If you didn't have a 400ft rule would you fly like this?

[blackcrusader]

There is no such thing as guarantee risk free. Aircraft crash all the time. Run out of fuel, bird strikes, engine failures, on board fires, suicide pilots, and accidents. Let's say I scoot up to Taipei City. I can fly in parts of the city but max height is 60m. Some parts near the Presidents Palace and airport of course cannot fly nor over military installations. They will shoot down drones here and fine the owners. My drone has my name and telephone number on it.

However the thread sort of gut hijacked by talking about US policy. The thing is that you cannot fly in National Parks in the USA but I can in Taiwan. But there are many other areas in the wilderness you could fly. Let's say you were flying over a forest and saw smoke. If you could climb to 1000' you may be able to pin point a forest fire to let forest rangers know there is a fire. You could also give them your latitude and longitude so they could locate the area quickly.

So if you could in some areas where no aircraft fly and are not over a populated area do would you flight higher than 400'? For me I often need to climb more than 400' to get the footage I do. Sometimes 400m to clear the clouds.
It's just to do so where I live.

 

[kennedye]

 

[blackcrusader]

Well I'm planning on doing a sunrise flight at 11000 feet tomorrow morning my time. We have some rain atm but hoping for misty mountain sunrise.

 

[blackcrusader]

Yes I would and awesome video!

Thought you might like this one then.

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[blackcrusader]

I'll be the Drone Cop with a gentle word of caution: Keep in mind that manned aircraft have no way of detecting your drone when its up there, and a collision could quite easily result in tragedy. That's why there's a ceiling. To answer the OP's question, I'd absolutely love to go up that high and shoot some footage. There have been countless times I cursed the universe when the perfect video was sitting before my eyes. Yet, I'm just not willing to turn on the news after a huge air disaster and know I caused it.

You do know DJI drones have a ceiling of 6000m or over 19600 ft?

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[pe9999]

Everyone in the US has that rule. You agreed to it when you registered your drone.

When you purchased the drone, in USA, you are bounded by the FAA rules. If you don't register, you broke the law.

 

[chadrob30]

This screen cap was taken DIRECTLY from the FAA website. It was updated 31 days ago. Can't get much more current than that. Try as I might, I just cannot see anything about a 400' rule under flying for fun. Capture.JPG

 

[JBR]

Is flying through heavy cloud cover\fog detrimental to the inner workings of the aircraft? Just wondering and yes beautiful footage that is something I would like to capture.

 

[wsalopek]

If there weren't any rules, I'd certainly fly (at least once) like that. I'd also spend time in DC and get aerial photos of the monuments, travel to Yellow Stone and take overhead shots if the thermal pools, videograph my local sports teams, and do a bunch of other stuff. Too bad (or thank god) there are rules...

Let's remember it IS possible to get at least SOME shots like the OP...we'd just need to find a hill and fly less than 400 feet AGL...

--

Bill

 

[AlanTheBeast]

I am not in the USA. So sad that in the great outdoors you can't have unrestricted flights where there are no aircraft. I had to clear 1400' just to get this. However I am not in an aircraft flight zone and am over a wilderness area. Just me and my P3S and Argtek Antenna.

Would you do flights like this if you could? Please no drone police answers. Where I fly it is legal to do so.

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I'd be confident to pretty much any altitude the battery could support.

But I would avoid clouds as much as possible due to condensation and possibly icing.

 

[SDODD]

I am not in the USA. So sad that in the great outdoors you can't have unrestricted flights where there are no aircraft. I had to clear 1400' just to get this. However I am not in an aircraft flight zone and am over a wilderness area. Just me and my P3S and Argtek Antenna.

Would you do flights like this if you could? Please no drone police answers. Where I fly it is legal to do so.

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I also live in an area surrounded by wilderness or ocean. I try to obey the rules forced on us when in public areas. However, in the wilderness, I often break them reaching up to 1,200 feet. I make this point because we have large ridges covered in douglas fir that can reach 300 feet over centuries. Those are gone. But there are large trees. The ridges can be thousands of feet. So it is very easy to take off on the flat and stay within 400 feet of ground floor and reach 1,200 feet over the take-off point. How does one interpret the rule on this. It would be interesting to know. But they give us no guidance. You took off and remained well below 400 feet over the surface but were at thousands of feet on your return. Also at the ocean I often take off over cliffs which are inthemselves 120 feet. How do you interpret that? I don't know.

 

[SDODD]

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[dwallersv]

This screen cap was taken DIRECTLY from the FAA website. It was updated 31 days ago. Can't get much more current than that. Try as I might, I just cannot see anything about a 400' rule under flying for fun. Capture.JPG

I'm really not understanding your thinking. Does it matter to you that there are manned aircraft with a floor of 500', and it's not uncommon to find small planes (2 and 4 seaters) flying at 1000' AGL?

Does this figure into your judgement at all?

I'm not asking about what the rules are, what the law says, or anything else. I'm asking about your judgement given the reality of the circumstances.

Birds have caused fatal crashes of small aircraft. This is not some theoretical risk. We're talking about killing people here.

