Flights of Fancy by William Daugherty
Scenes from Windsor, VT, White River Junction, VT, and West Lebanon, NH.
NOTE: All this was flown under an FAA waiver permitting operations over unprotected people and moving vehicles. Also, FAA airspace approval was obtained for the northern two locations. Please know, understand, and follow all rules for drone operations!
I’ve never seen this amount of ice in the Connecticut River at the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge. It was dramatic.
This video makes extensive use of time compression. What do you think?
Due to their late start and my illness, I didn’t really get much of the event. At least I got some nice shots of the hill and Lebanon. The video captures some of the jumps, but it is quite brief.
For reference, here’s how it looked on 2/1/25:
https://drone-artist.com/?p=7031
What started off as a normal flight over the Blow-me-Down Brook near the Plainfield Village quickly evolved into a riveting experience for me as a pilot and wildlife photographer/videographer. The still photos below lead up to the encounter. See if you spot the creature in the last three stills. The video shows the rest of the story.
This video is 15 minutes long but has a lot of much closer footage.
This was some of the toughest flying I’ve ever done due to the 50′ AGL altitude restriction. It might be worth it to get a waiver at some point to fly higher here, especially with this ice. As it was, I had to snake my way in and through the trees the entire flight. Worth it!
