New fear unlocked

[N201MKTurbo]

At 66 I've earned the right to say " take that selfie stick and stick it up your prissy little @#$ and get off my lawn!"

It's tough getting old, that's why they don't let the young people do it, they don't have the fortitude for it.

[C.J.]

On 10/20/2023 at 1:59 PM, NewMoon said:

This past Tuesday we flew from SWFL up to SC, us at 15000. United calls in at FL210 and reports a drone passing underneath them at FL200. No one at ATC seemed alarmed but I guarantee the United Crew was very alarmed. 

That's the highest altitude I've heard of a drone PIREP. My personal highest was at 11,000 while on a STAR going into KTPA from the north back in 2016. I was doing at least 250 kias and the drone passed no more than 50 feet below the left wing. Reported it to ATC & filed a NASA report. Best guess at the time was 4 feet by 4 feet with 4 rotors.

[Hank]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

At 66 I've earned the right to say " take that selfie stick and stick it up your prissy little @#$ and get off my lawn!"

It's tough getting old, that's why they don't let the young people do it, they don't have the fortitude for it.

My dad the retired Marine used to say, "getting old isn't for p*ssies." Yours is more polite, but I think Clint would go for dad's version . . . . And every year, I'm finding out that he was more and more correct!

[Yetti]

Flight sunday.   Vulture hanging out at 2400.   I saw him with enough time to steer around him.

[MattCW]

On 10/21/2023 at 8:54 AM, A64Pilot said:

I’m not very smart and I can think of an easy way.

Every one I have seen and that’s not many, but they need to initialize the AHARS or whatever it is they use to sense accelerations etc, during that initialization that also corresponds to GPS initialization, the software accepts this altitude as zero, then the drone could restrict itself to a max altitude of 400’ above the initial ziti on altitude.

Personally I think there is no need to be over 200’ max, at 400’ you probably can’t see most of the things.

 

 

On 10/21/2023 at 9:12 AM, N201MKTurbo said:

That would work.

I have a friend who goes hiking every weekend with his drone. He often launches it from mountain peaks and has it fly a pattern around him. It is like a giant selfie stick. He does produce some spectacular videos. It is almost always more than 400 AGL. But it is so far out in the sticks that nobody cares. Even though he is never more than 100 feet or so above the launch point.

FWIW, he got some spectacular shots of the eclipse. He was trying to find the best place to see it. He figures he succeeded when he got to his chosen spot and a group of vans from NASA were parked there.

Part of the problem with that is it's 400ft above the terrain, not 400ft from above the launch site. I'm a part 107 operator myself and I've done a lot of work in hilly environments where restricting me to 400ft above my launch site would not fulfill the mission. Further, licensed operators can operate up to 400ft above an object that the drone is within 400ft of. So yes, if there's a 1,000ft tall tower, the drone can go up to 1,400ft AGL as long as it's within 400ft of the tower. I've also done work where I've had to take full advantage of that.

[Pinecone]

Just priced a remote ID unit.  $90.  How many "common" people are going to buy a $90 add on module, that does nothing practical for them, to put on there sub $50 drone?????

[A64Pilot]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:57 PM, N201MKTurbo said:

That presents a lot of problems. It would require a terrain database and an airspace database in the drone, or internet connectivity. The onboard database would need to be updated periodically, and internet connectivity usually doesn't come for free. Either way that is a lot of cost to add to a toy...

The altitude would be easy, limit it to x number of feet higher than the altitude it was at takeoff, I’d say significantly lower than 400 ft myself. I can’t see any need to go above 200.

A few years ago I bought one, it’s apparently a “Bugs” clone, small, inexpensive yet push a button and it will return to its takeoff point and land, which tells me the thing has both position and altitude down very accurately because it descends pretty rapidly until it gets about ten ft off the ground then it slowly descends until it lands, and it knows it lands without a squat switch or radar altimeter because after landing it stops the props.

At 200 ft unless it’s on airport property I don’t think they would be much of an issue.

Seems it was almost 5 years ago.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

15 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

The altitude would be easy, limit it to x number of feet higher than the altitude it was at takeoff, I’d say significantly lower than 400 ft myself. I can’t see any need to go above 200.

A few years ago I bought one, it’s apparently a “Bugs” clone, small, inexpensive yet push a button and it will return to its takeoff point and land, which tells me the thing has both position and altitude down very accurately because it descends pretty rapidly until it gets about ten ft off the ground then it slowly descends until it lands, and it knows it lands without a squat switch or radar altimeter because after landing it stops the props.

At 200 ft unless it’s on airport property I don’t think they would be much of an issue.

Seems it was almost 5 years ago.

 

Your method would be fine in the flat lands. My friend the drone geek. Often launches on a mountain hike and flies the drone to the mountain peak which could be many thousand feet above the launch point. And conversely, sometimes he is on the mountain peak and wants to get a picture of the peak by having the drone circle around the peak where it is way more than 400 feet AGL. And, there would rarely be anybody there that would care what you are doing with a drone.