What goes into proper safety checks before a drone flight?

Safety checks include verifying ND filters, confirming battery health, inspecting the aircraft, scanning the sky for other drones and aircraft, and coordinating with visual observers. These steps ensure that each flight is stable, predictable, and compliant with operational guidelines.

Why is maintaining line-of-sight so important during long-range drone operations?

Line-of-sight flying ensures the pilot always has visual control of the drone’s position, altitude, and surroundings. Especially when tracking a moving ship or operating over water, maintaining clear visual contact helps avoid hazards, regain signal if interference occurs, and keep flights within legal limits.

How do drone operators manage airspace communication when multiple drones are in the sky?

Airspace communication becomes critical when three or four drones are flying simultaneously. Operators gather together, share their altitudes, coordinate sides of the subject, and keep open radio or verbal communication to avoid collisions and maintain shot consistency.

Episode 6 – Final Port of Call: USS United States Arrives in Alabama

Guests: Pelican Drones

Podcast Episode: “Final Port of Call – The Arrival of the USS United States in Mobile”
Aerial Perspectives Podcast | In Collaboration with Pelican Drones

In this special episode of Aerial Perspectives, we tag along with Pelican Drones to witness the dramatic arrival of the USS United States in Mobile, Alabama — a historic moment as the warship begins its transformation into the world’s largest artificial reef.

Experience what it’s like to use cutting-edge drone technology to capture massive maritime events from the sky. We’ll take you behind the scenes of the aerial filming process, share insights from the drone crew, and explore how this ship’s final voyage will breathe new life into the Gulf of Mexico.

Don’t forget to subscribe for more drone-powered stories, STEM education insights, and groundbreaking environmental projects.

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This episode delivers a full behind-the-scenes look at a professional drone-production day as Pelican Drones documents the arrival of the USS United States in Mobile, Alabama. From ND filter selection to multi-location repositioning, the team demonstrates how disciplined safety checks, strict line-of-sight management, and coordinated airspace communication keep high-profile shoots running smoothly. Viewers get an inside look at production-team coordination, over-water recovery precautions, cinematic movement techniques, and the challenges posed by multiple drones and manned aircraft sharing the same airspace. It’s a grounded, practical walkthrough of what real-world drone operations actually require when pressure, distance, and unpredictability are all in play.

How Thorough Safety Checks Set the Tone for the Entire Mission
Consistent and disciplined safety checks ensure the team starts every flight from a stable, predictable baseline. When ND filters, batteries, airspace conditions, and visual-observer roles are verified early, the rest of the shoot becomes smoother and safer.
Why Line-of-Sight Flying Is the Backbone of Long-Range Cinematic Work
Maintaining clear line-of-sight flying enables stable tracking shots, smoother altitude transitions, and safer long-distance operations—especially important when the team is following a ship from multiple locations and operating over water.
Airspace Communication as a Critical Skill in Multi-Pilot Environments
Effective airspace communication keeps all pilots synchronized when several drones are airborne. Sharing elevation, flight paths, and subject-side positioning prevents conflicts and allows each operator to capture their shots without compromising safety.e.

What goes into proper safety checks before a drone flight?
Safety checks include verifying ND filters, confirming battery health, inspecting the aircraft, scanning the sky for other drones and aircraft, and coordinating with visual observers. These steps ensure that each flight is stable, predictable, and compliant with operational guidelines.
Why is maintaining line-of-sight so important during long-range drone operations?
Line-of-sight flying ensures the pilot always has visual control of the drone’s position, altitude, and surroundings. Especially when tracking a moving ship or operating over water, maintaining clear visual contact helps avoid hazards, regain signal if interference occurs, and keep flights within legal limits.
How do drone operators manage airspace communication when multiple drones are in the sky?
Airspace communication becomes critical when three or four drones are flying simultaneously. Operators gather together, share their altitudes, coordinate sides of the subject, and keep open radio or verbal communication to avoid collisions and maintain shot consistency.

Chris Tonn 00:00

Ben, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of aerial perspectives. Today, we have a very special field trip into a day in the life of a drone operator. Today, we're actually tagging along with Pelican drones and our pilot, Ben Vogel, and we're going to see a little bit more of what it's like to cover a drone job, a high profile drone job at that including what will be the arrival of the USS, United States, here in Mobile Bay and mobile downtown, Alabama. This ship is pretty cool. It's 1000 foot long, old 1950s steamboat that was one of the fastest steamboats of its time for transatlantic crossings. It's now going to become the world's largest artificial reef right off the coast of destin Florida. So come along, let's check it out and see what's involved with covering this really cool drone jump. All right, guys, we're back, and it's time for our safety checkpoints and dialing the drone in. As you can see, I'm in my high visibility gear. We've got Ben behind me getting the drone ready for the final steps here. Obviously, one of the things that we're doing first is getting that ND filter picked out in this case, what are we going with Ben and Indy? 6464 so that's to deal with all this fun sunshine we've got this morning, and will help us ensure we have some really good shots of the USS, United States, ready for launch. And one of the things we just noticed is another drone, so part of the safety inspection is going to be visual observer, watching out for traffic, just like this. So here we go. Gonna be keeping a close eye on everything, and we're up all right, let's see what the action is here. We're gonna go get a looky loo. We're gonna keep an eye on this other drone. We're drone, and off we go.

