Flying over towns and cities?

domination · Mar 23, 2017

Strafe1 said:
Not absolutely illegal in the US, but it's hard to find conditions that are safe enough to do it.

allen deckard · Mar 23, 2017

Just curious but what does price have to do with grade?

domination · Mar 23, 2017

Generally, the higher the price, the better the grade. At least, that is how it usually works out to be. For instance, as you watch the video - it begs to question the ability to do something so - dare I say, capricious. Though, it may be contrived. I can't dispute the validity of it?

harfordhawk · Mar 25, 2017

frankiez said:
There is a YouTube video of the mavic that some guy posted where he subjected his mavic to all different abuse. He threw things at it, he put a prop on loosely so it came off in flight, he hung a 16 oz water bottle from one Arm, etc.

Very interesting to see.

yep, there are many many videos of mavic hitting trees and righting itself and landing safely. but ofcourse it all depends.

Flying Irish · Mar 25, 2017

aesculus said:
Easy, Big Guy; don't bust a gut. The price tag of a drone doesn't qualify or disqualify it from being "pro". Even a "$10k and up" drone has not the redundancy of a manned aircraft and can come spiraling out of the sky like a wounded duck.

The Mavic is absolutely not toy-grade. I have toy-grade drones. There is obviously a huge difference. That said, they are all toys to some degree or another. Some are just a lot more sophisticated. But if you treat the Mavic like a toy, such as flying it without regard to the safety of others, then nobody will call it a toy. They'll call it a dangerous machine that should be heavily regulated.

I wouldn't consider any bird equipped with GPS, RTH, and distance sensors as toy grade. Pretty serious jack for a toy.

BorisTheSpider · Mar 25, 2017

Flying Irish said:
I wouldn't consider any bird equipped with GPS, RTH, and distance sensors as toy grade. Pretty serious jack for a toy.

I've read stories on here about all 3 of those systems causing Mavics to either crash, fly away or nearly do one of the two because it did something unexpected or weird as a result of those systems.

Hexagon · Mar 25, 2017

I prefer to do long distance flights above 500 meters either on areas where its is quite hard to spot a house or above the sea. I am always tempted to try flying in congested areas but at the end of the day I prefer not to. If something goes wrong, and that is a possibility, I have to weight my chances and there are two scenarios:

if I fly over a city, then it might be easier to recover since the drone might be found on a road, in a rooftop, on a tree, on a pavement, on a neighborhood etc etc.
If I fly over sea then case closed since I have to be Jacque Cousteau in order to recover it from 2-3km away and 80 meters of depth...

IMHO I would prefer the second scenario since I would not care hitting someone walking down the road, a car, a bike, some child playing on a neighborhood despite the fact that I will never recover my investment...

To be honest with you it is hard for me to obey the law since in my country every flight above 50m in height or range is currently prohibited. We are waiting for the Hellenic Aviation Authority to give us the opportunity to register on line via web, as well as send flight plan before each flight in order to be approved, via app... No such infrastructure is ready yet so we fly illegally most of the times... I would not press my luck even more by flying over Athens...but that is just me...

grizzard · Mar 25, 2017

Just remember ... you are liable whether you drive a car and paste someone while Texting and you are liable flying your Experimental aircraft and don't make it back to the landing strip, and are liable when you fly your Cessna or Piper over a city and the engine conks out, you are liable when shoot you pellet gun and smack a neighbor in the back of the head, and you are liable when you fly your drone irresponsibly and crash land it in the city park playground. Don't forget that you might get shot down when you're pushing your luck (The Drone Killer Case is not settled yet). Just use common sense and most likely you won't have a brush with the law.

jmhilljr · Mar 25, 2017

Which presents a big liability that most drone pilots aren't equipped to assume.

WIMMPYIII · Mar 25, 2017

To say a $10,000 drone is less likely to cause harm is a crowded city is silly. Id like to see the odds and stats on the that.

