Drone snowboarding - Switzerland, Lenzerheide

Arriving late season in Lenzerheide and staying with family, my brother and I (Alex Willink and Geeshan Willink) devoted our time to exploring the off piste conditions after some fresh powder. It held out for a number of days until a hot Saharan wind came in melting most of the powder.
Because it was late in the season most of the off piste already had tracks on it and the snow conditions in parts limited our area. We found a very good run leading from a groomed piste so it was easy to access whilst presenting some great snowboarding conditions in a “bowl”.
Filmed using a Parrot Bebop 2 controlled with an iPhone and bluetooth controller. The scenic shots are done using a wifi extender pushing the range to over 1km. I got a bit of jelly effect due to high winds above that mountain which were hard to judge.
The shots of me snowboarding involve a bit of setup and half of year of planning to perfect. Firstly I needed to dig some space above me for the bag to rest, assemble the drone and power on waiting till I had GPS lock. Once ready I switched on the bluetooth controller, tucked the iPhone running FreeFlight 3 into my pocket careful to keep the app running and launched the drone. I then had to do a quick 180 to face the drone and start snowboarding down while controlling it. The drone has to be in constant max descent whilst snowboarding and getting my head around reverse controls whilst managing the distance to the drone took some practice. I can now easily do entire runs (with the odd mishap).
The Arosa Lenzerheide ski resort boasts 225 prepared slopes of up to 2,865 m above sea level. Wide pistes with wide-radius curves, and steep slopes for adventurous downhill skiing make the hearts of winter sports enthusiasts beat faster. There are some fantastic off piste runs which guides can show you often taking an entire day.
Full list of gear used:
iPhone 6,
Mad Catz bluetooth controller
Anker battery for wifi extender
PR2000 wifi extender
Parrot Bebop 1 & 2
Backpack.
3 batteries giving about 1h of flight.
Song: La Roux, in for the kill remix
itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-...
Shot in Lenzerheide, CH.

[@meme58603]

your videos are amazing! can you make more videos pls?

[@AlexW1]

Thanks, that's really kind. Waiting to travel again soon :)

[@manoni8951]

Nice! But really with a Parrot Bebop?

[@AlexW1]

+SERGE MANNONE Yes, time-lapse and slow mo with iPhone 6. All the rest is Bebop 1&2. Should be able to run in 1080 but not sure it fully uploaded the HD. Do you fly?

[@manoni8951]

+Alex W
i 've just try with an Parrot ar Drone 2, but i sold it recently, i hasitate for a few months betweenn the Bebop 2 and the phantom standard !
sorry for the english

[@AlexW1]

Most of that is all shot with bebop 2, it's awesome drone with great control and flight around 20 mins.

[@AlexW1]

All good, you should try it out if you can, 2 has awesome control and stability.

[@josephharmon8606]

what settings did you use. I tried skiing with the bebop 1 today and got white out on the video

[@AlexW1]

I used the one quite a bit, just on auto camera settings. Trick was to point the camera down quite a bit, that evens out the colours.