Av8Chuck

Hi @Steve Bennett how have you been? Good questions. I can't post any of the footage of the "USS Aerial Alchemy" the Navy's Self Defense Test Ship because it often has things on it that isn't meant for the public. However the research we're doing isn't considered classified. We also us a smaller ship, The Independence for many of the experiments, its also a Navy ship and there are often restrictions on what we can show. You've probably already seen this one, the USS Aerial Alchemy is in this from a distance as we're leaving port on the Independence: Working with the military has its challenges but everyone is really supportive and so far there haven't been that many obstacles to working with the Navy. When you fly UAVs people always talk about safety first, I tend to think about safety third or fourth. If you know what your doing and safety is part of the plan then common sense goes a long way. There's really not much, if anything, our UAVs could damage on either ship so regarding safety its not that much different than flying on land. We're getting the whole takeoff and landing thing on a moving ship down pretty well. Most consumer drones won't arm on the hood of a car, you can get Phantoms and MAVIC to arm if you hand launch them but the Navy really frowns on that. We can get away with that in the research environment but they won't allow sailors to hand launch and recover. Some of the challenges are the many passive and active radars. They use a lot of classified radars that I can't tell you whet they are, not that I'm keeping secrets I really have no idea what they are. I only care about if they effect the performance of our UAVs. We have what we call a "Rabbit," its basically a smaller version of our UAVs with all the same electronics that we launch first to test for interference. We haven't launched in rough seas, we haven't really even been out in rough sees. They probably wouldn't use what we're doing in inclement weather simply because the scan wouldn't be effective. We have modified the UAVs a little to deal with all the moisture. The ocean is a pretty demanding environment and causes a lot of corrosion etc.. We will have to change our manufacturing process for anything the Navy would use. I tried a selfie stick but I couldn't get enough of the ship in the shot...

What drone dod you get?

If the problem your trying to solve is click bait for YouTube I have some suggestions but let me first start by saying that if people chose to watch based on the quality of content you should be doing very well. Unfortunately we all know that things that do well on YouTube don’t do so becuase of the quality. So if you want to more views I’d suggest making your videos shorter, much shorter, 2-2.5 minutes. Talk more about the drone and less about the crop. More about the multispectral that most of the viewers won’t understand but will supply them with endless hours of jargon. And I realize this is sexist, show more of the attractive young woman driving the tractor. Having said that I think your video is very well done. I think it’s great that you have a narrative, the image quality and shot composition is very good. I recommend adding more ground shots, closeups of the machinery, driving, grain, etc.. having more shot diversity will help the pacing of the video. Although the Aerial looks good it all starts to look the same. The time lapse was a great addition. Again you might consider breaking your narrative up into shorter videos. People seem to have much shorter attention spans.

@inetcarp great post. I was going to post about this but decided against it because people think I’m so negative all the time... simply put, thermal is expensive and in very rare cases does it work. People often mount it on a UAV, look at the false colors and think it works, yet as you point out, there’s very little actionable data. And that’s if you can get it to work at all. We have use it quite a bit and I have a hard time recommending it to anyone. Not worth the hassle and expense. I know there are lots of people who claim to use it in SAR, that’s how we use it so when I say I doubt most of those accounts I know from which I speak. Ask them to show you a video of how they used it. Not to say that it can’t be usful, just not yet despite the claims from DNI and FLIR. Here’s how we used it:

Sure, I'll do that.

Thanks. I didn’t want you to think if I commented on it that I didn’t value your opinion. Its interesting reading this thread and then watching that video how I hope others can see for themselves why it’s necessary to have an industry trade group but also see how a trade group that spins it’s role in this process, drinks it’s own Koolaid and becomes vertically worthless. I only watched the first half, maybe they closed with a zinger!

That’s fine, but if you look at my previous thread you’ll notice I’m focused on helping @Stephanie Preston. Stephanie is a student pilot who is interested in using UAVs to solve a problem. Clearly she’s a person who’s passionate about sharing the Aerial perspective with groundlings and is in on the path to becoming an aviator. To be successful it’s actually good to understand the difference between an operator and a pilot. In fact, if someone applies for a job at my company with a 107 certificate and thinks that makes them a pilot, I won’t hire them. I had one 107 operator who fancied themselves a pilot total a $30K UAV and camera and all that person did was blame the accident on the failure of a component on the UAV. He was incapable of understanding that the accident was caused by something they did two months earlier and the crash was the result of a chain of bad decisions. So I stand by my advice, @Stephanie Preston Purchase whatever you can afford to abuse, learn how to fly it yourself, have fun, I guarantee that it will only increase your excitement for aviation, and complete your PPL. When you’ve completed that, you will have the experience to know which UAV is right for your needs and hopefully your videos will be inspiring others to do the same. Then you’ll be a pilot that flys UAV’s and if you were looking to make a career of that in California I’d love to talk to you.

The challenge for me is that I have this snarky sarcastic sense of humor that doesn’t always come across the way its intended on forums. It also makes it difficult to interpret when others are doing the same, kind of like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. are you being sarcastic or do you think the AMA will be effective?

An they will be requirements that the operator can't comply with. From your article "Follow community-based safety guidelines and fly within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization" --- In part 61 the FAA uses "safety" as a catchall that if for no other reason they can discipline you because of their interpretation of "safe." So what the FAA will likely do now is allow for the creation of other CBOs knowing that these organizations will only work toward the preservation of their own self interest. This will result in a bunch of pointless court cases that the FAA will lose but nevertheless the result will be that the hobbyists aviator will cease to exist. I'm not sure why I write this crap, everyone on this and just about every other UAV forum have resigned themselves to go along with whatever the FAA does. This is a REAUTHORIZATION ACT, its the mechanism the FAA uses to get the funding for the things in the bill. It is not the law. The FAA is still required to go through the NPRM process. So the issue is how to make the FAA follow their own NPRM process, clearly the AMA ha not been successful. I have some ideas but again its kind of pointless to mention them here. But I will point this out. In 2015 six companies got together and spent more than a million dollars to go through the 333 process to get a waiver to fly commercially. I don't think the FAA ever expected anyone to spend that kind of money and call their 333 exemption bluff. The problem for the FAA was that once they did, those six companies had standing in the process of developing the regulations. Three of the founders of those companies are good friends of mine and they were having a considerable effect on public opinion . At first it was great, the FAA openly promoted it, using this as an example of how they were working with industry at the same time they kept raising the requirements for these companies to comply with their 333. It got to the point where they could no longer comply, so they didn't and they kept working. What do you think happened? Nothing. There wasn't anything the FAA could do, therein lies the problem. So what was the FAA to do? The FAA created this process, these six companies complied with it which gave them the standing and credibility to continue, and more companies appeared to be willing to pony up the dollars to get a 333 exemption. That would have made the situation for the FAA much worse, so what they do? What would you have done? The FAA diluted the gene pool. They literally posted the original six 333 exemptions online and people almost immediately started cutting, pasting and changing the names of the innocent to apply for the exemption. Keep in mind that each of the original companies paid more than $200K for these exemptions, I would have thought that it was their intellectual property not the FAA's. Once that happened the original six companies had no more influence than the people who plagiarized them. The application for the 333 exemption didn't "lead" to part 107, it "forced" the FAA to issue the NPRM and start the process of making it a rule. So who's going to force the FAA to start the NPRM on the changes to rule 336/349? The AMA? Not likely, they're too busy sucking up to the FAA holding out hope that the good-ole' boy club will protect them. Desperation isn't pretty.

That’s certianly one way to look at it..

So the only difference between manned flight and flying RC is in how you plan for it? Being a pilot isn’t simply about your skill set, I’m a helicopter pilot but I can’t fly an RC helicopter to save my life. The difference between a pilot and an operator is that a pilot doesn’t have “fun” crashing.

@NunoB Wow, thanks for the great info. I'm Australian so English is my second language, do most people understand and speak English? Looks like a great place. My wife had kind of decided it was the wrong time of year. Me I don't mind the rain as long as its not all day every day. I'm more interested in relaxing, photography and maybe a little aerial. Thanks

Hello

Really well done. Thanks for sharing. I noticed you didn't include any aerial of downtown and other aerial of the island on the other video. Is flying there restricted? My wife mention going to the Azores in January but its the rainy season and apparently it rains a lot. Have any travel tips or recommendations on where to stay, food etc?

Hi Stephanie, where are you located? How far along are you with your PPL? UAV's, especially multirotors are not terribly complicated to fly. Depending on where and how much the intro course is I'd recommend forgoing that in favor of investing the money in purchasing your first drone. Obviously the first drone you purchase is not going to meet your requirements. However, it will bring you into the whole drone eco system providing you the opportunity to engage with other like minded people that should help lead you to the right drone for what you want to do. There are a lot of good used drones and some inexpensive drones available. Expense is relative. If you ask people what they recommend you'll start a religious debate about everyone's favorite drone. What always confuses me is that the same people who advocate for one manufacturer in one forum will be on a different forum complaining about how unreliable, how often you have to upgrade the firmware, and bad support is on the very same drone they recommended. Its really odd. Misery loves company I guess.