Flying a drone above Tempelhof

Early on a Friday morning, I took my drone to Tempelhof with the explicit goal of capturing how gorgeous the park looks like covered in snow from above. And the pictures and videos I shot there prove that I was right to leave the comfort of my house and head to the park.

Since I got my DJI Mavic Mini at the beginning of 2020, I have been trying to explore Berlin from above. Some of the pictures I took appeared on our Instagram account, and some were turned into videos. But I never managed to fly over snow in cold weather, as I did that day on Tempelhof.

This was my first time, and here is some learning that I can share. But first, let me talk about drones at Tempelhof.

We all know that Tempelhof used to be an airport in the middle of Berlin. Back in 2008, it was turned into a park, and through the years, it evolved into one of the best outdoor areas that Berlin offers. For those that live close to the park, as I do, Tempelhof is fantastic since it’s an open space where you can do almost everything. Even flying drones!

The south part of Tempelhof, between the train tracks of the Ringbahn and one of the landing strips, is outside of the Enhanced Warning Zones that surrounds the Reichstag and most of Berlin. And, since there is a lot of space available, this area is one of the easiest ones to fly in town.

This is especially true if you go there early in the morning or late on the weekdays. These are times when there are fewer people around, so you can worry less about having trouble with them and the drone. This is one of the reasons why I decided to get to Tempelhof early that day. The other was that I wanted to capture the snow before it melted.

So… The first thing that I learned that day is that it’s hard to fly a drone wearing gloves. Even if those gloves are touch-sensitive and can be used to click on a phone screen. This was my first time trying it out, and I wasn’t happy with the results, so I removed my gloves after a few minutes of flying over the frozen Tempelhof.

The problem is that it was cold and my fingers were not happy with it. Get some gloves and try to get used to them as much as possible since it will be better to keep your hands warm. Whenever you feel like flying a drone in the cold weather, keep that in mind.

The second thing I learned about flying my drone in the cold is that batteries last even less when high above the sky. I took my three batteries to fly that day, and they didn’t last as long as I expected. This can be seen easily in the video above since it doesn’t include the presence of the abandoned aeroplane.

The batteries didn’t last long during the flight from where I was until the aeroplane and, once I got there, I decided to spend some time with pictures. That didn’t help the video and, because of that, I know that I will be at Tempelhof again when it snows.

The third learning moment for me was that Tempelhof looks gorgeous covered in white snow from a drone. And I have to capture it from my drone next time it snows in Berlin.

If you are curious about the video and the pictures here, they were taken with a DJI Mavic Mini 2. I use some camera lens filters to help with brightness and reflection. And don’t forget to check the DJI Geo Zone Map whenever you want to fly your drone.