Recent content by David Cooke

I come to London sometimes . . let's meet there for coffee sometime perhaps when the weather gets warmer

Oh... well it’s nice camera work as well as flying... wasn’t his/ her first time out

Nice work 'furthertofly' . . .impressive footage and worth taking the risk for. Can you say what machine? I assume Phantom 4? . . so I assume there was no zoom? Thanks for posting

DO NOT use attitude (ATTI) mode in winter conditions unless you just want to tour the countryside for 25 min and never see your drone again... you need exceptional flying skill unless you are using it all the time. Use P (position) mode and the machine will stay where it is hands off unless the...

Good point Tyger but I have to say having someone ELSE grab the thing is asking for trouble . . just a slight delay or miss-communications could easily lead to some spilled blood. Better to do all of the eye/hand coordination and synchronized timing done in a single bio-processor (ie brain) . ...

I forgot to mention too that a neck strap is much safer and preferred over just holding the controller in your left hand . . less chance of fumbling or worse dropping it at a critical moment. . . although I have done both occasionally.

It’s a very docile maneuver . P4P held firmly till its nearly flying under its own power... then it lifts off easily and smoothly. Just need to hold it slightly above with an outstretched arm. If it’s miss behaving or pulling just don’t let go till there are no pressures or turn it off. Once 10...

As you see I hand launch and catch my P4P+ all the time . . . as a matter of routine. It is easier and safer than most people think, same with my mavics too. Just keep it above your head until you have hold of it and then LEFT stick down and it stops. The controller should never be out of your...

I think you are right 901.25 is only about altitude near bldgs otherwise just stay 100ft away from everything incl people except your crew (901.26)... no overflights of ANY people.. . Incl crew... so even simple commercial job would be pretty hard to not violate (901.62). You would have to have...

You can still fly in Class C but only with ADV certificate and an a/c with manufacturers declaration if you follow the extra advanced rules or you are stuck with basic that say 200ft from Bldg see 901.25

Yes by your reading you can fly commercially with a basic . . but there's not much you can do that is >100 ft from everything and no where near airports heliports or >200ft from buildings. Just have your doc set with you, do a site survey, follow a checklist and land if an airplane approaches ...

I've spent months now (years actually) since they started trying to regulate . . trying to understand what the new Canadian Air Regulations PART IX is and how it applies to where and how I want to fly. There's a lot of legal stuff and repetitive words . . so Cutting through all of that took...

Your suggestion, that just because you are going 200 Kts on final that you can’t see/recognize anything, is uninformed... from experience I can tell you a pigeon looks different from a starling or a hawk at 200kts. At 200 kts low level, these objects stand out because they look like a stationary...

No doubt the rules will be stiffened as soon as TC catches on to the M2E spotlight. I agree with you on min weather limits... in Germany our tactical helicopter limits were “800ft viz and clear of cloud”. And our operational ceiling was 50 ft...but we rarely flew faster than 30-40kts in those...

I think these guys did a presentation at unmanned systems CANADA 18 in Vancouver a month ago. If they get this kind of experience over the next year or so they’ll be the go to company on BVLOS for years to come...great proving ground.