MangyCheshire · Mar 25, 2017

I haven't seen this level of sanctimonious appeal to authority since the one and only time I let someone drag me to a Star Trek Convention. Seriously, just whip them out and compare them already. Cupcake. Sweetheart. I'm going to assume there's a community buried under all the drone policing and back and forth over laws that aren't even solidified in the US for hobbyists. I was having a pretty good afternoon reading my news and mail until I decided "Hey. Let's check on the Mavic Forums." Toxic enough to kill a Bull Elephant.

underandover · Mar 25, 2017

I just wanted to add to this topic.

So how about if your'e flying in a 'safe' area and your uav becomes unresponsive as mentioned in certain posts. It then decides to fly towards and maybe over built up areas / people.

There are also numerous documentaries where use of a uav is obvious and flying over people / buildings etc. I'm guessing the pilots are certified but how does certification allow flying in these normally illegal areas.
Okay the uav maybe more of a commercially built machine than a mavic but still able to drop out of the sky, reference to uav crashing and just missing a skier.

Just wouldn't mind a bit of clarity without knee jerk reactions or comments.

upthedowns · Mar 25, 2017

Yoshizakura said:
Personally I'd like to know more about the why's and wherefore's of the UK as the OP probably does. The guideline for uk mentions 50mtrs away from any people or properties (next to or above) but then the rule changes to 150mtrs (but not above) from "crowds and built up areas"
Now, what is "properties" and what is "built up areas"?

The Air Navigation Order defines a congested area as being 'any area of a city, town or settlement which is substantially used for residential, industrial, commercial or recreational purposes'. On our training course we were given a simple example ... three houses and a road. Crowds are defined as an organised assembly of >1000 people.

Yoshizakura · Mar 25, 2017

upthedowns said:
The Air Navigation Order defines a congested area as being 'any area of a city, town or settlement which is substantially used for residential, industrial, commercial or recreational purposes'. On our training course we were given a simple example ... three houses and a road. Crowds are defined as an organised assembly of >1000 people.

Thanks for the reply. I take it from this that quite a lot of the drone clips I see on YouTube are breaking this order

BorisTheSpider · Mar 25, 2017

underandover said:
I just wanted to add to this topic.

So how about if your'e flying in a 'safe' area and your uav becomes unresponsive as mentioned in certain posts. It then decides to fly towards and maybe over built up areas / people.

There are also numerous documentaries where use of a uav is obvious and flying over people / buildings etc. I'm guessing the pilots are certified but how does certification allow flying in these normally illegal areas.
Okay the uav maybe more of a commercially built machine than a mavic but still able to drop out of the sky, reference to uav crashing and just missing a skier.

Just wouldn't mind a bit of clarity without knee jerk reactions or comments.

Yeah if that happens you're ******. However it's a bit like saying "what if I'm driving my car safely and then it does something crazy and mows down a pedestrian without me being able to control it?" - in either case you didn't do anything irresponsible, but good luck proving that when it's you against GM, Volkswagen or DJI in court.

Realistically you can't worry too much about that stuff if you're to live at all, and the car analogy should be illustrative - you're dealing with a good deal less mass and risk to people with a mavic than in your car, and what we're discussing is a very remote possibility. Fly safe and you are unlikely to be the one making new case law.

normr · Mar 25, 2017

BorisTheSpider said:
No I don't fly only in the desert, I'm just not dumb enough to fly toy-grade consumer electronics with absolutely zero redundancy or certification over concentrations of people and property.

Even the commercial grade drones crash, like the one that crashed behind the downhill skier awhile back

raymo · Mar 25, 2017

underandover said:
I just wanted to add to this topic.

So how about if your'e flying in a 'safe' area and your uav becomes unresponsive as mentioned in certain posts. It then decides to fly towards and maybe over built up areas / people.

