I know you said you fly commercially - what jets do you fly? Im just curious. Your handle here is B737 does that mean you fly the Boeing 737?
New drone on the way...
- Thread starter SidecarFlip
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very cool. Ive never flown in my life. I will have too soon here and I am not looking forward to it. Heights is the one thing that has always made me a little squirmy. Several years ago I also watched all the episodes of that show "Aircrash Investigations" where they covered many of the big air disasters in aviation history and dissected the events, what happened, how it all went wrong, what failed, etc. I found the show incredibly interesting. However, it also enhanced my fear of ever having to fly lol. Something about the total loss of control, and the thought that if something goes wrong you're miles in the air and its likely over. I realize the same is true on a bus or a car, and much more likely to happen there. Its a psychological thing. I have went to countless airshows though, used to photograph air shows. I'm fascinated by jets, but at the same time never want to be on one lol. One of the best moments I had as a photographer was shooting the F-22 raptor on an air force base. That thing just bends the rules of what you would expect a jet to do. That pilot threw that jet around the air at times like it was a leaf just flipping and floating. The maneuverability was astounding to see. I remember even the F-18 pilots came out and stood on top of their jets to watch him - they seemed as excited as I was. It suggested to me that flying the F-22 was apparently the gold standard for fighter pilots. Ive seen the F-16, F-15, F-18, and countless others all fly but never seen other fighter pilots get so gitty over watching another jet as they did the F-22B-777 (for now) but with everything at work moving backwards I am slated to return to the B-737 very shortlyi just hope it's backwards and not out the bottom at the rate we are going.
I would love to get one of these drones that have collision avoidance ect. These drone photographs that are posted are awesome
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Guess maybe a drone photo thread is in order....
I looked at all of them seriously, from the DJI Aspire heavy drone to the smaller ones to the Autel but like I said, the built in Geofencing nixed the DJI purchase.
Autel has the longest flight time per battery as well. A 'conditioned' battery (multiple charges) will yield close to a 30 minute air time (depending on the winds aloft of course).
Almost bought an EVO II with the FLIR thermal imaging camera but I have limited use for that.
Far as licensing or not, I have to, it will be used commercially but even if it wasn't I'd get the 'Casual Drone Pilot's' permit anyway, just to be 100% legal. 5 bucks for 2 years and no written test is chump change in my view.
The problem arises if it's not permitted and you cause a damage accident over $500.00 or a personal injury accident, the FAA and the plaintiff's lawyer will castrate you. FAA subpart clearly states that... "In any damage or personal injury accident where the damages exceed $500.00, the pilot must submit to the FAA, in writing with supporting documents, the exact cause of the incident for peer review, within 30 days of the incident.
Pretty simple to understand and exceeding 500 bucks is easy too. You crash into a car hood or break a windshield, you just exceeded that 500 bucks and a drone is capable of inflicting serious damage. Say you fly into a person and blind them.. You are in deep do do. 5 bucks well spent because it says you have read and understand the regs, simple as they are. Ignorance is no excuse and neither is being too cheap to pony up the 5er and read the regs.
Owning and flying one does have responsibilities involved. I prefer to err on the legal side myself.
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One of my good friends immigrated here from Germany. A German military trained pilot. He came to America so he could own a gun and keep it at home.
He owns a Robinson R22 (a 2 seater 1500lb wet chopper - very small for those that are not familiar with it).
So we were flying into Vermont on a photo shoot for a golf coarse - going around Mt. Monnadnock the wind was crazy and he was flying it. So I say, "hey Mark, you ever crash before"? He looks over and says "Yeah, 3 times! - twice in a rotary, once in a fixed wing".
He said, "don't worry, I got this. You ever have a chance to fly with someone that has crashed and lived, vs flying with a guy that has never crashed, go with the guy that crashed and lived. It is a life changing experience and really separates the ice from the blood for most pilots that experience it".
