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Wingsley

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 20, 2014
302
44
An exciting new prospect just dropped into my lap, and I need to acquire new hardware accessories and software to take advantage of it.

I talked to a gentleman who is accepting applications for skills evaluation and close-supervision training (small class size) aerial inspection photo/video UAV (drone) piloting. I currently have no drone piloting experience, but I've wanted to learn for years. I took an immersion course at Digital Media Academy at Stanford University to get my feet wet with Final Cut Pro. I don't get to use it often enough, but over the years I have occasionally made some camcorder-based videos.

The gentleman I talked to is deeply involved in industrial UAV and video/photo operations and is trying to develop more personnel. I cannot pass this opportunity up.

He told me that the first step is to get up to 30 hours experience in a flight simulator. I'm in a rural area, so the only simulator I can find is one I buy for myself.

MY CURRENT HARDWARE/SOFTWARE SETUP
Apple iMac 21" 2.9 GHz Core i5, 1 TB HDD, 8 GB RAM; current running MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 (Considering getting new SSD to swap out the HDD, and installing Mojave and maybe Bootcamp w/ Win10 if necessary)

I am also considering getting a new M1X MacBook Pro if they come out this Fall. I have COVID-19 stimulus money in my bank account and this opportunity sounds like a good investment.

I checked out some videos on YouTube about how to set up a flight simulator. Are any available for MacOS? Windows-only? What about iOS? It looks like you have to buy a standard drone radio control unit and plug it into a computer via USB. Not sure where to shop for all the accessories, but it looks (so far) like the least expensive hardware accessories (controller, etc.) would cost about $750.
 
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