Should I buy a Mavic now or wait?

Greg_E said:
Does it still allow you to fly under xx feet if you are that close?
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There are ways to disable the lockout but you are then in violation of FAA regulations. Michael, just drive out of the radius and practice. The one thing I have learned with having a drone is to triple check everywhere I fly and to obey all of the rules. In case you have not seen, both Canada and the UK are now requiring mandatory registration, training and certification. Hopefully it won't come to that here. I did a shoot a few weeks ago in Long Beach that was within the flight path of three airports. It was a PITA but I researched the numbers and called the control towers of all three airports (one was an Army airfield with no listed number, I even had to call California Central Air Command in Sacramento!). Genrally I hate government over-regulation but with drones, I am all for intelligent regulation because there are a lot of dumb people out there doing idiotic things with consumer drones.
 
puredrifting said:
There are ways to disable the lockout but you are then in violation of FAA regulations. Michael, just drive out of the radius and practice. The one thing I have learned with having a drone is to triple check everywhere I fly and to obey all of the rules. In case you have not seen, both Canada and the UK are now requiring mandatory registration, training and certification. Hopefully it won't come to that here. I did a shoot a few weeks ago in Long Beach that was within the flight path of three airports. It was a PITA but I researched the numbers and called the control towers of all three airports (one was an Army airfield with no listed number, I even had to call California Central Air Command in Sacramento!). Genrally I hate government over-regulation but with drones, I am all for intelligent regulation because there are a lot of dumb people out there doing idiotic things with consumer drones.
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Puredrifting are you talking about the lock out mode not allowing you to fly higher than 30 meters and 30 meters wide? The way I understand it, I'm not in violation of FAA regulations if I call the airport controllers and get permission. I have heard stories of guys calling the airport, and the controllers just say go head don't worry about it no need to call us every time. Within the 5 miles radius there are NFZ where DJI has made it impossible to take off, the No fly zones are generally 1.5 miles from the airport. Certified part 107 pilots, must submit in writing to the airport and it may take months to get permission, what the logic there is I have no idea.

So to answer Greg's question the Mavic will start and fly within the 5 miles radius of an airport but it won't start and fly in a NFZ which is 1.5 from the airport.

I'm heading out to the desert tomorrow morning to fly. I screwed around for a half an hour trying to get the Mavic inside my living room to start up, then read a warning I needed to update the app after that it was working. I have an iPad Pro and just ordered a holder for it. I'll know more tomorrow if there is any problems with the app.
 
Don't practice indoors, you'll have no GPS and will almost certainly crash. Yes, you can fly within 5 mile radius but stay within Vlos.
 
Oh good, I'm about 3 miles from an uncontrolled community "airport" (single landing strip) and don't really care if I'm 10 meters or 30 meters restricted. Just want to get the hang of flying mine without having to travel too far from home. Got a big set of fields nearby that I can walk to.

Will the app work if I don't yet have a registered uav? Mine won't arrive until next week and that way I could drive around and see what I could see.
 
Michael Thames said:
...The way I understand it, I'm not in violation of FAA regulations if I call the airport controllers and get permission.
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By the sound of your statement, you have not read and researched much. You do not "get permission", you notify them of your intent to fly within 5 mile radius of an airport. It is the tower controller's discretion to notify you if they forbid you to fly because it would be dangerous. There is a lot of push and pull going on here because like all governmental regulations, they have been implemented in a stupid way.

It would be wise of you to gain an understanding of the differences of class B, C, D and E airspaces.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/fli...ort-your-drone-flight-plant-to-nearby-pilots/
https://www.faa.gov/uas/resources/uas_regulations_policy/#rules
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/
https://www.airmap.com/how-to-submit-digital-flight-notice-airmap-ios/ The digital flight notification, in my experience so far, is close to worthless. Only 805 airports nationally follow it for reporting. So far, on all of my flights, no airports in my area follow it or use it.
https://dronebusiness.center/uas-pilot-talk-tower-11928/
 
puredrifting said:
By the sound of your statement, you have not read and researched much. You do not "get permission", you notify them of your intent to fly within 5 mile radius of an airport. It is the tower controller's discretion to notify you if they forbid you to fly because it would be dangerous. There is a lot of push and pull going on here because like all governmental regulations, they have been implemented in a stupid way.

