Litchi Can Get Me in Some Serious Trouble

pelagic_one · Apr 26, 2020

Not asking a question this time, but posting myself thinking out loud: I can really get into a lot of trouble with Litchi.

I wouldn’t do this because I have too much to lose (private pilot certificate, security clearance, my job) but Litchi can get me some footage of some of the most beautiful No Fly Zones in the world...

Near me is the famed NFZ around the Golden Gate Bridge, and NFZ Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome is only a few hours away. I could conceivably load a mission into my Mavic 2, have my AC fly itself to these sought-after spots, get awe-inspiring footage with the slow, cinematic turns, and return to homepoint outside the NFZ. Heck, I can even have a sandwich while I’m waiting.

Yes, I am fairly new to Litchi and Dronelink, and the possibilities are mind-boggling. And no, it ain’t gonna happen. At least I won’t be posting a video of an autonomous mission around the Washington Monument or something.

umanbean · Apr 26, 2020

Yes Litchi is amazing. And powerful. And dangerous!

After my first mission I was giddy, and relieved (that it did exactly what I told it to, and came back lol)... and watching the video later i was awestruck.

Living where you do, I can see how you could get in trouble with it

Chip D · Apr 28, 2020

pelagic_one said:
Not asking a question this time, but posting myself thinking out loud: I can really get into a lot of trouble with Litchi.

I wouldn’t do this because I have too much to lose (private pilot certificate, security clearance, my job) but Litchi can get me some footage of some of the most beautiful No Fly Zones in the world...

Near me is the famed NFZ around the Golden Gate Bridge, and NFZ Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome is only a few hours away. I could conceivably load a mission into my Mavic 2, have my AC fly itself to these sought-after spots, get awe-inspiring footage with the slow, cinematic turns, and return to homepoint outside the NFZ. Heck, I can even have a sandwich while I’m waiting.

Yes, I am fairly new to Litchi and Dronelink, and the possibilities are mind-boggling. And no, it ain’t gonna happen. At least I won’t be posting a video of an autonomous mission around the Washington Monument or something.

Well all that sounds great, and it might work - IF we had a drone with say 1-2hours of battery life. By my calculations to get to Yosemite Valley outside the Valley - say maybe El Portal - would be about 15+ miles and that would take you about an hour to get there, and then of course you have to fly back.

For the Bay area, you might be able to launch from the Oakland side and cross the bay, but the same problems exist - we ain't got the battery life.

I'm certainly all about launching outside of say Yosemite, or Zion or Bryce or Arches etc. etc., and then fly in - legally of course - and then back to the launch site. But we just don't have the batt life. We'd need about an hour of batt life at least. Until that time, I guess we'll have to learn to fly paragliders, but then you have to stay at 2000' above a National Park. Oh well.....
Chip D - Omaha, Ne

pelagic_one · Apr 28, 2020

Chip D said:
But we just don't have the batt life.

Okay, maybe my Yosemite Half Dome reference was outlandish, but El Portal sure looked closer on a tiny map. But there are legal places from which to fly on the San Francisco side that would reach the Golden Gate Bridge, but I wonder if Litchi would hover the drone at the NFZ boundary.

I guess my point is that I’m not flying these outlandish missions, but it’s fun thinking them up and actually entering it in Litchi Mission Hub. My imaginary mission around the Eiffel Tower looks remarkable when flown virtually on Google Earth Pro!

And since my imagination is running amuck while staying at home, could you envision some drone friends getting together to fly the exact same Waypoint mission, launching at the same time with the same model drone, but slightly separating each drone’s Litchi mission map and Homepoint by several feet? We’d essentially be flying in formation like the Blue Angels!

Chip D · Apr 28, 2020

Probably 4 + years ago when I had my first Mavic I realized that you couldn't take off and land at the Arch in St. Louis. But you could go over to East St. Louis and launch at the casino and fly across the Mississippi to the arch, so I did it. Now they've included a No Fly Zone to include the East St. Louis side too!! Glad I did it before they marked it off.
But I probably use the Litchi app for 95% of my flights.

pelagic_one · Apr 29, 2020

Chip D said:
Now they've included a No Fly Zone to include the East St. Louis side too!! Glad I did it before they marked it off.
But I probably use the Litchi app for 95% of my flights.

