By Wiley Wood

You can’t just fly one straight out of the box, says drone hobbyist Christopher Little, you have to expect to crash a few times when you start out. But the technology to send a guided, camera-carrying drone into the airspace above your backyard is firmly within reach of the civilian consumer.

Little, a photographer, bought his quadcopter from a camera-supply catalogue last summer to take aerial shots for a film he is making about Norfolk. Although he started with a model that included a built-in camera, he quickly upgraded to a system whose components he could choose himself. “You have to be willing to tinker,” he says.

One optional element that he installed transmits a low-resolution view of what the camera sees. “It allows you to set up your shots,” says Little. His camera, a GoPro that takes high-resolution stills and video, weighs only a few ounces and is mounted on a tilt-axis gimbal, cushioned against the vibration of the rotors.

Although calibrating the inertial navigation system, the compass and the GPS takes time, once it’s done, says Little, he can release the joysticks that operate the drone and it will hover motionlessly, even in a light breeze. “I can film the center of town from a 100 feet up, and unless a person is walking or a car is moving, it appears to be a still photo.” Little describes it as “a SteadyCam in the sky.”

“It’s a wonder tool,” he says, “the results are breathtaking.” He describes an effect he is just now learning to use, of setting the quadcopter hovering upwind of his target, say the rippling waters of Tobey Pond, and letting it drift down in the wind. “It gives an eerie sensation of freedom as you float past,” says Little.

Others in the Norfolk area have also made use of radio-guided drones. A member of the Canaan ambulance crew flew his drone during a search-and-rescue operation this fall when two hikers were lost on Canaan Mountain. According to Jon Barbagallo, information officer for the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department, the drone was seen by the hikers, who guided it to their position by cell phone, allowing the rescuers to locate them.

And the Salisbury Association Land Trust has used a camera-mounted drone to make an aerial reconnaissance for its members of a land parcel along the Housatonic River which it ultimately bought. Click here to see the video.

“People ask me about privacy,” says Little, “but my quadcopter makes a noise like a castrated chainsaw. There’s no question of sneaking up on someone’s bedroom window with it.”

The Federal Aviation Administration regulates all United States airspace, and while its rules for drones are still evolving, it makes an important distinction between drones for recreational and for commercial purposes. For a drone weighing under 50 pounds, used recreationally, the restrictions are few and commonsensical. It cannot fly above 400 feet, beyond the sightline of the operator, over a football stadium or near an airport. Commercial uses require a license.

Technically, says Little, he’s not allowed to take pictures for his wife’s real estate agency, even with the landowner’s permission and at a site far from any stadium or airport.

But Little finds plenty of subjects to photograph in and around Norfolk without bending the rules. He recently hovered above the sawmill at Great Mountain Forest while Jody Bronson and his crew bucked and split logs for firewood. “I got a great shot of them,” says Little.

Bronson wondered whether it would be possible to inspect the crowns of hemlock trees for woolly adelgids using a drone. A research scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Research Station has been checking the effect of this winter’s unusually cold temperatures on adelgid egg mortality. Normally, says Bronson, scientists have to wait for windstorms to bring down branches from the upper crown. Little was intrigued by the suggestion.

When a crane lowers the restored cupola onto the roof of the Music Shed later this month, a historic moment in Norfolk, Little plans to be there with his airborne camera.