Vision Tested to 11,000ft, but how much higher can it go

[BenDronePilot]

Chuggie:

Great photos. But again, you are publicly admitting you took your quad up over 1000ft. You need to be more careful when posting information that crosses over the line of legal verses illegal. FAA rules are specific about the 400 ft elevation level.

Albeit, your shots are great and probably not in anyone's way, but reading other forums, the FAA is searching for violations and when you post it publicly, you help them make their case against you. A little discretion is in order I'd say.

Nice photos tho.

There are no actual FAA regulations, laws or rules that disallow someone flying their RC airplane or copter over 400 feet. That is only a suggestion or guideline, NOT a Law or rule. You can not be fined or get in trouble for that. Just a little FYI

 

[Chuggie]

Chuggie:

Great photos. But again, you are publicly admitting you took your quad up over 1000ft. You need to be more careful when posting information that crosses over the line of legal verses illegal. FAA rules are specific about the 400 ft elevation level.

Albeit, your shots are great and probably not in anyone's way, but reading other forums, the FAA is searching for violations and when you post it publicly, you help them make their case against you. A little discretion is in order I'd say.

Nice photos tho.

There are no actual FAA regulations, laws or rules that disallow someone flying their RC airplane or copter over 400 feet. That is only a suggestion or guideline, NOT a Law or rule. You can not be fined or get in trouble for that. Just a little FYI

Thanks for the Info Ben,

I was actually following the contour of a peak, the quad was 1000+ ft. above where I launched it, but It was less than 400ft above the ground; however I would love to take the Phantom to the Grand Canyon, or even better yet, to the Black Canyon of Colorado. There you could have the quad below your takeoff elevation, but 6000+ ft above the ground.

Thanks Again,
Chuggie

 

[Pull_Up]

RC Aircraft banned from Grand Canyon National Park by local legislation: http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/upload ... endium.pdf see page 3

Just FYI...

 

[Chuggie]

RC Aircraft banned from Grand Canyon National Park by local legislation: http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/upload ... endium.pdf see page 3

Just FYI...

Well, even better yet, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. They say it is the narrowest canyon of its depth anywhere in the world. The Grand Canyon is 1.5 miles across; whereas in places the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is only 40ft (12M) across, but it is still 2500ft deep.

 

[garygid]

Have some P2V pilots tested flying below the Home elevation.

There could be some bugs associated with the relative altitude
being negative, and perhaps the fly-Home function.

If one has flown 1000 feet down into a canyon, the P2V might
need to climb 1066 feet before it heads for Home.

 

[Pull_Up]

I believe from reports of others with V1 Phantoms, but have not tested it myself, that in a failsafe situation the Vision would, indeed, climb to 20 metres above the barometric height it recorded at its home location then transition horizontally as usual.

 

[Chuggie]

Have some P2V pilots tested flying below the Home elevation.

There could be some bugs associated with the relative altitude
being negative, and perhaps the fly-Home function.

If one has flown 1000 feet down into a canyon, the P2V might
need to climb 1066 feet before it heads for Home.

I believe the return elevation climb can be manually set in the firmware when you plug the Phantom into a USB port.

Thanks,
Chuggie

 

[garygid]

I just got my P2V Friday, examined the parts yesterday, and charged batteries
for a first hop off the ground today. So, tomorrow I will update firmware,
and look for the RTH altitude parameter. Thanks.

 

[Pull_Up]

Just an FYI: in the Vision, the only thing you can do is change the behaviour when failsafe kicks in: either

1. Follow the standard RTH algorithm (20m up or maintain if higher, head for home, hover for 15 secs, descend to land); or
2. Initiate auto-land straight away.

There are no other parameters to play with in the current version of the Assistant.

 

[Chuggie]

Have some P2V pilots tested flying below the Home elevation.

There could be some bugs associated with the relative altitude
being negative, and perhaps the fly-Home function.

If one has flown 1000 feet down into a canyon, the P2V might
need to climb 1066 feet before it heads for Home.

Up in the mountains I have flown to about -100 ft ( -31M) from home elevation, but did not test the auto return home function.

 

[Chuggie]

Wow, that's awesome.

I'm really looking forward to stitching raw images from the Phantom.

 

[Qwadjok]

Hey Chuggie:

I've tested the auto return to home feature at least 6 times and from different locations, in different cold weather climes to see just how well it would perform.

It was great to watch it work flawlessly when I shut the controller off, my girl left it's position in one area, flew up over the trees, then repositioned itself 60 feet above home spot and landed without a hitch. Blew the minds of my RC friends watching.

