I recently went to Sanya, Hainan, for a week-long holiday. Whilst it was truly beautiful, it was much less welcoming of drones compared to Dongguan, where I've been staying since I got my Mavic Air 2. It was interesting to see the difference in attitude towards drones within even the same country, albeit a very large one in the case of China.
There were clear signs at the entrance of the most popular attraction (Guanyin of Nanshan) forbidding drones, so I obediently did not even take my bird out of my bag. At Yanoda rainforest park, there were no signs, but a park employee told me to stop flying once I got spotted close to the main attraction there (a glass bridge). The frustrating thing is that both of those attractions use extensive drone footage in their marketing! Whilst I understand and respect the restrictions at the Guanyin of Nanshan (it is a crowded religious site and most airliners approaching Sanya Airport fly around the statue for some traditional reasons), I don't get get why a massive rain-forest park would be so touchy about paying customers taking some drone footage over what is mostly just wild jungle.
The really crazy stuff was in Sanya city itself. Most of the city was controlled airspace of various categories (or no-fly zones near the airport or military bases). I could take off from controlled airspace zones, but I was limited to altitudes of 120m, 90m or 60m depending on category. What made this crazy was that during the day, there were tour helicopters flying around Phoenix Island and along Sanya beach at altitudes much lower than that! How low am I talking about? My hotel room on Phoenix Island was on the 11th floor... helicopters regularly flew lower than my balcony! To add to the craziness, there were also fixed-wing seaplanes which took off and landed close to shore (where there's loads of fishing boats and tourist yachts) and they flew as low as maybe 100m.
I was surprised that I could take off at all in this crazy environment. Yet, aside from meaningless (due to low altitude of helicopters) altitude restrictions, there were no drone restrictions on Sanya Beach. In one afternoon walk of about 2hrs along the beach, I saw three other drone pilots. I carefully flew a little myself with my girlfriend as my spotter. At one point, a helicopter roared along the shoreline so low that I actually flew higher to ensure that it did not hit me. I'm pretty sure that they aren't allowed to fly over land, so I mostly stayed out of the ocean. That was the only time that I flew with any manned aircraft in the vicinity. I was amazed that helicopters and sea planes are seemingly allowed to operate so low and so close to shore, and drones aren't totally banned from the beach to accommodate them.
I tried to fly from two more locations in Sanya city. Namely from my hotel grounds on Phoenix Island and the top of a mountain/hill in Luhuitou Park, which flank the entrance to Sanya Harbour. During the day, the airspace above the harbour is basically helicopter highway, not to mention the constantly stream of boat traffic, so I did not dream to fly there during the day. However, I could take off safely in the early mornings and evenings from both locations.
Luhuitou Park was the first time that I experienced possible jamming. Barely a few hundred meters out and well within line of sight, my signal strength dropped significantly and an “aircraft signal interference” warning popped up on the top left. Having seen videos of Chinese jamming guns that can force drones to land, I took no chances, stayed moving and landed quickly. A while later, I noticed another drone in the air which hovered in the same spot high up for around 15mins. I found its pilot as the drone came in to land. Turns out that she was a new pilot flying the Mini 2, which is why she just shot aerial footage from high up with minimal movement. She said that the only time she experienced signal interference was when she tried to fly in the direction of a nearby military base (Which is a no-fly zone marked on the map). The fact that she hovered for so long without being shot down gave me the confidence to take off again, but signal interference again prevented me from going very far at all. I also experienced what happens when you fly towards the boundary of a no-fly zone. i.e., drone refuses to move forwards anymore, working as intended.
The riskiest experience I had with possible jamming was when I flew from my hotel grounds in the early morning. I experienced unpredictable signal interference even though the harbour was devoid of moving vessels and it was well before the helicopter rides started. At one point, with my drone maybe just 200-300m away, I lost RC connection completely for what felt like ages, but in hindsight, was probably closer to 5 seconds. Just as I started to get seriously worried, my baby reconnected just as it reached its preset RTH altitude.
I didn’t want to push my luck too much and landed promptly after getting most of the Phoenix Island shots that I wanted. Even now, I don’t know whether the signal inference was due to Wi-Fi noise, manned aircraft, active jamming (i.e., somebody aiming at my drone deliberately) or passive jamming (non-directed signal jammer). If I was jammed, I don’t know who did it or from where. In Luhuitou Park, I couldn’t work out any patterns to the interference. On Phoenix Island, I noticed that I was able to get pretty close to my hotel building (one of the five towers) without any issues. I was even able to shoot a squadron of docked coastguard vessels about 100-200m away without much issue (I didn’t actually fly towards them). So, my best guess is the large 25k ton cruise ship docked next to my take off location. I later discovered that this particular ship took tourists on cruises to the contested Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it were equipped with some additional equipment to deal with drones.
My final completely failed attempt to fly was onboard a small cruise ship. Most people went on it for the diving and swimming. I went on the day-cruise hoping to shoot some ocean drone footage whilst the ship was anchored. Unfortunately, the dive site was a complete no-fly zone, presumably due to the proximity of a military base and a large naval vessel not far away.
