Drone Prevention System?

cpurick · Feb 28, 2022

A friend (unlicensed) tried to fly his Mini 2 from Marina Del Rey, which is inside the Class D for Santa Monica Muni, and just as close to LAX (though technically under the Class B). He took off from the balcony of a high-rise on the pier. Anyway, as soon as he was airborne he started getting messages that he couldn't fly there, and it auto-landed his drone on the pier where he successfully retrieved it.

I did not see any of this. Presumably this was Geolock stuff from the Fly app? I could see a drone prevention system doing something like this, but I can't see it sending warning messages to the operator. Any idea what happened?

Saladshooter · Feb 28, 2022

cpurick said:
A friend (unlicensed) tried to fly his Mini 2 from Marina Del Rey, which is inside the Class D for Santa Monica Muni, and just as close to LAX (though technically under the Class B). He took off from the balcony of a high-rise on the pier. Anyway, as soon as he was airborne he started getting messages that he couldn't fly there, and it auto-landed his drone on the pier where he successfully retrieved it.

I did not see any of this. Presumably this was Geolock stuff from the Fly app? I could see a drone prevention system doing something like this, but I can't see it sending warning messages to the operator. Any idea what happened?

The DJI app worked as intended..... it was just a little slow to catch up or he was initially just outside the Authorization Zone. Once it figured out he was in restricted airspace it produced a warning and forced a landing.