No Fly Zone but in Class G

[James W]

So once again, I have attempted to legally fly my $2800 paper weight (Mavic 2 Pro) and have been unable to. I checked everything, no updates, on a beautiful day. DJI go 4 reports no zones close by, B4UFly reports good to fly, and Kittyhawk reports good to fly.

I began at 4:05 pm but DJI would not take off in NFZ. Says to apply for custom unlock. I rechecked everything, and rebooted both drone and controllers multiple times. Tried flying from Kittyhawk, did not work. Tried to apply for LAANC, but because in a Class G, I couldn’t. I went through the horribly custom unlock procedure, but it returned an unknown error.
After several minutes I went to email support and noticed DJI had sent me emails stating that my custom unlock was rejected because NOT in NFZ! No kidding?
At this point I decided to repeat the power cycle procedure again and again. Finally at 4:41pm, it reports the proper status in DJI Go4. It says ready to fly.

The sun had set at 4:40.

I was grounded.

I emailed all of this to flysafe support. They want screenshots. And for me to uncheck and check things in the app.

I just want them to fix their garbage app.

 

[sar104]

Location?

 

[James W]

Location?

N33.48495820596638
W86.67463018864662

 

[sar104]

N33.48495820596638
W86.67463018864662

Yes - I don't see any restrictions there. Was the aircraft reporting its location correctly?

 

[James W]

Yes - I don't see any restrictions there. Was the aircraft reporting its location correctly?

Yes it was reporting home exactly where I was, with nothing around it. I have a smart controller and my stock controller. Both reported the location and 12+ satellites. And two other apps on the controller did as well.

My problem is that I keep running into this situation. The app misreports or interprets incorrectly. I can’t fly. I have to troubleshoot after the fact with DJI. And they are so unhelpful. If they wanted to help, they would give a licensed pilot the ability to turn off the zone restriction manually.

In my home state I have had this happened so much even in locations where I have a custom unlock in place for class D. It is just buggy. I will move indoors and the moment I lose a gps it will say I am in a NFZ. How could I be? The entire building is inside the DJI unlocked zone. How does moving indoors make it all of a sudden a NFZ? I take a step towards a window, and the gps picks up a sat or two and bam, I can fly. I walk more inside and I am grounded again.

 

[sar104]

Yes it was reporting home exactly where I was, with nothing around it. I have a smart controller and my stock controller. Both reported the location and 12+ satellites. And two other apps on the controller did as well.

My problem is that I keep running into this situation. The app misreports or interprets incorrectly. I can’t fly. I have to troubleshoot after the fact with DJI. And they are so unhelpful. If they wanted to help, they would give a licensed pilot the ability to turn off the zone restriction manually.

In my home state I have had this happened so much even in locations where I have a custom unlock in place for class D. It is just buggy. I will move indoors and the moment I lose a gps it will say I am in a NFZ. How could I be? The entire building is inside the DJI unlocked zone. How does moving indoors make it all of a sudden a NFZ? I take a step towards a window, and the gps picks up a sat or two and bam, I can fly. I walk more inside and I am grounded again.

This is definitely not typical. I've never encountered spurious restricted zones, and I've seen few, if any, reports of that problem on these forums. If you want to try to troubleshoot this further then I'd suggest retrieving the mobile device DAT file(s) for flights where this happened.

 

[DanMan32]

If it weren't for it saying to apply for unlock, I would have thought the no takeoff due to another reason than NFZ, such as IMU not ready, no GPS and problem with VPS, etc.

 

[TJXdroneography]

Hang in there, the new Autel looks to be an absolute Mavic killer ... and no weird NFZs!

 

[sar104]

Hang in there, the new Autel looks to be an absolute Mavic killer ... and no weird NFZs!

If it has the specifications that are circulating then it's very impressive. However, it's hard to imagine how it can achieve Mavic-level prices with any of those gimbal options.

 

[Keule]

If it has the specifications that are circulating then it's very impressive

Have you seen the User's Manual of the EVO2?

 

[TJXdroneography]

If it has the specifications that are circulating then it's very impressive. However, it's hard to imagine how it can achieve Mavic-level prices with any of those gimbal options.

Yah my thoughts too... though on the other side, perhaps DJIs prices are sky high... as the friggin amazing new Skydio 2 is only $999. If Autel wants to be competitive, they’ll have to price it well... but that cam plus no **** non-FAA NFZs sounds amazing. I love my M2P, but between the weird restrictions and swollen batteries...........

 

[sar104]

Have you seen the User's Manual of the EVO2?

Yes, but Autel has a poor track record of producing the products that they announce. I really hope this one happens, because I think it counts as a US product from the perspective of government purchases, and it will be the first such product that does what I need.

 

[sar104]

Yah my thoughts too... though on the other side, perhaps DJIs prices are sky high... as the friggin amazing new Skydio 2 is only $999. If Autel wants to be competitive, they’ll have to price it well... but that cam plus no **** non-FAA NFZs sounds amazing. I love my M2P, but between the weird restrictions and swollen batteries...........

I'm not impressed by the Skydio specs - either performance or camera. DJI aircraft are remarkably inexpensive for what they do - no one else has come close yet. The lack of NFZs is a double-edged sword for the industry. Easier for the pilot in certain situations, but almost certainly going to lead to many more illegal flights, with more bad publicity and more FAA regulation and enforcement instead.

 

[DanMan32]

I'm not impressed by the Skydio specs - either performance or camera. DJI aircraft are remarkably inexpensive for what they do - no one else has come close yet. The lack of NFZs is a double-edged sword for the industry. Easier for the pilot in certain situations, but almost certainly going to lead to many more illegal flights, with more bad publicity and more FAA regulation and enforcement instead.

Exactly. DJI is even trying to track TFRs, which Airmap, Kittyhawk and even FAA facilities map don't seem to show.

 

[TJXdroneography]

Exactly. DJI is even trying to track TFRs, which Airmap, Kittyhawk and even FAA facilities map don't seem to show.

DJI’s NFZs go *far* beyond the FAA’s LAANC requirements. That’s the issue. If they were better coordinated, it would be a different situation.

 

[sar104]

DJI’s NFZs go *far* beyond the FAA’s LAANC requirements. That’s the issue. If they were better coordinated, it would be a different situation.

No - they don't go far beyond. In some places they are more relaxed, and in others, such as runway centerline extensions, they go a bit beyond.

 

[DanMan32]

They had an authorization zone under my house as it is a runway approach path. Facilities map shows it zero ceiling.
Now the authorization zone disappeared. Still exists for the north/south runway.