I like the fact that now you’ve got rare footage of the arch that the subsequent guys won’t ever have (legally). I have an old college friend in Belleville who picked up his first-ever Mavic (M2P) last month, and his first complaint was not being able to fly near the Gateway Arch. Kinda restricting for a guy who used to fly Tomcats.

As for using Litchi a lot, I met a friend yesterday to fly over his old high school and surrounding hills. For whatever reason, because I didn’t have a pre-planned Litchi mission, I just was not in the mood to fly. Too funny.

Chip D · Apr 29, 2020

pelagic_one said:
I like the fact that now you’ve got rare footage of the arch that the subsequent guys won’t ever have (legally). I have an old college friend in Belleville who picked up his first-ever Mavic (M2P) last month, and his first complaint was not being able to fly near the Gateway Arch. Kinda restricting for a guy who used to fly Tomcats.

As for using Litchi a lot, I met a friend yesterday to fly over his old high school and surrounding hills. For whatever reason, because I didn’t have a pre-planned Litchi mission, I just was not in the mood to fly. Too funny.

Yes I find that if I can't do it in Litchi, I'm just not interested. But I have done a lot of ad hoc flights using the Litchi app on the phone, draw with my finger the route, and then make some minor corrections and fly. Works neat.

dawgpilot · Apr 29, 2020

pelagic_one said:
Okay, maybe my Yosemite Half Dome reference was outlandish, but El Portal sure looked closer on a tiny map. But there are legal places from which to fly on the San Francisco side that would reach the Golden Gate Bridge, but I wonder if Litchi would hover the drone at the NFZ boundary.

If they are true NFZs (as marked on DJI's FlySafe map), then Litchi still won't let the drone enter them.

ratjr15 · May 2, 2020

dawgpilot said:
If they are true NFZs (as marked on DJI's FlySafe map), then Litchi still won't let the drone enter them.

I don't think this is entirely accurate, though I'm no expert. As I understand it, Litchi relies on DJI's software to lock these areas out, thus if one were to find a way around these "lockouts" through the DJI app, the Litchi app would fly through not knowing the difference...

dawgpilot · May 2, 2020

ratjr15 said:
I don't think this is entirely accurate, though I'm no expert. As I understand it, Litchi relies on DJI's software to lock these areas out, thus if one were to find a way around these "lockouts" through the DJI app, the Litchi app would fly through not knowing the difference...

Maybe I wasn't clear: my point is Litchi won't let you do anything regarding NFZs that DJI's app won't let you do. In fact, you have to use DJI's app to unlock authorization zones before Litchi will let you fly in one.

ChrisOutdoors · May 2, 2020

I was under the impression NFZs were uploaded to the aircaft, negating which app you use.

@brett8883 would know since he made the super patcher to hack the MP and remove NFZs.

brett8883 · May 2, 2020

ChrisOutdoors said:
I was under the impression NFZs were uploaded to the aircaft, negating which app you use.

@brett8883 would know since he made the super patcher to hack the MP and remove NFZs.

There is a flysafe database on the drone that is the main cause of preventing flights in DJI NFZs so for the most part it’s correct that it doesn’t matter which app you use.

However, the app also has a flysafe database which stores NFZs on it. There’s a third flysafe database that gets updated ad hoc any time the DJI app is connected to the internet. This is how they enforce TFRs.

Therefore it is conceivable that in a certain situation where a particular NFZ is not on the drone’s database but is on the app‘s database that Litchi could could allow flight where DJI Go doesn’t. As far as I can tell Litchi relies solely on the Aircraft’s NFZ database and doesn’t have its own similar app based database.

I know iOS and not so much Android but it would be a severe violation of Apple’s policy for one app to access or manipulate the resources of any other app so Litchi can not access the database on DJI Go 4 and DJI Go 4 can’t update anything in Litchi.

If the SDK when connected to the internet updates the ad hoc database on Litchi I am not certain but I haven’t seen evidence of that.

mr.jipi_ · May 4, 2020

brett8883 said:
However, the app also has a flysafe database which stores NFZs on it. There’s a third flysafe database that gets updated ad hoc any time the DJI app is connected to the internet. This is how they enforce TFRs.

Does that mean that DJI won't know about your past flights if you fly only with Litchi ?