It will only take ONE accident like this to bring down the hammer of rules far more onerous than what we have now. A few times, and private hobby drone flying will be outlawed.

 

[upthedowns]

During my CAA training course we were shown the result of a seagull strike on a military helicopter that was travelling blacked out on a night mission in Afghanistan. The seagul was an identical weight but much less dense than a Phantom. The result? The seagul smashed through the plexiglass chin piece, wrenched the control stick from the pilots hand and still had sufficient surplus energy to smash the pilots carbon fibre chest armour and render him unconscious. The impact with the aircraft was sufficient to buckle the frame which allowed the open side door to be wrenched off completely, narrowly missing the rear rotor as it flew past. Fortunately the co-pilot was able to take over. Makes you think. And if it doesn't, it should.

 

[SDODD]

I'm really not understanding your thinking. Does it matter to you that there are manned aircraft with a floor of 500', and it's not uncommon to find small planes (2 and 4 seaters) flying at 1000' AGL?

Does this figure into your judgement at all?

I'm not asking about what the rules are, what the law says, or anything else. I'm asking about your judgement given the reality of the circumstances.

Birds have caused fatal crashes of small aircraft. This is not some theoretical risk. We're talking about killing people here.

It will only take ONE accident like this to bring down the hammer of rules far more onerous than what we have now. A few times, and private hobby drone flying will be outlawed.

I fly as well. I often note aircraft pilots can be guilty of pushing the rules or breaking them too. Like flying up the beach at 100 feet for twenty miles. One has to use his head.

 

[SDODD]

During my CAA training course we were shown the result of a seagull strike on a military helicopter that was travelling blacked out on a night mission in Afghanistan. The seagul was an identical weight but much less dense than a Phantom. The result? The seagul smashed through the plexiglass chin piece, wrenched the control stick from the pilots hand and still had sufficient surplus energy to smash the pilots carbon fibre chest armour and render him unconscious. The impact with the aircraft was sufficient to buckle the frame which allowed the open side door to be wrenched off completely, narrowly missing the rear rotor as it flew past. Fortunately the co-pilot was able to take over. Makes you think. And if it doesn't, it should.

Good post. We have circular flights of the Coast Guard over our small costal town all day. They must train for rescue even if there is no specific mission. You don't just sit around for six months and then take on a difficult assignment. You train every day. Anyone foolish enough to place a drone in their intake turbine would kill hundreds of people. There is nothing more to say about it. No matter the rules or anything else you can't do this.

 

[SDODD]

I'm really not understanding your thinking. Does it matter to you that there are manned aircraft with a floor of 500', and it's not uncommon to find small planes (2 and 4 seaters) flying at 1000' AGL?

Does this figure into your judgement at all?

I'm not asking about what the rules are, what the law says, or anything else. I'm asking about your judgement given the reality of the circumstances.

Birds have caused fatal crashes of small aircraft. This is not some theoretical risk. We're talking about killing people here.

It will only take ONE accident like this to bring down the hammer of rules far more onerous than what we have now. A few times, and private hobby drone flying will be outlawed.

I would also point out to everyone that in spite lof the tendancy to debate between the drones crowd and regular aircraft crowd they both have the same issues in hilly or difficult terrain of rapidly chainging hights of things. No regular aircraft could safely fly down to 500 feet among 3,000 foot hills or among 300 trees. The FAA is well aware of this. If you read their findings carefully it has been decided that drones are a valuable and legal form of flying that can accomplish tasks more efficently and much more safely of social value. So they are supported. In most cases more complicated uses require an extended permit sought in a court. There are thousand of examples on their web page. For instance one might get a permit to fly over forest fires while others are disallowed if you apply as one wh does that professonally. Yet you'd better not use that same drone for photographing your duaghters wedding three states away. Anyway, your milage may vary.

 

[m0j0]

. The reason this isn't happening a whole lot more because the vast majority of drone flights are below the 400' ceiling. I'll bet the amount of time any hobby drones spend above 500' is exceedingly small. For this reason, we haven't had collisions..

I disagree. The reason we havent had accidents is it takes a confluence of incredibly bad luck for a mid-air collision to occur. I'm willing to bet you couldn't hit a Cessna with your "drone" at 500 feet if you tried to.. I'd even give you 100 chances and my bet is your success rate would be 0. Heck I'd even spot you the altitude and say you could radio the pilot and tell him to flay at exactly 500 feet. You still couldn't do it.

Thats why we dont have accidents. There are enough careless folks out there. Statistically speaking though it is incredibly unlikely. To the side issue.... you are only flying as a hobbyist in the US if you are flying within the rules. When you fly higher than 400 feet AGL you better have a 107. You actually have it backwards. You can fly higher than 400 if you have a 107 by 1) you can fly 400 feet above a structure as long as you are within 400 feet of the structure..for example if a tower is 300 feet tall you can fly 700 feet if you are within 400 feet of the tower... 2) you can apply for a waiver to exceed 400 feet.

 

[wa5tef]

400 feet?

 

[ZebraDrone3]

If I felt comfortable with not losing the aircraft, you KNOW I'd be above the clouds grabbing such awesome videos but, in the meantime, I'll have to settle for getting above the fog.