Recent content by Floater

My understanding that that isn't quite correct either. One has to remain at or below 400 feet above terrain or structure within 400 feet horizontally. Somewhat academic, but it certainly has nothing to do with the launch point location or altitude...

The Flying Tigers flew P-40's in China. The chin inlet made it really work.

You could download any number of decibel meter apps and compare sound levels. They may not be accurate in an absolute sense, but for comparisons or trend analysis should be more than adequate. Make sure the surroundings, distance and background sound levels remain constant.

Be careful what you wish for! A driver license is a document that the states issue that give you the privilege of operating a car on public streets and highways. You have this access at the pleasure of the state. Contrary to the common "pilot's license", there is no license for access to the air...

Lithium batteries have made inroads to spacecraft usage. As for most low Earth orbits the batteries are cycled every hour and a half to two hours, the cycle life is of critical importance. The charge rates, discharge rates, high and low voltage levels are very carefully managed during design and...

Yes indeed, as it is with most administrative law. Very few are contested on the basis of lawfulness, one does not have the presumption of innocence, and the cost of fighting is much more than the cost of capitulation.

I didn't say that the FAA wouldn't press charges, I said what the lawyers would likely argue, and it could be interesting. As far as I know, no case like this has been litigated.

Interesting case with the roofer using a drone to inspect their work. I would assume that if questioned, the use of the drone would be claimed to be "incidental". They are not selling images (I assume). The drone use was to ensure that the work, unrelated to the drone was completed correctly...

Looks like C to me. Take a look at the map legend. The first thing I see is the blue radials and arcs around (2). The blue 100/65 indicates that the top and bottom of the class bravo* airspace is 10kft and 6.5kft MSL respectively for that enclosed area. The wide magenta line to the west of (2)...

Either set the homepoint to the AC position when over the landing location (make sure the camera is at 90°) or in the MC settings menu, advanced settings set the RC signal lost to land. Probably want to turn off the landing protection in the advanced vision settings in thevisual nav settings...

Very nice Tom! Quite the remodel project. The greens came through very nicely and the music accompaniment was appropriate (lovely rural area). Generally the cuts are kept short and flight transitions are left out. I agree that the video editing is the hardest part of the whole endeavor! A very...

For rural areas there is no altitude restriction for manned aircraft (sparsely populated areas). See FAA FAR part 91.119 Minimum Safe Altitudes. (c) reads "Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those...

Battery life is a function of number of cycles, depth of cycle, operating temperature, storage temperature, and calendar time. Spacecraft designers and operators that apply the lithium chemistries, especially those that operate in low orbits which cycle every 90 minutes or so, 24/7 severely...

True, the propeller is local; at 200Hz (6,000 rpm w/two blades) the wave length is about five feet. The diameter of the propeller disk is then about 1/8 of the generated wave length. All good. But what about the phase angle of the noise? If one is in line with the rotation (hovering directly...

Not even that good. Old R/C were not ATTI mode for any of the three axes, and worse that that, they are all different from each other. The closest to ATTI would be yaw (rudder); control applied relatively constant angle to the course. Pitch (elevator) was closest to the rudder in that elevator...