct/alter on the fly? Shoot moving objects? No and no, and there's 100 other scenarios where the answer is no, so great pilots will always be needed. At the same time, I could devise a flight path in advance that probably very few, if any human pilot could execute exactly as envisioned/planned out.
If I did get something like an Air 2s for this, it limits my need of the
Evo II to a backup and geofencing evasion. I can't even talk about the camera anymore, esp if the 2s actually has a true 1-inch sensor. Which sucks, given the amount sunk into it. Is the Evo missing something in hardware or firmware that keeps it from being/becoming Litchi-compatible?