There are also numerous documentaries where use of a uav is obvious and flying over people / buildings etc. I'm guessing the pilots are certified but how does certification allow flying in these normally illegal areas.
Okay the uav maybe more of a commercially built machine than a mavic but still able to drop out of the sky, reference to uav crashing and just missing a skier.

Just wouldn't mind a bit of clarity without knee jerk reactions or comments.

BTW, many of those "professional" videographers use DJI products. They just work. I've seen many documentaries where they have used custom build units that wound up crashing, and they just go get an Inspire or a Phantom, and keep on going. It's like GoPro Heroes everywhere. They just work and in the hands of an experienced flyer, they do really well. It's called practice, practice and more practice.

BorisTheSpider · Mar 25, 2017

normr said:
Even the commercial grade drones crash, like the one that crashed behind the downhill skier awhile back

Yeah that's what I mean - as far as I'm aware none of them are airworthy in the way an aeroplane or helicopter are airworthy, so none of them are yet fit for flying over towns or groups of people. I stand ready to be corrected if there are expensive, professional hexa/octo-copters that are truly resilient to failures and legal to fly over those areas, but I haven't heard of them.

Hopefully technology will continue to get cheaper and more capable and in a few years we can fly over those areas.

Member · Mar 25, 2017

I can see that this thread has triggered the best of you and understandably so. Flying drones over people, politicians, animals especially insects, the props destroying nature's creatures is unacceptable behavior and should bear the capital punishment. The OP's video is appalling particularly because the quadcopter could have fallen on dozens of pregnant women, children or even a windshield of a transport vehicle carrying live bunnies. You must agree with me that such an event would have been horrific.

It is very important that we consistently bully every poster who posts aerial footage which shows below the aircraft anything that breathes or crawls. This is a straightforward method of preventing a ban on recreational drone use when (not if) the first terror attack happens using a quad. Or when X% of the millions of people yet to try a drone for the first time do it in the wrong place. Giving lectures to people online about strict boring use of drones is paramount to safety. Do this and pat yourself on the back for having done something good today. Well done, sirs.

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Seriously though... My suggestion to the problem: accept that people are going to fly over stuff that is interesting to them and try to focus on educating them how to do reduce the risk as much as possible, what to avoid (other than a blanket 'everything'). Giving pilots crap is ridiculous and pointless, for every pilot you get offended about there's a hundred videos out there doing 10x more stupid and dangerous things.

m0j0 · Mar 25, 2017

I'm very much a statistics guy. So let's calculate the current numbers related to this argument. Also before you respond to my post read it in its entirety please.

Quadcopters have been popular for what 7 years. In those 7 years quadcopters have resulted in countless wrecks.. the careless flights have been documented time and time again on this forum and others like it. Not only that but there have been an incredible amount of videos of reckless behavior posted on social media.. it is simply out of control... all the abhorrent behavior has resulted in ..... wait a minute I need to get my calculator, abacus, super computer, an MIT think tank together to crunch the numbers... wait a minute, wait .....here is the final number...

0 deaths

Hmmm ok just 2016..how many aircraft flights have resulted in death.. just need google for this one...

The safest year in recent history 19 - flights resulting in death... 325 people died.

I'm speaking for myself.. so please keep my commentary in context. I understand why aviation and aircraft capable of carrying people are so heavily regulated.. worldwide.. the reason is there are significant dangers involved with manned airplanes. So you bet your rear there are redundancies in place and rigorous inspection of aircraft and pilot certifications.

Flying a 3 pound copter.. yes it is dangerous. Yes flying over people is also dangerous but kept in context the dangers of an unmanned drone is minuscule in comparison with real planes. So while I agree we have to be cautious and stay away from any possible conflict with manned aircraft... I think the other worries and fears are overblown.. statistically speaking drone related accident resulting in death is non-existent and related to overall flights serious injury is more likely to come from a child running with a pencil then being hit with a "drone" from some rogue pilot.

That said I encourage everyone to adhere to the rules where they are flying.