In summary (tl:dr)... it was frustrating not being able to fly in various locations in and around Sanya. Sometimes it was completely reasonable, other times, it seemed completely arbitrary. It was also bizarre that you are allowed to fly on Sanya Beach, despite the constant low-flying helicopter and sea plane tours. Signal interference was scary, though I still don't know if it was incidental signal disruption, intentional targeted jamming, or passive area of denial jamming. I guess that's what happens when you have a bustling tourist city that also happens to be strategically placed, so home to all sorts of coastguard, naval, radar and other military installations. It's like they want people to have fun (Sanya feels very chaotic compared to the rest of China), but not too much fun. lol
There were clear signs at the entrance of the most popular attraction (Guanyin of Nanshan) forbidding drones, so I obediently did not even take my bird out of my bag. At Yanoda rainforest park, there were no signs, but a park employee told me to stop flying once I got spotted close to the main attraction there (a glass bridge). The frustrating thing is that both of those attractions use extensive drone footage in their marketing! Whilst I understand and respect the restrictions at the Guanyin of Nanshan (it is a crowded religious site and most airliners approaching Sanya Airport fly around the statue for some traditional reasons), I don't get get why a massive rain-forest park would be so touchy about paying customers taking some drone footage over what is mostly just wild jungle.
The really crazy stuff was in Sanya city itself. Most of the city was controlled airspace of various categories (or no-fly zones near the airport or military bases). I could take off from controlled airspace zones, but I was limited to altitudes of 120m, 90m or 60m depending on category. What made this crazy was that during the day, there were tour helicopters flying around Phoenix Island and along Sanya beach at altitudes much lower than that! How low am I talking about? My hotel room on Phoenix Island was on the 11th floor... helicopters regularly flew lower than my balcony! To add to the craziness, there were also fixed-wing seaplanes which took off and landed close to shore (where there's loads of fishing boats and tourist yachts) and they flew as low as maybe 100m.
I was surprised that I could take off at all in this crazy environment. Yet, aside from meaningless (due to low altitude of helicopters) altitude restrictions, there were no drone restrictions on Sanya Beach. In one afternoon walk of about 2hrs along the beach, I saw three other drone pilots. I carefully flew a little myself with my girlfriend as my spotter. At one point, a helicopter roared along the shoreline so low that I actually flew higher to ensure that it did not hit me. I'm pretty sure that they aren't allowed to fly over land, so I mostly stayed out of the ocean. That was the only time that I flew with any manned aircraft in the vicinity. I was amazed that helicopters and sea planes are seemingly allowed to operate so low and so close to shore, and drones aren't totally banned from the beach to accommodate them.
I tried to fly from two more locations in Sanya city. Namely from my hotel grounds on Phoenix Island and the top of a mountain/hill in Luhuitou Park, which flank the entrance to Sanya Harbour. During the day, the airspace above the harbour is basically helicopter highway, not to mention the constantly stream of boat traffic, so I did not dream to fly there during the day. However, I could take off safely in the early mornings and evenings from both locations.
Luhuitou Park was the first time that I experienced possible jamming. Barely a few hundred meters out and well within line of sight, my signal strength dropped significantly and an “aircraft signal interference” warning popped up on the top left. Having seen videos of Chinese jamming guns that can force drones to land, I took no chances, stayed moving and landed quickly. A while later, I noticed another drone in the air which hovered in the same spot high up for around 15mins. I found its pilot as the drone came in to land. Turns out that she was a new pilot flying the Mini 2, which is why she just shot aerial footage from high up with minimal movement. She said that the only time she experienced signal interference was when she tried to fly in the direction of a nearby military base (Which is a no-fly zone marked on the map). The fact that she hovered for so long without being shot down gave me the confidence to take off again, but signal interference again prevented me from going very far at all. I also experienced what happens when you fly towards the boundary of a no-fly zone. i.e., drone refuses to move forwards anymore, working as intended.
The riskiest experience I had with possible jamming was when I flew from my hotel grounds in the early morning. I experienced unpredictable signal interference even though the harbour was devoid of moving vessels and it was well before the helicopter rides started. At one point, with my drone maybe just 200-300m away, I lost RC connection completely for what felt like ages, but in hindsight, was probably closer to 5 seconds. Just as I started to get seriously worried, my baby reconnected just as it reached its preset RTH altitude.
I didn’t want to push my luck too much and landed promptly after getting most of the Phoenix Island shots that I wanted. Even now, I don’t know whether the signal inference was due to Wi-Fi noise, manned aircraft, active jamming (i.e., somebody aiming at my drone deliberately) or passive jamming (non-directed signal jammer). If I was jammed, I don’t know who did it or from where. In Luhuitou Park, I couldn’t work out any patterns to the interference. On Phoenix Island, I noticed that I was able to get pretty close to my hotel building (one of the five towers) without any issues. I was even able to shoot a squadron of docked coastguard vessels about 100-200m away without much issue (I didn’t actually fly towards them). So, my best guess is the large 25k ton cruise ship docked next to my take off location. I later discovered that this particular ship took tourists on cruises to the contested Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it were equipped with some additional equipment to deal with drones.
My final completely failed attempt to fly was onboard a small cruise ship. Most people went on it for the diving and swimming. I went on the day-cruise hoping to shoot some ocean drone footage whilst the ship was anchored. Unfortunately, the dive site was a complete no-fly zone, presumably due to the proximity of a military base and a large naval vessel not far away.
In summary (tl:dr)... it was frustrating not being able to fly in various locations in and around Sanya. Sometimes it was completely reasonable, other times, it seemed completely arbitrary. It was also bizarre that you are allowed to fly on Sanya Beach, despite the constant low-flying helicopter and sea plane tours. Signal interference was scary, though I still don't know if it was incidental signal disruption, intentional targeted jamming, or passive area of denial jamming. I guess that's what happens when you have a bustling tourist city that also happens to be strategically placed, so home to all sorts of coastguard, naval, radar and other military installations. It's like they want people to have fun (Sanya feels very chaotic compared to the rest of China), but not too much fun. lol
