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Aloha gang! I'm proud to present a few images from yesterday morning's drone flight. Through LAANC, I was able to get a special authorization from FAA & the control tower manager to fly this location for a beachfront home (not pictured). While the mission was a beach home, I couldn't resist grabbing a couple shots of the airport itself. What I was most impressed with was how smoothly the approval process went. From request filed through LAANC (AirMap) to authorization was less than 2 weeks. I had to submit a custom unlock request to DJI, which was approved within hours, and loaded to the aircraft days before the mission. A quick call to the tower the morning of the flight, and the manager was already prepared, as he authorized the mission. We recapped the mission details (altitude, duration, radius of operation), and ended with 'Call me when you're done so I'll know, until then I'll keep the traffic off your spot as best I can.' This is the second '0 zone' I've been able to get approved for flight. The first was further away from the airport, but not by much. Seems like if you have a solid plan and a reasonable tower manager, there's a good chance you'll be approved. Details about the flight itself: Mavic 2 Zoom equipped with 3mi vis anti-collision lighting (top white, port, starboard), 300ft operating radius, 75ft AGL max altitude. Operation time was 8am-9am. Enjoy & Mahalo for viewing!

Huh!? https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/06/14/white-house-says-america-needs-to-make-its-own-drones/

You crack me up. Great shot. I’ll have to take my wife there to see if she can get that thorn out...

Hi Just for everyone to know, there is a new drone regulation adapted for drone pilots in European Union. The regulation is going to be similar in each country from the EU. Find out more here: https://www.aerondrone.com/the-drone-blog-article/new-common-drone-regulation-in-europe-adopted What do you think about?

That’s a beautiful area. Johnson City was a nice college town. So, you grew up there and you now live in Maui. Have I mentioned lately how much I Hate you!! You know I’m an old jealous, bitter guy and I’m just kidding.

I caught this one on your Vimeo feed and called my wife and son down to check it out. Very nicely done!

For those interested, this drone has been upgraded to carry a Sony A7RIV 75MP camera integrated with a FLIR Toa1280 SWIR. i think the upgrade is $7.50..

Hey Bill, how's it going? Interesting to see you here, do you remember me? Wow, you're flying drones for the District, that's great! Anyway, to your issue... I have had this before and the bottom line is that the Phantom 4 Pro uses barometric pressure for altitude for flying because the GPS is notoriously inaccurate, but it seems it posts the GPS altitude in the photo exif's. Here's a link to folks discussing the issue. https://forum.dji.com/thread-148221-1-1.html Anyway, I agree with Casey, it's well worth getting GCP targets on the ground, typically 4 corners and the center for each flight area. Cheers, Nadine

Hey Bill, thanks for posting. I’m a consultant (civil engineer) in Brevard so it’s good to see SJRWMD getting into the use of drones. They’re a great tool, and we use them for almost all of our current engineering projects. We use a Phantom 4 Pro and process in Pix4D. Since almost all of our projects involve a surveyor, we have the benefit of using very accurate GCPs for processing our imagery. As you might know already, the altitude readings are based on barometric pressure. They’re going to be relative readings, meaning that even if you calibrate the drone before flight, the altitude is still going to be some “random” value that doesn’t correspond to any real NAVD88, NGVD29, etc. value. Until you use an RTK model (or something along those lines) or input some type of ground control information, you’re not going to be able to achieve any real level of vertical accuracy. Your horizontal accuracy may also be off by a decent amount (5-10 ft in our experience). Your imagery may also “tilt” in one direction since there’s no vertical control to orient it correctly. To achieve what you’re looking for, your best bet (for having a small budget) is to input some type of ground control in your Pix4D processing. There are some pretty cheap GPS units out there that could give you a decent measurement of x, y, and z. By setting a few targets and inputting some “good enough” values into Pix4D, it will greatly improve your results. They won’t be perfect, as the GPS units have limited accuracy, but it would be a big improvement over no control at all.

we went to check out this factory to manufacture drones. I shot it as we walked through.

Another one as real estate season gets into full swing here in Cheyenne. The drone footage is all Mavic 2 Pro. There's a story currently going around the interwebz about disabling the GPS on the M2P for "buttery smooth shots" as the proponent author calls them. However I've been extremely impressed with some of the Mavic 2 Pro's GPS-enabled flight modes like point of interest. I see no reason why disabling the M2P's GPS would be necessary or even smart. The object tracking especially is very accurate and allows some of the more complex shots you see like the corkscrew coming around the back of the house. The house itself was a challenge to shoot. It has been empty for a while and hasn't been maintained or cleaned well. Sunflares and sunrays added in post are great at covering up dirty windows though! The gas to the fireplace was also off, so I added the fire in post. And I didn't want to mess with the home theater, so the glare from the projector was also added VFX. Anyway, this was a fun project to put together: