Av8Chuck

No. LAANC I controlled airspace with specific instructions, you must follow this instructions. If there’s an obstacle in your flight path that you won’t clear with the altitude restriction then you need to figure out a differnt path.

A couple of things, unless things have changed there is no skills/practical test or part B as you call it. Kind of odd huh... I think teaching STEM as an alternative to “regular” education is a great thing to do. I’m curious what information your students gathered for their research and the methodology they used to gather it. Drones as an industry is not well defined and there’s a lot of hype on the internet so if you want your students to have a quality experience your probably going to have to filter the information they gather and put it in Context of a career path. They shouldn’t believe the raw data being spewed online. Not coarse that just my online opinion so take it for what it’s worth. Good luck and have fun.

No worries. Good luck we’ve struggled finding operators willing to be road warriors

We’re in a similar situation. The best advice I can give is that you need to grow your own. https://aerialalchemy.com/

That has very little to do with what kind of drone or camera and everything to do with skill. There’s a good chance you could never be able to accomplish that. I’ve been flying drones since 2008 and I can’t come close to that. Maybe you can, but it’s going to take some serious skills. Also there isn’t a DJI that can come close to that.

I’m a big fan of Aurdupilot and open source, however, Phillip Rowe’s answer to does it have encryption - “why do you need encryption?” Is kind of why trusting them to get this right is difficult. A lot of the so called “leading developers” really don’t seem to understand the commercial industry. Their just DIY’rs and there is no DIY market.

What about your rights? Just because a drone is flying in the area doesn’t mean anyone’s privacy is being violated. I’ve never been there, maybe it’s just totally crowded, of coarse then you couldn’t fly there without flying over people, but using privacy as the standard is wrong. I guess they don’t allow cell phones either.

It’s been a while since I’ve had any hands on experience with Ardupilot (I have people for that). But we’ve been doing some testing with various radars, IR, Laser, and other assorted sensors with varying degrees of success and failure. We fly mostly autonomous missions so we’re more interested in these sensors to enhance accuracy and not so much for collision avoidence. If people fly autonomous drones into objects they might want to consider a different line of work... Also, despite the hype from some manufacturers, the stand off distance for their “collision avoidence” is measured in feet. It might stop you from running into a static object like a building (if your going slow enough) but not much else. Like all open source projects PX4/Ardupilot has hooks in there software for a wide variety of sensors and variables for using them, but the application of them are not really that well thought through. We’re really busy but I’ll see if the guys that are testing have the time to respond to this thread. Unfortunately it might be a few weeks.

I’m guessing your flying Aurdupilot?

I believe these guys launched this about two years ago and like a lot of these types of efforts I don’t think they got much traction. Won’t know until they either launch a new website or pop up as a new company. I also seem to recall this Tx was pretty pricey. Only one of the cubes is not manufactured in China and the provenance of that one now in question. Turns out Hex66 is a Chinese company. Not a big deal for most people but for the type of security we have to comply with its not worth the effort to get the waiver. The HereLink is cool but it has the same security issue and although there’s a lot of talk about them they have not shipped many. But we’re keeping an eye on them and will probably buy a couple to play with. we’ve developed our own version of “LightBridge” “HereLink” that we can encrypt primary flight control, telemetry, and HD video with less latency for up to 25 miles. But, and it’s a big one, it sucks so much energy we can’t fly anywhere near 25 miles anyway. It’s good up to about 3-5 miles depending on how long you want to fly. It’s never easy!

I couldn’t find it anywhere? Looks like the flight controller is PD4 using Q-Ground Control

They came over from Italy and spent a couple of days looking at the work we’re doing and the tools we’re using. Our developers got along really well with them. There’s a ton of photogrammetry sortware available, it’s mostly all the same. Most of it is better than the capability of the people collecting the data. So for those using DJI, DroneDeploy is good enough. For those needing more accuracy with more resolution the choice is less and more expensive. It’s nice to see companies like 3DFlow recognize the potential market and focus some serious resources to move up the food chain. I really hope they can become more competitive in this space.

It’s certainly a place to start to broaden your view of commercial drone usage. However, keep in mind it’s a trade show and a large percentage of it is drone people trying to sell stuff to other drone people and a lot of hype about commercial applications. If you don’t have much experience with commercial drones then it can be a bit overwhelming figuring out what’s real and what’s hype. What did you do professionally prior to your interest in drones?

What he said...

I guess it depends on how you define “first video..”. That is an excellent video, great flying, great location. Looks like a lot of fun. I did a similar video where we fly: