I had a small bug which prevented using fly by wire modes while flying in a nice straight line for filming (they otherwise worked fine for safety and return to land, just not for filming)
I had a big motor glider with a front propeller (larger prop that is more efficient), but sadly it of course showed up in the front camera view
Video was 1080p, when I really wanted 4K, but I just wasn't able to put a 4K GoPro on my BFG2600, while I was able to fit one in the front nose of my Sky Eye since it uses a rear prop.
Please read the Q&A section at the bottom if you are thinking about flying a drone at burning man. Drones are restricted and require a permit.
So this year, I took my newer Hobbyking Sky Eye after much testing, and it had these pluses, with extra safety features I added:
Newer version of the pixhawk ardupilot firmware with working FBWA and CRUISE modes including firmware that could recover from upside down flight
Smaller aircraft than last year with less weight and less kinetic energy just in case somehow it were to crash (with still enough room to carry all the electronics and cameras)
Autopilot had redundant sensors, along with a complex EKF filter that can detect bad sensors and fly without them
Triple redundant radio link to control the aircraft, with again the autopilot bring the airplane back on its own if all the radio links are lost. Radio control range was more or less 20km, way more than necessary for extra safety
The autopilot takes over if radio signal is lost anyway
The autopilot also takes over if the aircraft flies too low (altitude deck). This did unfortunately lead to pictures that didn't have some art big enough in the picture, but it was tradeoff for the safety afforded by extra altitude (as a reminder, you usually would want to keep the altitude low-ish to avoid conflicting with full size traffic typically at 1000ft AGL and higher, but in this case, flying within the trash fence is actually safe since it's restricted airspace for full size aircraft).
The autopilot and aircraft obviously continue to fly for quite a while without engine power if the motor dies or the battery were allowed to run low (and there are multiple warnings and radio downlinks to prevent running the batteries low).
While this aircraft has a pusher prop to allow for the front 4K unobstructed camera view, I upgraded the powertrain to provide 800W peak and ability to fly up to 120km/h in case of bad winds. One flight after a storm had winds up to 60km/h, so this extra power capacity was not superfluous. The average drone could have been blown off and unable to come back in that much wind while my plane was able to fly against it without problems, just extra battery draw.
AP throttle controlled modes like RTL were modified to maintain a minimal ground speed even in very heavy winds (some other auto pilots will not notice and kill the batteries flying with insufficient throttle against high winds and fail to return to home).
In prior high speed stress testing at home, I was able to get the wings to fly off the plane under high load at full speed, causing an unfortunate crash, so thanks to that prior testing, I was able to build an new aircraft with re-enforced wings to avoid further crashes. Obviously this is the kind of testing and fixes you want to do at home in a safe place, not at burning man.
But as a nutshell, on top of having 4K video in the front (but only 2K in the rear), plus a 3rd camera on the top in case the 2 recording camera failed, this plane was packed with electronics that are sadly more capable than most airliners out there, and it had a lot of extra power to deal with the low density altitude (up to 33% less performance due to the thinner air) and be able to fly out of a heavy storm and come back to a safe landing (the last day, it indeed flew against a 60kph+ wind and even landed with a negative ground speed, i.e. while going backwards). While it was also able to glide for extended periods of time without power, it had a lot of battery capacity to allow flying for 45mn or more in ideal conditions.
Yes, I realize that this plane does not yield nice steady shots like what you'd get from a drone, but I very much favour versatility and safety over better video, sorry if you were expecting drone-like super steady pans from the air :)
testing/showing off the video to a friend during preflight checks and tests
Pictures from the sky
you can see from the dust that the wind is often strong, even in the morning
red lightning
lighthouse
pyramids
poor robot :)
there was a big parade of bikes going by
Then, I got super lucky with a sunset to night flight:
sunset turned to night:
art car ring around the man after a heavy storm
Questions and Answers
RC planes vs Drones:
While BM is interested in heavily controlling drones, it does not seem to care about RC planes since not a single one was licensed through the process that seemed meant for drones and both BLM ranger I asked, as well as a BMorg person both told me that their concern and worry were drones. I do support BM restricting the amount of drones to a some pre screened ones operated by trained and responsible pilots, given that drones are way more dangerous than foam RC planes if they fail and fall, and it's way too easy for people without a clue to fly them wrecklessly
Also, putting aside the total absence of glide ratio on a drone, no off the shelf drone I've seen has as many redundancies and safeties as my plane had, so it makes sense to restrict them to areas with a perimeter so that no one gets hurt should one suddenly fail and drop like a stone (RC planes are very unlikely to just fall straight down from the sky unless they break up in flight, so a perimeter doesn't make much sense for them. Also, when they are made out of foam, they are much less likely to cause injury to others, or worse. On the flipside, drones are much easier to fly and yield better video, but personally I'm more interested in safety than image quality.
For the rest, please read my Q&A from last year, but like last year, the pilots and ground spotters will remain anonymous for a variety of reasons explained there, although they were properly licensed to fly RC as per the FAA's requirements and as already explained employed multiple methods to maximize safety.
