Flight Time: 30 minutes Mission Goals: To assist in determining the location and extent of the root cause of the water overflowing the retention wall of Marshall Pond on Forestville Rd. What Went Well: The following items were conducted without incident: It was a safe flight operation within normal limits. A solution was discovered that would lead to the ability ... Read More »
During Part 1, I briefly covered the Causby case to help set the stage for situations we drone pilots may confront. Here are two more to consider. The first is Boggs versus Merideth, United States District Court Western District of Kentucky at Louisville, Civil Action N. 3:16-CV-00006-TBR (W.D. Ky. Mar. 21, 2017) Don’t miss future posts in this series. Be ... Read More »
We Part 107 pilots share some of the same airspace that our manned aircraft brethren do, just closer to the ground. It takes a lot of research, planning and proficiency to conduct safe drone flights; maybe more than our manned flight counterparts do because of our proximity to mother earth. The rules for manned aircraft pilots are specific, detailed and ... Read More »
This article on the AOPA website is an excellent summary of the issues facing primarily DJI pilots. But the peripheral issues apply to all UAS pilots. More information is supplied in the piece regarding two topics I’ve written about before. The most recent was the caution message out from the UK Civil Aviation Authority on Matrice 210s falling out of ... Read More »
This article is the result of my frustration trying to get good upload speeds for video from the UAS to transmit back to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) or Command Post (CP). I talked about dealing with video transmission in my article for AOPA. Let me say I am not a radio frequency engineer, although a great Ph.D. brainiac, Mike ... Read More »
We unmanned pilots have a lot in common with our manned aircraft brethren sans the luxury of sitting onboard the aircraft. As such, taking advantage of systems that help our piloting capabilities are welcome. Remember forgetting to turn on the GoPro camera of your Phantom 2 only to learn after landing that nothing was recorded? Should I mention the separate ... Read More »
By Brian Leventhal NCSHP If you were a child of the ’80s and grew up during the “War on Drugs” era of Nancy Reagan “Just say no” slogans and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) programs spreading through schools in the U.S., then you’re no stranger to what a gateway drug is. In case you aren’t familiar with the definition of ... Read More »
It is for me to clearly state that my results should not be interpreted as being applicable to all users of DJI TB batteries or users of this version of the software. I can only describe the results I observed for the specific Matrice 210 aircraft we fly. Your judgment and risk assessment should always determine your personal or department ... Read More »
The DJI Z30 zoom camera can give you tremendous reach to bring distant objects into view. But in my experience, it has two major issues out of the box. The first is the slow drift the aircraft and camera have when zoomed in. That’s annoying but can be somewhat overcome with a steady finger on the stick to counteract the ... Read More »
I’ve written in the past about the DJI battery issues with their TB55 and TB50 batteries for Inspire 2 and Matrice aircraft. After installing the latest update and flight testing the aircraft, I felt confident the issue was resolved. At the very least, batteries which were previously taken out of service for reflecting a 0 charge, were chargeable again after ... Read More »
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