Flying up into the fog

neggy · Nov 25, 2018

great, another post by someone completely ignoring "best practices" , ignoring visibility and flying into a cloud.

I know 336 is gone, but I am waiting for the day when the minimum licensing to operate a sUAV is a current Part 61 ticket.

JDawg · Nov 25, 2018

Kind of knew where this one would go the minute I saw the title...

Gecko10 · Nov 25, 2018

Thunderdrones said:
So much for VLOS...

VLOS, VLOS? "We don't need no stinking VLOS"

Rich55 · Nov 26, 2018

Take it for what it’s worth the platinum has a fan I am guessing your drone does to. That fan has an intake that will pull moisture throughout the drone. You may not see the damage immediately but in time it will cause problems. I have been in the electronics field over 45 years. If DJI had hardened the electronics they would be shouting from the rooftop you can fly in high moisture environments. As a photographer I would love ke to get above the fog and make a few videos and take a few pics but even with DJI refresh I am not going to do it. Safe travels.

theDRONEranger · Nov 26, 2018

larryc43230 said:
It was straight over my head. I could barely make it out above me visually, but I could still hear the thing.

Larry

Yup! So much for VLOS!
How close and what class is that airport?

Cymruflyer · Nov 26, 2018

Fog is basically low, low cloud and I can tell you that clouds are sometimes amazingly dense, that is very wet. Over the years, in my open cockpit aircraft, I have skirted through clouds at different altitudes and times of year. Going through a cloud can be anything from nothing much at all to extremely wet, with moisture all over your goggles and coating all leading edges, to suddenly feeling like being flash frozen with ice crystals coating anything it hits as you pop out the other side. So, you may well have had a bunch of tiny water droplets fill up your sensors and that, as well as other suggestions, may have caused your problem.

Nickalo · Nov 26, 2018

neggy said:
great, another post by someone completely ignoring "best practices" , ignoring visibility and flying into a cloud.

I know 336 is gone, but I am waiting for the day when the minimum licensing to operate a sUAV is a current Part 61 ticket.

You are exactly right, one cannot not fly in IFR conditions with a VFR drone, why do they keep breaking the FAR's.

maxv77 · Nov 26, 2018

Yeah that would be the sensors. Same thing happened to me with my mvic Pro not long ago. It didn't want to come down

Jotne · Nov 26, 2018

I was doing the same, just some days ago. There was some fog and I though about creating a time laps of the fog. All went fine until I did try to go down. In the middle of the fog, I got "landing". Since I did not have much battery left I did get some panic. But did a after some second remember the sensor. Used som time to find it and turn it off. Lesson learned. know where the setting are.

Here is the result video:

Planter · Nov 26, 2018

The FAA requires the ceiling for uavs to be 500' Below Clouds,
2,000' horizontally from the Cloud.
Meaning you can't legally fly in FOG. Plus you're supposed to
be able to see the uav...VLOS. Try reading the REGS.
Sometimes I think my 107 was an exercise in futility.
Can the moderator start a new site..."Hey Ya'll Watch This"!

Jotne · Nov 27, 2018

@Planter
You assume that all lives in USA and are under FAA regulation. This is not the case.
I do not say that its legal here, but all country are not equal.

The fog may also come after you get up in the air, and it takes time to get the drone down..

putz · Nov 27, 2018

Planter said:
The FAA requires the ceiling for uavs to be 500' Below Clouds,
2,000' horizontally from the Cloud.
Meaning you can't legally fly in FOG. Plus you're supposed to
be able to see the uav...VLOS. Try reading the REGS.
Sometimes I think my 107 was an exercise in futility.
Can the moderator start a new site..."Hey Ya'll Watch This"!

I would name it... "Hold my beer, I wanna try something."

ScubaBob · Dec 1, 2018

larryc43230 said:
It was straight over my head. I could barely make it out above me visually, but I could still hear the thing.

Larry

Ah. A new standard: ALOH (Audible Line of Hearing).

Inspirephil · Dec 1, 2018

According to the regulations that we are not supposed to be close to clouds I wouldn’t be flying in fog at all. Good way to lose your drone and quite possibly get a healthy fine from the FAA if you were sighted doing such a maneuver. 500 feet below clouds and 2,000 feet horizontally from clouds. Bad idea if you ask me!!
Not trying to be the drone police, just saying that I would be very careful with such a thing.

skiptv · Dec 1, 2018

It’s illegal to fly the drone when you can’t see it. It’s illegal to fly when visibility is less than 3 miles. It’s illegal to fly basically within 500 feet of clouds. It’s illegal to fly as close as you claim you are to your airport without notifying the tower if it’s a recreation flight or getting a LAANC waiver. It’s just plain dumb to put electronics in water, fog by its nature is 100% saturation of air by water. Planes can fly in fog if they are flying IFR. So being close to an airport a plane flying IFR could have easily hit this drone and the drone pilot on the ground wouldn’t have had a clue cause he was clueless as to where the drone was. This is why government and local communities are trying to regulate us out of existence.

f2000ez · Dec 1, 2018

So much for keeping LOS (Line of Sight) on your drone...........No wonder we keep getting more restrictions placed on us. People just don't want to follow the rules.

Enough said.

ATPhoto · Dec 1, 2018

Larry I have flown in and out of fog dozens of times and the resulting pictures can be spectacular....so you have to decide if its worth the risk, they can certainly be unique compared to the usual images we are seeing more and more from drones. Most of mine are out in rural areas with little risk involved and more often than not I am flying from a clear patch up high enough to then look out over the blanket of fog. Quite often when I land the drone it will be dripping though I haven't had any concerns at all with the moisture. Once I had the same issues you started this thread with that quickly went away. See attached image for the rewards.

Nosebump · Dec 2, 2018

One thing to consider. Fog is "visible moisture", and that moisture will be cycling through your sensitive electronics, which I imagine can't do circuit boards any good. -Same thing with the optics. If you get that moisture forming on the other side of the glass...

I've flown a plane through fog and clouds, and invariably moisture will form on the canopy or windscreen. With that knowledge, flying my drone through the same stuff would bother me. -Wouldn't want anything to fail, or moisture to enter a battery.

-Just my thoughts.

marcosvc · Dec 3, 2018

Some advices to fly with fog. Never close to airports. Use Silica gel after the flight to avoid humidity. Have very good knowledge of the place your are about to fly, and make a plan of where to go and how to come back. Go up vertically, and only fly horizontally if you get above the fog following your plan, otherwise go down again , as you did.
I made one fly in a special day in my town. The fog there happens once in about 5 years. It was a unique opportunity. There are no airports around, the town was closed for helicopters, because of the fog. I had Brazilian Air Space Control authorization to make that fly. I followed the gardens and channels to fly over them, guided by the map.
Maybe its not the safer way to fly, but i think I did some precautions to prevent possible risks.

larryc43230 · Dec 3, 2018

marcosvc said:
Some advices to fly with fog. Never close to airports. Use Silica gel after the flight to avoid humidity. Have very good knowledge of the place your are about to fly, and make a plan of where to go and how to come back. Go up vertically, and only fly horizontally if you get above the fog following your plan, otherwise go down again , as you did.
I made one fly in a special day in my town. The fog there happens once in about 5 years. It was a unique opportunity. There are no airports around, the town was closed for helicopters, because of the fog. I had Brazilian Air Space Control authorization to make that fly. I followed the gardens and channels to fly over them, guided by the map.
Maybe its not the safer way to fly, but i think I did some precautions to prevent possible risks.

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