6 months later we were in a rental R22 that ended up sucking and breaking a valve, he had to auto-rotate and put it down in a school field. It came down hard (not hard enough to hurt the lightweight landing gear but hard compared to normal). He immediately tells me to get out and then shuts everything down. So a few minutes later we hear the sirens coming, he looks at me plain as day and says "technically, that now makes 4 crashes", he slaps me on the shoulder and says, "now you have one under your belt to", and he chuckled. He has a very dry humor.
I still fly with him and we always laugh about it.
Here is a picture of the offending bird, and the last picture I took before going down, we ended up in the field you can just see the tip of on left (the school isn't visible). He said we were lucky to be high enough to auto-rotate down safely.
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LOL love it, what a story!!! that is great. I've learned so much from the military guys I've flown with. (edited down for personal details)
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You ingest a drone in a turbo fan engine in a commercial airliner, bad things happen real quick. I did my tool and die apprenticeship at a company that produced the gauges that gauged the curvature of the compressor section of P&W turbo fan engines and we always had compressor blades in the shop. Amazing stuff but fragile to impact failure.
I fully understand why the FAA regulates them for hobby use as well as commercial applications. Lots of liability with them far as damage, both property and personal injury. Something I need to do is check with my insurance carrier about liability insurance, just in case.
This fall, I'm going to do a video presentation concerning the harvesting of seed corn and soybeans for my buddy down the road so his company can include it on their website.
Should be a fun project.
I fully understand why the FAA regulates them for hobby use as well as commercial applications. Lots of liability with them far as damage, both property and personal injury. Something I need to do is check with my insurance carrier about liability insurance, just in case.
This fall, I'm going to do a video presentation concerning the harvesting of seed corn and soybeans for my buddy down the road so his company can include it on their website.
Should be a fun project.
Id be all for a drone photo/video thread.
Ive made the mistake this morning of falling deeper into the drone hole. I started watching videos of the Mavic air 2 and mavic 2 pro. I love watching all the distance tests and head to heads. Im enjoying Dustin Dunnill's channel. He does great drone reviews and testing. His distance tests are great. He pushed the mavic Mini out over 3 miles, and only turned around because he hit 50% battery and wouldnt have enough to get back home. It hit 0% battery and coasted down and crashed in the grass about 20 feet from him - talk about cutting it close! He took the new Mavic 2 air out over 20,000 feet. Watching the videos makes me want a better drone. Being a former photographer, that Hasselblad camera on the mavic 2 pro looks pretty sexy. The mavic 2 zoom is sported with a telephoto lens which is nice. I have a feeling Im going to end up getting into this as a hobby before its over. My SD card arrives today so I can finally capture some pictures and videos. Watching all the videos of people pushng the drones out so far, and seeing the drones all safely return home with signal loss gives me a litle more confidence to just try and go for the river this weekend. I dont think Im going to make it. Trees are too high and I dont have enough distance from all the tree coverage to be able to keep the drone in line of sight. These things dont perform well when line of sight is lost in terms of radio transmission. Thankfully another of my hobbies years ago was in radio equipment, shortwave, scanners, cb skip talk, etc, so I know a lot about radio waves and frequencies and the like. All of that knowledge and the photography knowledge makes me feel right at home with this hobby. Only the aviation aspect is new to me. Enjoying it so far. This may cut into the tractor funds!