This shows the autopilot applying 72% power (i.e. power reserve left to get 88kph airspeed, and only 45kph ground speed during a very heavy 61kph headwind, the highest I had flown against so far). This used only 250 Watts out of a maximum of 800W available in case of real need:
Tips and recommendations for RC flyers
Like last year, I beg non expert pilots not to fly at burning man without proper training and permission if you are flying a drone. BM is not a place for you to learn to fly or get to try this new toy you just bought and didn't spend weeks or months building and testing yourself (including its failure modes like low battery, RF being shutoff and so forth).
My aircraft description and its safeties, including months of building and testing, should make it clear that even flying a foam airplane without a propeller in the front, is still serious business if there is any chance you could crash into people, so you really need to know what you're doing and have a very reliable, very tested aircraft with as many redundancies as possible, and obviously you should still refrain from flying at low altitude over people outside of what's required for takeoff and landing.
If I'm being that cautious about flying a foam RC plane, you'll understand that I just wouldn't want to fly a drone at burning man in any other fashion than a ladder over a perimeter that's been cleared of people in case the drone fails and falls out of the sky. This is why drone usage is heavily restricted at burning man, for everyone's safety.
last, but not least, if you don't have your full contact info on your aircraft because you're scared of what might happen if you crash and someone else finds it, please don't fly. Thank you :)
Like the previous years, it was a lot of work to process/fix/sort all the pictures and write this summary report (4017 pictures this year, trimmed down to 2229, and 259 selected as the better ones sorted in different categories, 191 are in this page because I'm not good at picking :) ). All pictures are geotagged, so you can click on them to see where they were.
As a way to say thanks if you enjoy the report, share it with your fellow burners, or friends who might be interested in burning man.
If you'd like to see reports from previous years, you can go to my main BM page, and especially if you don't know burning man, you should read my 2002 page which has more of an introduction.
If you'd like to use my pictures in a commercial setting, drop me a line to discuss and I can give you full resolution pictures (marc<at>merlins.org).
If you'd like to say thanks with cash, please donate money to one of the many camps and art installations that are often out of pocket after burning man.
70,000 people, and I still run into friends. Cool :)
Just like more recent years, while I tried to see many things, I didn't work so damn hard to bike every single last street, especially now that there are so many more and the outer ones honestly aren't as interesting (with some exceptions/surprises). Last year I ended up biking 238km/147 miles and this year I guess I was lazy and only biked 229km/142 miles over 6.2 days, which is still decent, especially since I had an apprentice virgin burner in tow :) (to be fair my friend Arturo was actually a trooper and didn't slow me down at all)
I made sure he was properly taken care of at the airport gate :)
I got a picture while there for posterity
while Arturo did the obligatory playa angel :)
Speaking of flying, after last year where I got some nice shots with an RC plane, this year I brought a new, even fancier motor glider foam RC plane I had spent loads of time preparing and testing. I have a separate page for these RC flights, and pictures/videos of Burning Man from the sky. A few shots here:
my RC plane I spent many months working on so that I felt it would be safe enough for us to use
I feel very thankful to have been able to see RC from the sky, be it from a full size plane or from an RC plane. Before that, my elevated view of BRC was limited to what you could get from camps elevated views or different structures:
Anyway, after going through customs, we eventually found a ride to our camp (very long walk from the airport if you have luggage). For the rest of BRC, I've given many pictures of the essentials in my prior reports, I therefore refer you to them for more pictures I don't need to repeat here.
Camps
Like last year, I owe big thanks to Opal, Massive Bri and Helen for helping us camp at Dustfish. especially for getting me a nice shaded spot. You rock!
the plane didn't quite fit in my tent :)
Dustfish had a very nice cabaret style show while Sextant had a great zipline, an altitude bar, and the giant tesla coil which actually worked this year!
During the day, Arturo followed me like a trooper around the many streets where we went to explore looking for fun camps. Many pictures, just a few here. Big thanks to all the camps that were offering humour, drinks (one even offered shitty drinks only, something mixed to be as disgusting as possible), food, games, art, or anything else:
altitude lounge was great for having a small overview of the area without needing to fly
Panorama also had a nice view
and you could play slinky from the top
big solar panels
big MPTT converters and inverters
and huge ass batteries
downhill sledding and skiing!
poor Arturo, we played twice, he lost twice
camp soft landing
found my friend Tinic at Duck Pond
cute overload!
vortex of destiny was also a nice find
whee!
math camp, a safe place for mathematics had cool talks
and barbie death camp is back like every year
those lovely folks pretend that they'll go play daft punk at the trash fence, and of course they don't
of course you can just have a real orchestra with classical music instead :)
And truly random things:
sumo wrestling
Lots of displays:
I also love the funny signs I found:
I hope someone found this poor dog gently leached to the man
A genuine looking NZ sign with properly written Maori, well done
Some Camps are also interesting to visit at night of course:
good performers doing magic like last year at the camp of curiosities
The 747 camp was awesome:
I got to visit the pilots' cabin :)
And then we had Red Lightening which was stellar again, with 2 domes with a different experience for your enjoyment the 360 Dome, Showing Samskara.
