Police showed up my house within 15 minutes of flight today

[jagraphics]

So you cannot fly your drone with your back to a wall in the US? Or near buildings? Or near a forest? Interesting.

define "near" in the UK it's 150 feet.

And I hope you get windows soon.

It's not so much the windows as the glass to go in them....
(I am sure we can keep this going to absurdity )

 

[BigAl07]

So you cannot fly your drone with your back to a wall in the US? Or near buildings? Or near a forest? Interesting. How do you guarantee 360° situational awareness in an urban environment?

And I hope you get windows soon.

If a building is blocking your view of the aircraft you reposition your location or you fly from a different location so that you have AS MUSH unobstructed view as possible. Let's not drag this thread down into the ditches splitting hairs like this.

 

[old man mavic]

So you cannot fly your drone with your back to a wall in the US? Or near buildings? Or near a forest? Interesting.

And I hope you get windows soon.

you are just being silly with that post, you know as well as i do ,that VLOS means just that ,even if your post was meant to be funny

 

[Unknown Pilot]

define "near" in the UK it's 150 feet.

So you have to be 150m away from your house when you fly in the UK? I fly in my backyard when I'm there all the time.

It's not so much the windows as the glass to go in them....
(I am sure we can keep this going to absurdity )

TBH I was thinking of the large sliding glass door that I open when I want to fly but don't feel like baking in the sun.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

you are just being silly with that post, you know as well as i do ,that VLOS means just that ,even if your post was meant to be funny

Fair enough. I honestly believe the notion that you cannot fly while under cover absurd but I'll leave it at that.

 

[jagraphics]

And in the US flying from inside isn't going to meet the VLOS in order to See & Avoid for the FAA. Situational Awareness is of paramount importance to help ensure the safety of the NAS. Looking out a window gives tunnel vision and removes (or greatly diminishes) any opportunity to HEAR & Avoid manned aircraft.

Situational Awareness thats the word! There is no way you can get situational awareness from inside a building or just looking at the screen.

I know they allegedly operate millitary drones from a bunker but those drones are very different and have a full suite of avionics (inc cloud and clunk radar) like any full size aircraft. And still they loose the odd one or two.

 

[Thomas B]

So you cannot fly your drone with your back to a wall in the US? Or near buildings? Or near a forest? Interesting. How do you guarantee 360° situational awareness in an urban environment?
....

- you can of course, but only in the direction to maintain VLOS
- as close as you desire with VLOS and conforming to FAA guidelines
-same as buildings, ... with forests where flying is legal (not wilderness)
-VLOS and attention to the air traffic around you, sight and sound.

 

[jagraphics]

So you have to be 150m away from your house when you fly in the UK? I fly in my backyard when I'm there all the time.

Best you read this then

https://dronesafe.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Drone-Code_October2019.pdf

 

[Unknown Pilot]

- you can of course, but only in the direction to maintain VLOS
- as close as you desire with VLOS and conforming to FAA guidelines
-same as buildings, ... with forests where flying is legal (not wilderness)
-VLOS and attention to the air traffic around you, sight and sound.

Thank you. That seems to coincide with the FAA DroneZone website that I am familiar with.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

Best you read this then

https://dronesafe.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Drone-Code_October2019.pdf

Thanks - it used to be that you couldn't fly within a certain distance from a piece of property not under your control. So you could for example fly over your own house. Has that since changed?

 

[old man mavic]

under the new drone code there is a 150ft exclusion zone from people or property,so in the case of your own property if the boundary is larger than 150ft from people and properties in the place where you live then you would need to go straight up to 150ft over your property to conform , you can of course inform your neighbors that you intend to fly from your property if it is close to theirs and then take off and obey the drone code, the 150m distance you mentioned is from gatherings of large nos of people ,and towns and cities etc and the fact that the maximum height we can fly is 120m then that pretty much makes it impossible to fly over built up ares

 

[Deleted member 93449]

Counter terrorism task force showed up at my house about 15 minutes of flight. There was a parade starting in 2 hours and that is why they showed up.

I wasn't flying over my house and there is no way they could have known it was from my house. They came right to my house and even in my yard. I was at a window in my house at the time. There is no way they could have known which of the many houses with close back yards that the drone could have come from.

How did they know so quickly? Is this because they can log into DJI software and know my fly home address?

