Obeying the FAA but still hitting the 500m limit

[GrettirTheStrong]

I want to fly up a mountain. Head 234degN from a 487mASL launch. 120m above a 1200m ground waypoint is 833m above and 642m horizontally is still LOS from home, so there shouldn't be a transmitter issue. It should take me a little under 5 minutes at 3 m/s climb. (Yes, I know I can do 5 m/s in sport mode, but I want to leave all the CA operating.) I have looked at the geometry, and if I stay within 40m of the face of the mountain, I will always be less than or equal to 120mAGL.

All this is, I believe, a fully legal flight under FAA guidelines. But I can't do it because of the 500m flight height, right? So... is my flight in fact legal, and if so am I legally allowed to disable to 500m flight height? Every other thread I've seen on this topic has been someone wanting to violate the FAA requirements. I'm not asking that. I'm trying to live within the requirements, but get a more awesome flight. Thanks.


(This is the route.)

 

[ac0j]

If you erase that red line and all those yellow tacks, wouldn't that be the picture you want to take?

 

[black_magic100]

I want to fly up a mountain. Head 234degN from a 487mASL launch. 120m above a 1200m ground waypoint is 833m above and 642m horizontally is still LOS from home, so there shouldn't be a transmitter issue. It should take me a little under 5 minutes at 3 m/s climb. (Yes, I know I can do 5 m/s in sport mode, but I want to leave all the CA operating.) I have looked at the geometry, and if I stay within 40m of the face of the mountain, I will always be less than or equal to 120mAGL.

All this is, I believe, a fully legal flight under FAA guidelines. But I can't do it because of the 500m flight height, right? So... is my flight in fact legal, and if so am I legally allowed to disable to 500m flight height? Every other thread I've seen on this topic has been someone wanting to violate the FAA requirements. I'm not asking that. I'm trying to live within the requirements, but get a more awesome flight. Thanks.

View attachment 38170
(This is the route.)

As long as you never go over 400 ft AGL it is legal. Also need to make sure it is LOS. It seems like you satisfy both of those though.

 

[lisadoc]

All this is, I believe, a fully legal flight under FAA guidelines. But I can't do it because of the 500m flight height, right? So... is my flight in fact legal, and if so am I legally allowed to disable to 500m flight height?

Of course you're able to disable the 500 m flight height restriction. That is merely a DJI implemented self-restriction and was never related to any law or regulation. It was only something designated by DJI in their software/firmware. There's nothing legal or illegal about it.

Granted, you'll need to modify your parameters and have .800 FW or below in order to do it (or mixed modules), but there is nothing intrinsically improper about disabling it. This very situation is one of the prime reasons I have modded FW on all my craft. Flying legally, but still with handcuffs on, is not what I require/desire.

 

[GrettirTheStrong]

Of course you're able to disable the 500 m flight height restriction. That is merely a DJI implemented self-restriction and was never related to any law or regulation. It was only something designated by DJI in their software/firmware. There's nothing legal or illegal about it.

Granted, you'll need to modify your parameters and have .800 FW or below in order to do it (or mixed modules), but there is nothing intrinsically improper about disabling it. This very situation is one of the prime reasons I have modded FW on all my craft. Flying legally, but still with handcuffs on, is not what I require/desire.

All this worked like a charm- I rolled back to FW 3.700, updated my height parameters to 10000, rolled forward to the special 4.300, verified that the parameters were still set to 10000, and flew today. But I must be missing some critical element of doing this right. I run DJI Go on an iPhone connected to my transmitter, and DJI Go still wants to set a max flight altitude of 20-500m, and indeed would not allow me to go higher than 500m. Do I need to use a special version of DJI Go, or something other than DJI Go?