Yesterday, following some software upgrades and regular preflight maintenance, our Java Post Aerial Photography crew of Jack Tunnicliffe and Trevor Bennett took our customized 8-rotor Foxtechfpv octocopter (AKA "the Kraken") out for some flight tests in rural Saskatchewan.

According to our certified UAV pilot Jack, the Kraken handled like a dream, with lots of power (handy for dealing with prairie winds) and very smooth, stable flight performance.

Here's Jack posing with the Kraken on a stretch of empty rural road which runs beside to the farm owned by the parents of our technician/camera operator, Trevor. The Bennett family farm is a good place for Java Post to conduct flight tests.

As you can see, the Kraken octocopter has some size to it. From extended blade tip to extended blade tip, the custom UAV is 6 feet across. It's the largest of the 3 UAVs that Java Post currently has in its drone squadron, to use a colourful phrase.

If you look at the bottom of the main body of the Kraken, you'll see what looks like a white plastic basket. Well, it IS a white plastic basket, but no, we're not using our drone to do the grocery shopping. (Not yet, anyway.)

The reason for the basket is this: for our test flights, we want to fly the UAV with the same payload weight as it would normally carry, when a camera gimbal and camera is mounted beneath it. But, just to be on the safe side, we don't want to mount the gimbal and camera on the 'copter until everything checks out. So, just for the flight tests, we fill the basket with the equivalent payload weight.

Here you can see the size difference in the 3 UAV drones that Java Post uses. Left to right: a DJI Phantom quadcopter (a very popular model of small UAV). our customized DJI S800 6-rotor copter, and the 6-foot wide, 8-rotor, custom Foxtechfpv Kraken octocopter.

Just for comparison kicks, here's the Phantom sitting underneath the Kraken.

When it comes to power, speed, and endurance, size does matter.

But in this particular case, we're speaking of drone size. What else did you think we meant?