Hi Edward, thanks for sharing your experience. I'm in a suburb of NYC and away from the major NYC airports. This is the first I've heard about a drone flyer be tracked down to their house so your experience is informative, especially for those flying in and in close proximity to the City. I'm wondering if NYPD has permanent systems set up in various important locations in the city or they move portable units to locations where some special activity is going on since this happened before a special activity (parade) it could have been either. They may have seen you fly in the past but given nothing special was occurring in the area they didn't send anyone to investigate.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Thanks - it used to be that you couldn't fly within a certain distance from a piece of property not under your control. So you could for example fly over your own house. Has that since changed?

If you live on your own with no other properties nearby then yes, you could take off and fly over your own house. I certainly can't as there's other houses next to mine.

 

[PropSpin]

You guys do know that when you fly a DJI drone you are constantly being recorded and your information is easily known to law enforcement in your area in REAL TIME.

Usually they do not care or it is not worth their time because they probably know if they cracked down on this all the time then most people would not buy DJI drones or probably any of the name brands which allow the police to have real time access to your drone flying.

This is so surprising to me that they have access to this information and that dJI even makes a device to give them full access to all your flying information in real time.

15 minutes from take off two officers were at my door, and one was in my backyard looking for me. They knew exactly where I lived because they had my return to home location. I was rarely over my house and there is no possibly way they could have pin pointed it to my house.

This is such an invasion of privacy here.

I just hope you guys know what you will are dealing with here, especially if you didn't know they had real time easy access to all your flying. They probably know every time I flew in my area, they can probably easily look back at all my flying history and flight paths.

You're not constantly being recorded - unless LE have aeroscopes out looking for drones in your area. Also, don't you have to have remote ID turned on in the app? It was off by default in mine.

 

[sar104]

You're not constantly being recorded - unless LE have aeroscopes out looking for drones in your area. Also, don't you have to have remote ID turned on in the app? It was off by default in mine.

Aeroscope doesn't require remote ID - it simply intercepts the control link.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Aeroscope doesn't require remote ID - it simply intercepts the control link.

...and it only works with DJI drones, according to the marketing materials.
It cannot detect drones of any other brand.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

...and it only works with DJI drones, according to the marketing materials.
It cannot detect drones of any other brand.

Good old DJI. Selling the problem and the solution.

 

[BigAl07]

...and it only works with DJI drones, according to the marketing materials.
It cannot detect drones of any other brand.

But it CAN detect others already but with a few minor tweaks it can dissect the data from them. As of now your comment is still correct. I suspect that won't be so in the very near future. DJI just went the "Easy Route" to provide proof of concept.

 

[Edward500]

Hi Edward, thanks for sharing your experience. I'm in a suburb of NYC and away from the major NYC airports. This is the first I've heard about a drone flyer be tracked down to their house so your experience is informative, especially for those flying in and in close proximity to the City. I'm wondering if NYPD has permanent systems set up in various important locations in the city or they move portable units to locations where some special activity is going on since this happened before a special activity (parade) it could have been either. They may have seen you fly in the past but given nothing special was occurring in the area they didn't send anyone to investigate.

You have to assume that there is Aeroscope all over a big city like NYC.

It seems their aeroscope receivers can work up to 50 km or 31 miles, easy able to cover the whole of NYC. NYC is not that large so they can easily have an aeroscope in every borough of the city and easily cover the whole city with a few of these devices.

So yes you are being recorded with every flight. If you do anything where they would consider it a terrorist act, like flying during an event, or even possibly near a government building or even a school. You will be easily traced and the counter terrorism task force will be at your door in 15 minutes and running in your yard. This is exactly what happened to me.

Aeroscope - DJI

DJI AeroScope is able to identify the vast majority of popular drones on the market today by monitoring and analyzing their electronic signals to gain critical information, allowing users to protect the integrity of their flight-sensitive environment.

www.dji.com

Under ideal conditions, the system can monitor a range of up to 50 km and obtain key information from drones in as fast as 2 seconds.

 

[jagraphics]

You have to assume that there is Aeroscope all over a big city like NYC.
It seems their aeroscope receivers can work up to 50 km or 31 miles, easy able to cover the whole of NYC. NYC is not that large so they can easily have an aeroscope in every borough of the city and easily cover the whole city with a few of these devices.

In dense high rise urban areas I doubt it can cover anything like 31 miles. It might be able to do 31 miles in the middle of Navada but not in a city. However if it only needs visability of your drone for 2 seconds you only need to cross an open area like a road or go over a building and you are caught but it will be random.