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Snow drone flier talks about downtown Knox flight, hobby

(KNOXVILLE) Jonathan Halley woke up Thursday morning to a ton of social media notifications - all because of the dreamy drone footage he shot downtown during this week's snowstorm.

WBIR aired the footage as part of its ongoing weather coverage Wednesday and also published a story on wbir.com.

Thousands of people viewed the video and read the story.

Halley says he enjoys using the drone as a hobby but also finds it handy for work.

"I re-shared the WBIR article and it was already at a couple hundred thousand views, and I was like, What is going on?" Halley said during an interview Thursday. "It's pretty incredible to see people's reactions and how interested people are in this hobby and the footage."

Halley said he shot the footage about 2 p.m. Wednesday after parking at the Boat House along Neyland Drive. Few people were out, he said, and those who were out were more focused on driving safely than paying attention to what he was doing.

He launched the drone and promptly started filming while his craft buzzed over the water. He flew the drone up to about 200 feet and then directed it over to look at snowy, empty Neyland Stadium.

He has an app on his cellphone that allows him to see exactly what the camera sees.

During heavy snow fall, Halley has to keep his flights short to keep the gimbal from freezing up.

"I hadn't taken it up in snow before, and I was pretty nervous," Halley said.

He noticed that as he flew higher the craft began to be impacted by the cold, icy conditions. The machine is designed to fly back on its own to the spot where it took off. But that won't work if the propellers ice up.

"And there's definitely no warranty," he said.

Halley is a web developer by day but also is a principal in Depth of Field Productions, which provides promotional video content, often for display on YouTube. Drone footage has proved to be a popular selling tool with customers, he said.

To Halley, there are a lot of misconceptions about drones. He'd like to help change perceptions about usage of the craft.

"There's a big stigma with drones right now - as there should be. There's a lot of concern for safety," he said.

Halley said he'd liked to erase some of the "misinformation" about drone use and also build interest in a community here locally of drone users.

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