Recent content by Rick26h

Welcome, you've joined a very diverse group of pilots. The knowledge pool contained here is yours for the asking, your not alone, believe me. My name is Rick, Chief UAV Pilot for Patchogue Fire Department located on Long Island, NY,USA. Any questions just drop us a line.

Sorry to hear about your loss, my P4P developed the same symptoms with GPS loss for no reason using Litchi. I like to use Litchi because of the audio updates which I set at 10 sec intervals, hovering over a fire scene, I watch every move my UAV makes vs watching a screen. Several times I heard...

Morning Chief, I have been sending my drones down to Drone Nerds in Miami, FL., and I am from Long Island, NY. They did a great job on my P4P which I just used in a SAR recovery with my fire & Police department. I just now sent my Inspire One down to them for repair as well since I liked their...

Hi North East John, Thanks for the words, I started using my Flir on my Inspire One mounted on the nose with my battery mounted outside on the tail, the I1 handles the weight with no problem, I also use a Z5 camera with zoom. Just recently my I1 became unreliable losing gps and drifting off...

I have a Flir Vue Pro thermal camera I want to mount on my P4P but would like it on a gimbal so that the image is stable. Can anyone give me instructions on how to use a gimbal for this situation? Presently, I mound the Flir directly to the P4P but do not like the picture when I am over a fire...

You have an excellent location, I miss all that action, love those C-5's, my base I used to be on was a C-5 base. Sometimes I wonder if the PD birds near me have sensors to know when I'm flying, it always seems that they appear out of no where and fly right over my house when I am up...

Being legal to fly or not is not the question, by our law you must fly 100 ft. below any aircraft, so if I have a Police chopper suddenly appear out of no where at 60 feet or so, I land immediately. I have flown in black hawks flying the Nap of the Earth, it's fast, stressing, and not much time...

I found that a lot of after market props required balancing first to reduce vibration, which became a pain. Now, I only buy the best for my UAV's since having a failure while working a scene is not an option. I am using the low noise props on my P4P seem to work Ok.

Skytrekker, before you call it quits, maybe you know someone that also has a drone that could do a low level recon of the area's mentioned. An aerial view is more productive than a ground level or treetop view. My hat is off to all the great advice you received here to help you. I'm impressed...

A tough problem, in the last 6 months I have had friends come up to me and give me drones that they have found, no marking nothing that could be traced. I pull the flash card to view the video in hopes of identifying who and where they were launching from. Good luck in your request, don't...

Fire Department Chief Drone Pilot

Being a Fire Department UAV pilot I must practice everyday weather permitting. Well over 400 flights under my belt, I find myself still as cautious as my first flight. I practice on my 1/2 acre yard which is well treed and with wires, no time for errors. At the beginning of my flying...

I totally agree with your comment, I am the chief UAV pilot for my fire department, there are many times when I am doing air operations over a fire scene or SAR mission when a police helo shows up coming in at 200 ft. or less. Even though my chiefs do like me yielding to them, I follow FAA...