Chris Tonn 02:18

All right, we're going up for second flight. Ben's getting ready. Got the drone warming up over here. One of the things we've had to space out some of the video filming on has been some of the air traffic, not just drones, but also airplanes. We've had about two or three airplanes in the vicinity, so always keeping an eye out as we operate, making sure that there's no threat to us or the drone itself, or other aircraft. So anyways, we're going up for again, another establishing shot, the vessels quite a quite a distance off. You can see it over my shoulder there. But you know, this is our secondary location. The primary will be downtown Mobile, where we'll get a lot closer shots and whatnot. Another thing that's going on while we fly is we're constantly communicating with the production team, updating them of what's going on and how the shots are going, because they are at a separate location, doing ground shots in interviews of the folks on the ground. So a lot of moving pieces. Multitasking is the name of the game, pushes, pulls, slides, risers. What is all of that? And you know, how does it play a role in this film production? Well, basically, you know, I'll go through them one by one, but some of them are self explanatory. Essentially, a riser is your slow up and down. Maybe you're gimbling the camera as you rise, to give it a little cinematic feel, or raising the camera up as you come down, doing that fun little establishing shot with a riser. The other one is a push and a pull. So it's just like it sounds, you're pushing in on the subject matter very slowly, keeping the subject in frame, and then you're backing out and keeping the subject in frame. The last one was the slider, which is just that we're just sliding from left to right with all of our nice, consistent maneuvering of keeping that boat in frame as we do it. So another fun one that we may or may not do at this location is going to be an orbit, which is where we essentially orbit the vessel in a nice circular pattern, keeping it in the center of frame at all times. So anyways, fun little shot list lingo for you. You

Chris Tonn 04:53

we are at location number two. This is our primary location in downtown Mobile This is. Where the boat is going to dock the USS, United States. We've got Ben doing some final little checks on the gear, getting us re established. One of the things that we did on the way over here is we offloaded the footage from the drone to the computer. We are doing operations over the water. So in the event of a total loss, such as a bird strike and we land in the water, we can absolutely salvage that footage and not just lose our drone, but rather keep that footage safe and intact. So anyways, more to come. A little update. The boat will be going right over there where that red topped crane is, and we'll be front row and center for the arrival. See you soon. We're on our primary location here in downtown Mobile, Alabama for the USS, United States. I got my buddy Ben over here with pelican. We're getting ready for setting up the drone for round two. Obviously, I didn't want to bug Ben too much because we were up in the air and he was concentrating. And there's enough things going on. But ultimately, just want to ask Ben a couple questions here, you know, really kind of give us the lay of the land. Been what you've been looking for? What's kind of the happy path for today's shoot?

Ben Vogel 06:08

Yeah, today is about range, mostly. So we're flying some pretty far distances, of course, keeping line of sight always. But when you're flying farther away distances, you have to be at a higher altitude, so you can't come down too low. And obviously we're following the ship, so we want those lower shots. So we've located to a second spot where we have more of a line of sight on the drone, and we'll be able to get the lower shots that we want.

Chris Tonn 06:38

Amen, yeah, here's a little preview of our site here. We've got news we got the film production crew with the local camera, obviously news gear over here, we've got some boats going in and out of the river to go check it out. And yeah, it's gonna be exciting stuff. Boats about 30 minutes out. All right, things are getting real out here, we've got up to four drones in flight. So when we noticed the other drone operators, what we did was we just brought them over and put them together so we can all talk about what elevation we're at and what side of the ship we're on. So fun stuff. Never a dull moment. It's getting close. There it is, right there In the background. You You You

Chris Tonn 08:17

all right, everyone, welcome back. We're getting into the closing chapter. As you heard, we finished all of our basic shots. We are now into our creative shots. The boat has officially docked over here, and we're getting some maneuvering shots of the crane that's loading up ropes and people and supplies. There's also a little press conference going on over there, and, yeah, we're just doing our own thing. Thankfully, one of the benefits of being a drone operator is you kind of get to be off on the sidelines doing your own thing while some of the primary crews are doing their thing. But we'll check in with Ben. Anything exciting so far,

Ben Vogel 08:58

a little bit. We got some workers on deck, moving some ropes, operating a crane, and so we're kind of focusing on those areas right now. You

Chris Tonn 09:46

all right, guys, we are all done for the day. Was a great shoot. You can see the boat behind us all tied up. Benny got the creative shots at the end. We'll let him tell a little bit more about any challenges for the day, anything exciting or spicy. Yeah.

Ben Vogel 10:00

I mean, with every flight you're going to have challenges. You just got to work around that. We had a few signal issues, but the remedy is always to fly higher. We had other drone pilots. Flying communication is definitely the key. But like I said, every drone flight has some sort of issue, you just need to know what the remedy is. Stick to it and stick to your protocols, and you'll be good to go.

Chris Tonn 10:27

That's right. Now, what about those four drones up there with you at the same time?

Ben Vogel 10:31

A little scary, but communication is always key.

Chris Tonn 10:35

That's right. That's right. Very cool. Well, there's the final tug boat doing the old horn. It's all tied up. It's all secure, and this show is a wrap. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of aerial perspectives and tune in for more. Thanks guys. You.