Background info... I work for myself, have for 37 years.. 4 weeks ago I fell and broke two vertebrae in my back and could not work for 3 weeks... for good or bad while being off I decided to investigate using a drone in my business... This has to be the most complicated and convoluted road I have ever taken....

First: To use a drone in a business you have to have an Unmanned Aircraft License from the FAA...
This takes a LOT of study and then a very hard test and then approval from the TSA. Couple hundred bucks too.

Then you get a drone: These are now built and designed by your high end computer nerds who feel it has to have every bell and whistle on it... day or two just trying to get the latest firmware and stuff loaded so it will fly... right? Wrong!

Then I discover that I live in a "Authorized Zone" and you have to register and down load another program to unlock the drone to be able to fly....two days with customer service trying to figure out how to do this... then the drone must be connected to the internet to actually figure this out.....
Oh, and did I mention the first drone I bought is so new that it can't accept the unlock codes,,,(software update to come the end of this month) so, I have to buy an 'older' one that will...
Takes five or 10 minutes every time to turn it on to fight your way through the menus to finally get it to take off....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Blume9mm,

Did you buy a DJI drone or something else?

Might wanna read the STICKY about thread titles. Boss won't be happy.

Yeah, I was kinda thinking #$%&*! would fall under:

Please refrain from putting profanity in your thread titles... And that includes stuff like "f&$k" or m0%$#*&^@r".

Okay, I fixed it (took out the various symbols from my post title)...

seems I'm always stepping over the edge in this forum one way or another... posting a picture of Sigorney Weaver's "plumber's crack' and posting about how I bought the wrong barrel on line by misreading the add and then asking if anyone was interested in buying it.....

quote:

Originally posted by Blume9mm:

First: To use a drone in a business you have to have an Unmanned Aircraft License from the FAA...
This takes a LOT of study and then a very hard test and then approval from the TSA.

We, pilots of manned aircraft, have to do all of this. If we did not, there would be a huge compromise to safety.

What you are complaining about is the fact that pilots of unmanned aircraft are required to have training, as well.

If I am sharing airspace with small aircraft that are virtually impossible to see until it is too late to avoid a collision, I want to know that the pilot of that unmanned aircraft has a reasonable amount of training and understands the applicable flight rules and restrictions.

TSA approval for pilots who are U.S. citizens is a simple matter of taking an online course; I believe that you can find this at no cost (mine is done as part of my bi-annual flight instructor renewal). I do not know whether it is any different for drone operators.

I know this is a bitch thread, but there are drones you can fly with no licensing or training. They are just classified as hobby or toy units. There are restrictions on how high you can fly (I want to say no more than 200’, but don’t quote me on that.) anyway, there are still hobby drones with cameras, but they tend to lack some of the niceties of the big boys like auto-hover, we’ll stabilized, movable cameras, GPS route following, etc. however, if all you want to do is get 50’ up and look at something, it might still work for you. The down side is you really have to learn to fly them with no help from the computers, and the run-time is usually pretty short.

So basically, if you get a small enough drone, you can avoid all those rules. Problem is.it’s a small, and usually much crappier, drone!

The tech support bitches seem legit though! Interesting tidbit: from what I have heard, people in China have actually called DJI America for tech support, because they are so much better and more responsive than the home base in China...so, at least you get to talk to the good version of DJI!

- Bret

I wonder how many drone owners are following the rules, and how strictly they're being enforced?

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
I know this is a bitch thread, but there are drones you can fly with no licensing or training. They are just classified as hobby or toy units. There are restrictions on how high you can fly (I want to say no more than 200’, but don’t quote me on that.) anyway, there are still hobby drones with cameras, but they tend to lack some of the niceties of the big boys like auto-hover, we’ll stabilized, movable cameras, GPS route following, etc. however, if all you want to do is get 50’ up and look at something, it might still work for you. The down side is you really have to learn to fly them with no help from the computers, and the run-time is usually pretty short.

So basically, if you get a small enough drone, you can avoid all those rules. Problem is.it’s a small, and usually much crappier, drone!

The tech support bitches seem legit though! Interesting tidbit: from what I have heard, people in China have actually called DJI America for tech support, because they are so much better and more responsive than the home base in China...so, at least you get to talk to the good version of DJI!

- Bret

Ummm... not exactly.

The OP is using his drone for commercial purposes, which always requires a Part 107 license. The altitude you were looking for is 400'

As for quality cameras and intelligent flight controls, those have been pretty much standard on everything since the DJI Phantom II was new. There's no need to fly junk or take days to learn anymore.

For the limited purposes he seems to be needing his drone for, it would be a mistake to buy anything other than a DJI unit. A good, used Phantom III or better would fit the bill nicely and be easy to set up and fly.

-Rob

Actually my gripe is not really about the licensing even though that was a little over done,... it's more about trying to figure out how to fly both legally and actually unlocking in an authorized zone,,, this is within a few miles of an airport, On the face of it it seems practical to make it a little hard to do... but since on the drones I have I can set the maximum distance above ground that they can fly... that should allow me to fly them with in this area with out having to jump through all kind of hoops.. I did discover one of the major problems as of late... every time you get ready to fly the drone in an authorized zone you have to load the unlock code from your controller to the drone.... a new window on the screen would come up and I could not get rid of it...finally by clicking and backing up and everything it goes away,,, yesterday I opened that window in my office,.. off to right on that window are actually two boxes you have to check off accepting full liability if you do something wrong..these two boxes are so faint that you can't see them when out in daylight....

Unthinking or uncaring drone owners continue to shut down air ops on wildland fires in violation of TFRs. If you own a drone and don’t know what that means—you are the problem

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:

Ummm... not exactly.

The OP is using his drone for commercial purposes, which always requires a Part 107 license. The altitude you were looking for is 400'

As for quality cameras and intelligent flight controls, those have been pretty much standard on everything since the DJI Phantom II was new. There's no need to fly junk or take days to learn anymore.

For the limited purposes he seems to be needing his drone for, it would be a mistake to buy anything other than a DJI unit. A good, used Phantom III or better would fit the bill nicely and be easy to set up and fly.

-Rob

Didn’t know that about the commercial use. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that the only stuff that qualified as a hobby drone and was not subject to the licensing requirements were necessarily very limited in power and range. After thinking about it, the auto-hover comment was stupid, as I own tiny crappy toys that will do that! Thanks for correcting me.

- Bret

I'd actually recommend the new Mavic Mini. In hind sight it was not that hard to set up and flies and takes outstanding video and photos.. and the initial cost is only $400. Of course you have to have a fairly recent I-Phone, android or tablet to connect to the controller to operate it.

The Mavic Mini is one gram under the minimum weight a drone has to have that requires registering it and paying the tupence to the government....

and to say it again... as long as you are flying for 'recreational' use and not for compensation then you just need to follow simple safety rules.