It would be wise of you to gain an understanding of the differences of class B, C, D and E airspaces.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/fli...ort-your-drone-flight-plant-to-nearby-pilots/
https://www.faa.gov/uas/resources/uas_regulations_policy/#rules
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/
https://www.airmap.com/how-to-submit-digital-flight-notice-airmap-ios/ The digital flight notification, in my experience so far, is close to worthless. Only 805 airports nationally follow it for reporting. So far, on all of my flights, no airports in my area follow it or use it.
https://dronebusiness.center/uas-pilot-talk-tower-11928/
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Ha ha! You simply repeated what I said. I understand that perfectly well. I'm curious how do you propose I contact the small Santa Fe airport, call them, email them?

BTW, took the Navic out to the desert to fly in an area that looks like a Goregia OKeffe painting. I flew up hills and canyons, so far the mavic looked like a spec of dust. Went through 3 batteries and had a freaking blast. I'm happy to report none of the issues of which you spoke were a problem I'm inclined to think the problem is your iPad processor and not the app.
 
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Greg_E said:
Oh good, I'm about 3 miles from an uncontrolled community "airport" (single landing strip) and don't really care if I'm 10 meters or 30 meters restricted. Just want to get the hang of flying mine without having to travel too far from home. Got a big set of fields nearby that I can walk to.

Will the app work if I don't yet have a registered uav? Mine won't arrive until next week and that way I could drive around and see what I could see.
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Yea I wouldn't register it, the app works splendidly. I took mine off of beginners mode in the desert and had no problems. I called DJI to asked them about having to register it, they said no need to do so unless you have a reason to do so.
 
Michael Thames said:
Ha ha! You simply repeated what I said. I understand that perfectly well. I'm curious how do you propose I contact the small Santa Fe airport, call them, email them?

BTW, took the Navic out to the desert to fly in an area that looks like a Goregia OKeffe painting. I flew up hills and canyons, so far the mavic looked like a spec of dust. Went through 3 batteries and had a freaking blast. I'm happy to report none of the issues of which you spoke were a problem I'm inclined to think the problem is your iPad processor and not the app.
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Perhaps I should have elaborated, I didn't mean to repeat what you said, perhaps my message was too subtle? The point being that you, as an amatuer hobbyist, by the FAA rules, are not calling to ASK PERMISSION to fly. You are calling to NOTIFY the tower of your intent to fly. There is quite a difference between those two verbs. If you read the actual form that the tower is supposed to fill out for their FAA paperwork/log, there is a whole lot of dancing around under which conditions that the tower operator can forbid you to fly. The fear amongst hobbyists is that there are already many towers where stressed out, overworked tower workers just issue a blanket "NO!" to any notification, not because there is actual danger, more like because any time people in beaurocratic jobs are given power, a percentage of them will abuse that power, just because they can, not because your flight will cause any actual danger. If you research this and read between the lines, there is a conflict between the hobbyist following the FAA regulations to NOTIFY and the tower operator being given the power TO FORBID your flight notification. If you hang up and fly if the operator forbade you to, it isn't clear if you have violated any actual penal code or law. But the tower can call law enforcement and tell them what has occured and law enforcement can go to the location you are flying at and arrest you or confiscate your drone. It doesn't mean that doing so is legal and you cannot be successfully prosecuted unless the district attorney has penal code that you broke and decides to prosecute you.

As far as your location, you call the tower, phone number is here. http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSAF Just beware that it may take several calls, transfers and messages to actually speak with the Tower Operations. It's not something you should do the same day you are planning to fly. I did mine a week before.