I've done this from elevated platforms (height way up) and from several distances including 800 feet out. No problem. Even ran the battery down till the lights were all red and the alarms started on the app started ringing, shut the box off and it still returned flawlessly.

Cool as cool can be..

QJ

 

[Chuggie]

Hey Chuggie:

I've tested the auto return to home feature at least 6 times and from different locations, in different cold weather climes to see just how well it would perform.

It was great to watch it work flawlessly when I shut the controller off, my girl left it's position in one area, flew up over the trees, then repositioned itself 60 feet above home spot and landed without a hitch. Blew the minds of my RC friends watching.

I've done this from elevated platforms (height way up) and from several distances including 800 feet out. No problem. Even ran the battery down till the lights were all red and the alarms started on the app started ringing, shut the box off and it still returned flawlessly.

Cool as cool can be..

QJ

I have only Auto-landed once, but it worked perfectly, landed within 2 ft of where it took off. Twice I have flown it out of range, and had it start to auto return, then switched to manual for a minute to regain control, then went about my business with the rest of the flight.

 

[BenDronePilot]

Have some P2V pilots tested flying below the Home elevation.

There could be some bugs associated with the relative altitude
being negative, and perhaps the fly-Home function.

If one has flown 1000 feet down into a canyon, the P2V might
need to climb 1066 feet before it heads for Home.

I believe the return elevation climb can be manually set in the firmware when you plug the Phantom into a USB port.

Thanks,
Chuggie

There is no option that I can find to change the default Return to home Fail Safe values. There should be though but maybe DJI left it unchangeable for safety concerns with people making the values too low or high?

 

[BenDronePilot]

RC Aircraft banned from Grand Canyon National Park by local legislation: http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/upload ... endium.pdf see page 3

Just FYI...

Good to know. Though I bet people have still flown their RC Planes at the Grand Canyon without any problems despite the rules they can not fly there.

 

[Chuggie]

RC Aircraft banned from Grand Canyon National Park by local legislation: http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/upload ... endium.pdf see page 3

Just FYI...

Good to know. Though I bet people have still flown their RC Planes at the Grand Canyon without any problems despite the rules they can not fly there.

I was just watching a video from Team Black Sheep where they flew their drones over the Grand Canyon. They filmed one day, then they started to film a second day, and the park ranger showed up. They were not fined but the ranger confiscated their SD cards. Check out their video Below...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfP726SFXVU[/youtube]

Thanks,
Chuggie

 

[Pull_Up]

Yeah, rumour has it that the ban was put in place after that flight (or at least one like it if not that specific one). There are those who blame TBS for a string of local total RC bans that were only put in place after TBS visited. You've got to admire the skills and the videos but I do worry about people with lesser equipment and much less skill and experience trying to emulate some of their stuff...

Regarding the Grand Canyon, as ever with these situations there will always be those who are going to go and fly RC there either through ignorance or deliberately flouting the restrictions. If you don't get caught, you don't get caught. Getting away with it, but then posting the video on the internet is probably not such a bright idea!

 

[Chuggie]

Yeah, rumour has it that the ban was put in place after that flight (or at least one like it if not that specific one). There are those who blame TBS for a string of local total RC bans that were only put in place after TBS visited. You've got to admire the skills and the videos but I do worry about people with lesser equipment and much less skill and experience trying to emulate some of their stuff...

Regarding the Grand Canyon, as ever with these situations there will always be those who are going to go and fly RC there either through ignorance or deliberately flouting the restrictions. If you don't get caught, you don't get caught. Getting away with it, but then posting the video on the internet is probably not such a bright idea!

Of course TBS are not Americans and if they post after returning to their native land there is little the US parks department can do.

 

[snowmaker55]

Very cool photography!

 

[Chuggie]

Yeah, rumour has it that the ban was put in place after that flight (or at least one like it if not that specific one). There are those who blame TBS for a string of local total RC bans that were only put in place after TBS visited. You've got to admire the skills and the videos but I do worry about people with lesser equipment and much less skill and experience trying to emulate some of their stuff...

Regarding the Grand Canyon, as ever with these situations there will always be those who are going to go and fly RC there either through ignorance or deliberately flouting the restrictions. If you don't get caught, you don't get caught. Getting away with it, but then posting the video on the internet is probably not such a bright idea!

If there was no ban in place before TBS visited the Grand Canyon, then why were their SD cards confiscated by a park ranger ???