Ive made the mistake this morning of falling deeper into the drone hole. I started watching videos of the Mavic air 2 and mavic 2 pro. I love watching all the distance tests and head to heads. Im enjoying Dustin Dunnill's channel. He does great drone reviews and testing. His distance tests are great. He pushed the mavic Mini out over 3 miles, and only turned around because he hit 50% battery and wouldnt have enough to get back home. It hit 0% battery and coasted down and crashed in the grass about 20 feet from him - talk about cutting it close! He took the new Mavic 2 air out over 20,000 feet. Watching the videos makes me want a better drone. Being a former photographer, that Hasselblad camera on the mavic 2 pro looks pretty sexy. The mavic 2 zoom is sported with a telephoto lens which is nice. I have a feeling Im going to end up getting into this as a hobby before its over. My SD card arrives today so I can finally capture some pictures and videos. Watching all the videos of people pushng the drones out so far, and seeing the drones all safely return home with signal loss gives me a litle more confidence to just try and go for the river this weekend. I dont think Im going to make it. Trees are too high and I dont have enough distance from all the tree coverage to be able to keep the drone in line of sight. These things dont perform well when line of sight is lost in terms of radio transmission. Thankfully another of my hobbies years ago was in radio equipment, shortwave, scanners, cb skip talk, etc, so I know a lot about radio waves and frequencies and the like. All of that knowledge and the photography knowledge makes me feel right at home with this hobby. Only the aviation aspect is new to me. Enjoying it so far. This may cut into the tractor funds!
What a terrible weekend its turning out to be to play with the new drone. Rain chances 80% for days. Its rained for hours today off and on. I did get to fly this morning and had a great time. I went for the river, which as I said is almost exactly 1 mile from me through the air. About 5,300 feet to be exact. As I said though I dont have enough open area between myself and the start of thick woods to keep the drone in line of sight at that distance. Through the trees and at 400ft altitude I managed to get to just past 4,000 feet distance before I lost signal. My signal booster came in the mail today and with that, from all ive seen in videos, its very likely I could maybe hit the river with it. Give nthe trajectory though, the further it gets away the more trees Im having to penetrate the signal through. I made 3 runs at the river on all 3 batteries taking slight different routes with 4,000 feet being the best. If it wasnt illegal to go up a few more hundred feet in height I have no doubt Id hit it, as I would hit line of sight again eventually. Hope to test the range extender in the morning before the rain starts again.
There might be a way to 'publicly' see airspace data for free without buying a sectional (which would likely be totally worthless). If someone wants to PM me lat / long as (Nxx yy.y Wxxx yy.y) I might be able to look it up and send you a shot of your area.
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We made it today I studied video from previous fights and changed my pilot location further back almost with my back against my house, as I was able to see from the drones perspective that this would be the best spot to try and maintain line of site. I also did punch up over 400ft to go just across the river the other side for just a brief moment then came back home and dropped back below 400ft. Im going to keep working at it so i can make it to the river without exceeding 400ft comfortably. I had full RC control at 400ft but was losing video signal a lot. The video always goes out before the actual RC signal, so you can fly the drone blind using the flight data and map actually, but you cant see what youre filming. There are a coupld trees I could take down on my property to make it more successful I think, and I may just take them down LOL. Total flight distance at the furthest point before turning around was 5,757 feet from launch point, right at 1.1 miles. I cant wait to test this thing out in an open field with full line of site and not all the trees blocking my signal.
I studied video from previous fights and changed my pilot location further back almost with my back against my house, as I was able to see from the drones perspective that this would be the best spot to try and maintain line of site. I also did punch up over 400ft to go just across the river the other side for just a brief moment then came back home and dropped back below 400ft. Im going to keep working at it so i can make it to the river without exceeding 400ft comfortably. I had full RC control at 400ft but was losing video signal a lot. The video always goes out before the actual RC signal, so you can fly the drone blind using the flight data and map actually, but you cant see what youre filming. There are a coupld trees I could take down on my property to make it more successful I think, and I may just take them down LOL. Total flight distance at the furthest point before turning around was 5,757 feet from launch point, right at 1.1 miles. I cant wait to test this thing out in an open field with full line of site and not all the trees blocking my signal.
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i'll be very happy when mine gets here, been waiting sine I posted the first comment. Have all the peripherals now. Got a Lenovo Tab M10 HD Android tablet, added a 256K Class 10 Sandisc micro hd card. Got the Lifthor tablet mount and the antenna booster, downloaded the Autel app on the tablet (Android), just waiting for the FAA Test application and of course, the drone.