Arturo and I helped out as receptionists on the god helpline
Samskara
Again, have a look at page showing the 360 Dome, Showing Samskara.
And let's not forget the sound camps, even if they were not as extravagant this year. Sadly, still very little trance this year, pity...
I got lucky, this guy actually played nice Trance, the only I heard all week
sweet guitar tunes with great lights
People
I of course also enjoy taking pictures of friends and other willing people :)
soft landing's tea room
french maid parade
And yours, truly, with an LED strip I bought in Japan, a power controller I built myself, and a flashing module I got from China :)
I worked on my night lights more this year, I was easy to find for my friend, even from far :)
my friend Tinic I ran into at the duck pond
And then there is the billion bunny march:
bunnies? bunnies taste yummy :)
carrots were there to stop the bunny march :)
Critical tits was next. That one is a bit tricky because I always ask people before taking a portrait picture of them, but it's kind of impossible to do when people are going by in a parade, and yet some women get upset. Honestly, I think wearing a face mask like some do, is much simpler for everyone. Expecting a photographer to get permission from 20 people biking by at the same time, is not exactly feasible. Anyway, a few pictures:
Art
Since I was showing Arturo around, we went on an artery tour on Wednesday. Too late and I'm sleeping too late for the 10:00 tour, while too early and all the art hasn't been installed yet :)
and then, day slowly turns to night, when it arguably gets better :)
in deep playa
Helios was very cool too
and then eventually the sun rises again...
Sonic Runway was awesome, I even was lucky enough to be allowed to drive it:
Firmament was still there, a crowd favourite, along with Medusa:
Vehicles
As always, one main attraction of BM are all the crazy vehicles, art carts, and bike-like constructions :)
Not many fancy bikes this year either, when there used to be so many in the early 2000's:
at least some monocycles
plane bike, not bad
Art cars:
bad ass
beautiful
So you have art cars at night, and then you have Mayan Warrior. I already enjoyed it last year (except for the choice of music sometimes). I think it upgraded its lasers from last year, making Mayan Warrior a beacon in the night:
are you lost? just go for the lights
Kudos to the Mayan Warrior crew, it was best music art car by a long shot. Please add a bit more genres of music though, even you decide it can't include trance :)
Temple
The temple was beautiful this year, but had no name. It was the 16th and last temple made by David Best.
Other Structures
Like every year, there were other major structures that popped up. This year it was the pyramid and the lighthouse:
The pyramid was burned at sunrise some morning I could not get myself to get out of bed that early, but the lighthouse was burned after the man, so I got to see that:
The Man
Oh yeah, and there is some kind of man thingy in the middle, and it burns at some point, or something... :)
It was supposed to be a fancy man that people could rotate, but one of the shafts broke, and considering they were still not finished building it on Tuesday, I guess they called it quits and left it as is (non rotating).
still being built
it looked better by tuesday morning, but still not open for business
sadly, the mechanism was broken
Burn Night
I was hoping that we would be able to do a sunset RC flight just before the man burn, showing the sunset over the sea of art cars around the man. Instead, we got horrible weather, rain, heavy fog, and then very strong winds (60kph+) as the sun was setting. What a bummer :(
In the end, we got a few shots, but by taking off after the rain and the worst of the weather had passed, there was enough water in the air that the front lens got coated with it, yielding blurry pictures ;(
this was the weather just after the ideal time for takeoff :(
what a bummer, if only this shot had been without the water vapour induced blurriness
when I went to the man, the weather was still bad
The pre-burn show was really well done and executed despite the winds:
Thankfully the man burned a lot quicker than the previous years were it took forever (an hour or so), so before long we were up and running towards the fire:
Then the weather actually got worse, very high winds, almost impossible to see, I had to bike almost blind using my firesword and GPS:
by 06:00-ish the weather lifted and vis game back
And the last bit I saw were the crazy gay drunk germans cooking a goat and a pig:
Conclusion
It was awesome to be up all night after the burn, despite the pretty horrible weather, massive wind and dust storm between 04:00 and 05:30, and to finish the day with a Sunrise and Mayan Warrior still going strong. I went to bed a bit before 08:00 and after a good amount of sleep (woke up around 14:00), it was time to pack up and go home:
This was my 9th burn now. I tend to get bored a bit easily, so I will probably take another break for a few years after 3 years in a row, but getting my RC plane to fly and get such awesome 4K footage was definitely worth the trip, and acting as a guide for my old time friend Arturo also was fun. I was again a bit disappointed with the music selections, but eh, that's only a small part of what BM has to offer.
Like every year, it's super cool to randomly run into friends I haven't seen in a long time, or even more surprising, have people recognize me from these reports and say hi.
I hope you enjoyed this report. Feel free to say thanks to me by simply sharing it with your friends, and see you on the playa in a few years hopefully.
