“Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear – the earth remains, slightly modified … I sometimes choose to think that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.” Edward Abbey 

___________________________

I’ve had a Mavic DJI drone for a few years and have had fun flying it, and, have gotten some good aerial photos. I’ve shared some of these on NextDoor. One is over Buckeye Stadium in the fall right before football season. One is hovering over the huge parking lot in the downtown area of our town on a weekday at noon. The parking lot is usually filled with cars.

But that day I had my drone out, the parking lot was completely empty. At the time, it wasn’t that surprising. It was June of 2020 and the nation was three months into the Covid Pandemic. I was about the only one out on the streets with my Mavic Drone. In the middle of the week.

You’ve either flown a drone or not. Or, maybe have a friend who has one. Or maybe seen some of the crazy videos of drones on YouTube. I’ve posted a few on Midnight Oil of what is called a First Person View drone or FPV. The FPVs are really drones virtual reality type of devices that you wear a goggle to fly with the magical sense you can fly through the sky in all types of new maneuvers. FPV drones I think really compete with some of the immersive video game makers. Or, in the future, the virtual, electronic indoctrination of today’s children. An indoctrination into consumption rather than production in life.

* * *

With everything that’s going on in the world right now it is nice to join a crew hiking to the top of Mt. Everest. Through the eyes of a DJI Mavic III at 30,000 feet in the air. This is not an FPV drone but a regular drone which is flown by someone without the FPV Headband over their heads. The Mavic is flown from a small panel where you control the drone with two sticks.

I think the highest I ever got with my Mavic II drone was around 700 feet. There was definite communications with programmers of DJI drones as I simply could not even take off at certain times. Especially my drone and I were close to an airport. One could not even fly your drone near certain cone shaped parameters into the airport. The Chinese DJI had things figured out to shut down any of their drones close to airports.

The few minutes of footage from a DJI Mavic III drone is stunning. And seems so appropriate for my times when one can be above all the strife in the world today, if just the few minutes at 30,000 feet in this gorgeous, stunning film. The sky is bluer than I’ve ever seen it. The white of the great mountains against the brilliant blue sky. The drone follows the ascent party up the mountain.

A stunning end of the two and a half minute video.