Supposed to ship middle of July. I saw some hubub on the net about Autel and their deliveries but I got a message from them saying they will ship mid July.
I really like the Lenovo, had Dolby sound, face recognition front and rear cameras and the graphics are outstanding and it only set me back 133 bucks, heck the 256 micro hd card was half that much.
Should be able to see the 10 " monitor. Do need to get a sunshade for it yet. All in good time, as the wallet (and my wife) allows.
The...I need to learn to fly it and not crash it and at 70, I am somewhat feeble at times. Not Joe Biden feeble, just a tad feeble. I can still remember what my wife's name is....
Supposed to ship middle of July. I saw some hubub on the net about Autel and their deliveries but I got a message from them saying they will ship mid July.
I really like the Lenovo, had Dolby sound, face recognition front and rear cameras and the graphics are outstanding and it only set me back 133 bucks, heck the 256 micro hd card was half that much.
Should be able to see the 10 " monitor. Do need to get a sunshade for it yet. All in good time, as the wallet (and my wife) allows.
The...I need to learn to fly it and not crash it and at 70, I am somewhat feeble at times. Not Joe Biden feeble, just a tad feeble. I can still remember what my wife's name is....
Be sure to post some pics for us!i'll be very happy when mine gets here, been waiting sine I posted the first comment. Have all the peripherals now. Got a Lenovo Tab M10 HD Android tablet, added a 256K Class 10 Sandisc micro hd card. Got the Lifthor tablet mount and the antenna booster, downloaded the Autel app on the tablet (Android), just waiting for the FAA Test application and of course, the drone.
Supposed to ship middle of July. I saw some hubub on the net about Autel and their deliveries but I got a message from them saying they will ship mid July.
I really like the Lenovo, had Dolby sound, face recognition front and rear cameras and the graphics are outstanding and it only set me back 133 bucks, heck the 256 micro hd card was half that much.
Should be able to see the 10 " monitor. Do need to get a sunshade for it yet. All in good time, as the wallet (and my wife) allows.
The...I need to learn to fly it and not crash it and at 70, I am somewhat feeble at times. Not Joe Biden feeble, just a tad feeble. I can still remember what my wife's name is....
I will. count on that. I won't be flying it out of sight either. In reality, the FAA regs state line of sight only though people don't do that. No way can you see a drone at a mile without high powered field glasses and I don't mean on the viewscreen either. The FAA regs are a bit vague on that one, I will admit.
FYI, the 400 foot ceiling only applies to your take off location. If you need to exceed 400 feet to say clear a ridge or an obstacle, it's okay to do. I have a feeling the Tablet will make it lots easier, why I got it.
Yea I'm familiar with all the FAA regulations. Ive also watched now hours and hours of drone guys on youtube. Ive fallen into this little hobby pretty hard the last 1-2 weeks. I feel like its going to restart my passion in photography, only now from a drone instead of an SLR camera. However, much like a lot of actual aircraft pilot, people tip toe over the regulations pretty often it seems. Its like a speed limit on the road, people break it everyday, if not by just a little. There are range tests all over youtube of folks flying all these drones out for miles without spotters. Granted most of them are in very remote areas with no people. When you look at my picture up there of the river, if you kinda see the landscape around the river, that is the landscape around my house for miles. Any elevation changes here are so slight you cant see them with the eye. Everything is very flat, so I cant use any of things as an excuse to have climbed 500'
I made another run to the river that evening, again making a few adjustments to my approach. I hit the water this time at just 410 feet in elevation. I then studied my footage and flight data at my pc and realized that I am not taking the most optimal route to the river to keep line of sight. I found a new spot I need to target that will put the trajectory from my property a little more to the north, but will help me miss some large trees. The best spot is actually directly over that power line easement you see in the photo. I need to hit the water right there. Its a very slight change but based on my trajectory It helps me get around those trees in my pasture. Its funny when you're flying out that far, I thought my drone was pretty much straight out from the center of my pasture, but it was actually, after studying the video and flight data, a few degrees south of that. That few degrees however means that at the back of my horse pasture, I was shooting signal through about 3 large trees that are all in a line.
