Aerial drone photography near the arctic circle. I returned a few days ago from 10 incredible days of flying a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter in Iceland. Iceland’s natural beauty is nearly unparalleled, and I felt fortunate to be able to wander around the country with a camera that could be moved both horizontally and vertically in space. Iceland’s latitude is 66ºN, which means that it just brushes up against the boundary of the arctic circle. It is a challenging place to fly because of a few key issues.

The first and most important is that weather changes quickly in Iceland (Vedur.is is the best site for weather forecasts, although we found forecasts to be questionably accurate, there). There is even a t-shirt that states something like, “Don’t like the weather in Iceland? Wait 5 minutes!” The wind basically never stops blowing, and it is usually also both cold and wet. The combination of wind and rain / snow makes flying challenging. The Phantom 2 does a good job of stabilizing flight even in strong, gusty winds, and can even fly successfully in light rain (at your own risk!), but the wind also blows rain and snow directly onto the lens of the camera, which can ruin the shots you are trying to get. I tend to fly my Phantom in winds up to around 15 mph. Any stronger, and I start to get nervous. If winds are blowing at 15 mph, you can still fly against it at nearly 15 mph. Note the the Phantom will fly really fast with the wind, so be careful that you aren’t flying too fast. Also, wind will blow a GPS-held Phantom away from the hold point when you turn (yaw) the aircraft in place. I’ve seen mine move as much as 6 feet or so when turning in strong wind. It will  eventually return to its original location, but you shouldn’t expect to be able to rotate in place unless you are correcting for wind using sticks.

The second issue has the potential to really ruin a multicoptor pilot’s trip. Because Iceland is so far north,  magnetic declination is high, which means that north, as registered by a compass, doesn’t match the same north that a map might indicate. The Phantom’s magnetometer (compass) is designed to be calibrated to account for differing magnetic declination in different parts of the world, but there have been some known cases of erratic flight in high latitudes which may or may not have been caused by extreme magnetic declination. Further complicating the magnetic environment is the huge amount of volcanic rock, which basically makes up the entire island. The minerals spewed by volcanos can end up being incredibly magnetic, which can also influence compass readings. The way the complex magnetic environment manifests itself during GPS-based multicopter flight is that GPS hold becomes less effective. In a few locations around the island, my Phantom 2 began to “toilet bowl,” which means that it started to drift in a circle even when it was supposed to be holding position. This drift was easy to correct because I am a competent pilot, and helping the Phantom to stay in the same place by manually piloting kept it under control. However, if the drifting was left uncorrected, the Phantom would start to drift in wider and wider circles, flying faster and faster. I hate to imagine what would have happened if I had been unable to correct for this! In the worst case, which happened on a large plain on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, I had to switch into ATT mode to control the quadcopter, which instantly stopped the toilet bowling, but of course prevented GPS-assisted flight. The point here is that you should be a good pilot before attempting to fly any multicopter in GPS-assisted modes in magnetic environments like this. At a minimum, you shouldn’t have to think to convert desired muticopter motion into radio stick movements, and you should be very comfortable flying in ATT mode, even in wind.

The third issue is that it can be very cold in Iceland. Even in mid-May, the temperature frequently dropped below freezing (mostly, in the northern parts of the country). If you take a battery out of the warmth of a car or a jacket pocket and begin flying relatively quickly, you’ll get good flight times. The quadcopter’s electronics, motors, and the battery itself will generate heat while flying, which will keep the battery happy. However, if you let a battery get really cold before you start to use it, you’ll find that flight times can be severely compromised. During one instance, I ran a battery down to about 50% and then took a break. During the break, the battery cooled down rapidly, and when I took off again, the voltage drop instantly signalled to the Phantom that it was time to land. I was unable to conduct a second flight using the same battery, and had to switch to a fresh one. Also, you will likely be flying while wearing gloves. If you are using a Phantom 2 Vision+, get a pair of gloves that will allow you to operate capacitive touch screens. Practice flying while wearing gloves, and consider switching to a two-finger pinch method (thumb and index finger on each stick), which will give you more control.

Iceland is an amazing place for aerial imagery, but if you plan to fly there, be sure you are absolutely confident that you can fly in non-GPS assisted modes. As always, be aware of your local environment. Some tourist destinations are known to have (full-size) helicopters come in and land, sometimes in unexpected locations (like on a river bank). An soon as there is any indication that a helicopter might be nearby, bring your multicopter back as fast (and safely) as possible.

You can see my aerial Iceland photography here at skypixel.org, or at echengphoto.com (to be uploaded, soon).

I typed this using an iPad keyboard, and there were/are a lot of typos. Sorry!