Recent content by sdold

The way I understand it, since I have the RPIC sUAS certificate I can fly under part 107 for recreation if I want to. I don't believe that anything requires me to fly under some other part.

It's been three years since I've done it, but at the time the test only covered things specific to drones, it didn't test on charts, weather, things you'd know already as a pilot. I needed a current flight review to be eligible to do it this way. UNless things have changed, after taking it you...

Are you sure about the Class G part? I inspect radio towers and some of them poke up into Class E airspace, or are high enough that I might enter Class E only a couple of hundred feet above the top.

I used to do a lot of surveying, and was surprised at how much buildings and steel structures could swing the compass on the transit. Once it was off by about 45 degrees when I was about eight feet from a small concrete block building, so I can imagine problems form nearby rebar and other...

Some non towered airports have their own controlled airspace, so it's good to check the chart or app to be certain.

I guess if they were horizontal circles, they would be continuous. Hard to tell what it is. It may not be dense enough to be smoke. BTW that would be a pretty impressive J3, they Usually only go about 60 mph.

It's probably just someone practicing aerobatics with the smoke turned on. It's not normal to go out and just loops for 45 minutes, but aerobatic pilots are a little different sometimes.

To me they are two different hobbies, so it wasn't a "switch" as much as taking up an additional hobby.

The airport isn't the problem, it's that pilots are flying low in a rural area. Just keep eyes and ears out for them and stay below 400' AGL as Mossiback said. I wouldn't expect someone that far out and that low to be making a radio call.

I think this should be the only factor. In fact I hope DJI paid them to do it because anything that makes the site profitable keeps it around longer for us to use. An ad sent to my registration email address would bother me, but they didn't do that.

You can learn about traffic patterns here: https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/ac_90-66b.pdf The majority of traffic at most small airports is VFR and follows the traffic pattern. And once you know where it is, you can figure that the downwind leg is almost always at...

I think it's the same bands though, isn't it? 2.4 and 5.8 GHz

That looks like it was written for seaplanes.

Just a thought. It's probably better to stay over the part that's already been harvested. You know, in case it auto-lands or something ;-)

Thanks for posting! It's great to see positive stories like this making the news.