I have to say though, as someone who does know a thing or two about radio frequencies and signal strength and communications, This little thing is quite impressive that it does this on a 5.8ghz wifi band at this range, and through trees. From all the videos Ive watched, occusync is even more impressive, and im already being tempted by the new Mavic Air 2. It is believed however that the mavic 3 should be coming out in the next few months so I may wait out and see what that ends up being, and then reevaluating how invested I want to be in this hobby.
Exactly....and the one aspect concerning the FAA rules that gets overlooked often is the liability aspect from a damage accident with a drone. You cause damage over 500 bucks (easy to do) or a personal injury accident (also easy to do), the FAA is going to come down on you hard.
Far as getting another drone, step up to an Aspire but be prepared for a serious wallet bust.
In my view, every drone pilot should at least get the FAA hobby drone license and a copy of the regs (available online) and read them. When fooling with any governmental agency it's always better to be knowledgeable than play dumb because the FAA don't differentiate.
Sure people exceed the posted limit every day and some get a '
safe driving award' too. But remember, if you exceed the posted limit and are in an accident, personal injury or PD, the onus of proof of innocence lies 100% on your shoulders.
I have to say, I don't (exceed the posted limit, ever). No need to and I've found (through experience) that 5 to 7 less than the posted speed usually puts you in a clear zone instead of on someone's bumper because you 'have to get there and want to speed'.
If I want to get somewhere on time, I leave early if traffic conditions warrant it.
Since I got my operators license (I hold a CDL with every endorsement but Haz Mat), I've only received ONE ticket and I got my license when I was 16 and I'm 70 now and that ticket was for a burned out headlamp.
Ive read of many many instances (and seen some videos of it occuring from some drone pilots) of helicopters and smaller planes routinely violating the height rules and going down, in some cases just above tree top level. My guy who does sky diving, I feel like ive seen him under 500 feet on many occasions (not landing or taking off). typically though he is higher - but I have seem him low at times just flying around.
While I suppose military have different rules, I get buzzed about once a month at my house by A-10 thunderbolt's. There is an air force base about an hour from me, and I guess my house is right in one of their flight paths. They will literally screetch over head so low that you can see the pilot in the seat almost. I bet they are at about 200 to 300 feet, just buzzing right above the tree line. This is my primary concern obviously as someone getting into the hobby and flying in my own backyard. The thought has crossed my mind many many times already about what do I do if im up 300 feet over my own private property and these A-10's just buzzed by. The thought of that makes me anxious. However, if I am flying over my own pasture, and am at 350 feet, I am 100% within the law. It kind of surprises me when I see these jets buzz so low, but its pretty routine here in our rural area. Farmers often tell of the A-10's buzzing them while they are plowing their fields, almost as if they are using the tractor as some sort of practice. This is routinely putting these pilots in airspace that legal for drones to be in.
Yes youve said this numerous times in this thread. If I ever buy a drone that requires registering I have no problem registering it. The drone I have currently does not require registration, so long as I do not add anything to it that would cause it to exceed 250grams in weight.
Regarding the faa and regulations though, I have been researching the Remote ID issue lately. Many claim its going to kill the drone hobby, but so far from my reading I would think it would just mean jumping through a few hoops, and some additional costs, but still flying pretty much the same. I want to research it further, as it is kind of the biggest factor right now in wether I may get more into the hobby or just kinda sit on the one little drone I have now and just play around with it. I would really like to get into the drone photography space as a hobby, but all the hubub on the new regulations coming down possibly in 2021 seems to have a lot of people scared that the hobby is about to change drastically, at the least it could make all drones without remote ID capability essentially a very expensive paper weight. This has me reluctant to spend more on a drone if 1 year from now we will be in the world of remote id.