As far as my iPad and the warning, that's what is so weird, I did ten flights with this iPad, never had a glitch or a warning, then I did a flight at Long Beach Harbor a few weeks ago and out of the blue the warning showed up repeatedly and the reception from the drone turned to crap, glitching, stuttering, etc. This was with no update of firmware or software in between the ten successful flights and this one flight. Since then, I have had two more flights, really short, simple ones and the message showed up :30 after lift off. I though it could be just my iPad but I tried it with my iPhone, same message and tried it with a friend's iPad, same message. When you research "CPU overload warning" on the DJI Go 4 App, there are hundreds, if not thousands of users experiencing this and DJI has acknowledged it is a bug. But until they issue a fix, my Mavic has been grounded. Glad it's not affecting you. Hopefully it won't.
 
puredrifting said:
Perhaps I should have elaborated, I didn't mean to repeat what you said, perhaps my message was too subtle? The point being that you, as an amatuer hobbyist, by the FAA rules, are not calling to ASK PERMISSION to fly. You are calling to NOTIFY the tower of your intent to fly. There is quite a difference between those two verbs. If you read the actual form that the tower is supposed to fill out for their FAA paperwork/log, there is a whole lot of dancing around under which conditions that the tower operator can forbid you to fly. The fear amongst hobbyists is that there are already many towers where stressed out, overworked tower workers just issue a blanket "NO!" to any notification, not because there is actual danger, more like because any time people in beaurocratic jobs are given power, a percentage of them will abuse that power, just because they can, not because your flight will cause any actual danger. If you research this and read between the lines, there is a conflict between the hobbyist following the FAA regulations to NOTIFY and the tower operator being given the power TO FORBID your flight notification. If you hang up and fly if the operator forbade you to, it isn't clear if you have violated any actual penal code or law. But the tower can call law enforcement and tell them what has occured and law enforcement can go to the location you are flying at and arrest you or confiscate your drone. It doesn't mean that doing so is legal and you cannot be successfully prosecuted unless the district attorney has penal code that you broke and decides to prosecute you.

As far as your location, you call the tower, phone number is here. http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSAF Just beware that it may take several calls, transfers and messages to actually speak with the Tower Operations. It's not something you should do the same day you are planning to fly. I did mine a week before.

As far as my iPad and the warning, that's what is so weird, I did ten flights with this iPad, never had a glitch or a warning, then I did a flight at Long Beach Harbor a few weeks ago and out of the blue the warning showed up repeatedly and the reception from the drone turned to crap, glitching, stuttering, etc. This was with no update of firmware or software in between the ten successful flights and this one flight. Since then, I have had two more flights, really short, simple ones and the message showed up :30 after lift off. I though it could be just my iPad but I tried it with my iPhone, same message and tried it with a friend's iPad, same message. When you research "CPU overload warning" on the DJI Go 4 App, there are hundreds, if not thousands of users experiencing this and DJI has acknowledged it is a bug. But until they issue a fix, my Mavic has been grounded. Glad it's not affecting you. Hopefully it won't.
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I think you are getting a bit worked up over nothing.

You are saying you just have to notify the tower you are gonna fly today. So you call the tower to tell the controller I live here at such and such address and I intended to fly my Mavic over my house and up the street a little for about 10 minutes. The controller then says no problem thanks for calling have a nice day, or they say you can not fly your drone today. But you decide you are gonna fly it anyway because the FAA rules only stipulate you need to give notice, not ask permission. This is the silly point you are trying to make, and tell me I'm not informed and haven't researched properly???? Really?

The day I received the Mavic I did everything right to set it up ready to fly..... but it wouldn't even start. I messed with it for an hour trying to figure out what it was. Finally I noticed a warning sign to update the app. I did and then emmediatly I could start the motors and I flew perfectly. You might have been in an area of high level interference in Long Beach, or you needed to lownload the new app. I would download the new app chances are your Mavic will never be happier.

Thanks for the link, I'll give them a call if I ever fly around my house.
 
Liam Hall said:
Don't practice indoors, you'll have no GPS and will almost certainly crash. Yes, you can fly within 5 mile radius but stay within Vlos.
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Good advice! I was just setting stuff up figuring it out how to turn everything on etc. in my living room just to start the motors. Once the motors started I took it outside and flew it. My back yard is covered with a sun-roof and the rest of it is covered by trees no way to find an opening out into the clear blue yonder. So I flew it in my backyard like Philip Bloom did in his review. Then I flew it straight up into a tree branch and chipped a blade. Taking it out first thing again in the morning maybe up to Abiquiu where Georgia Okeefee painted her landscapes about an hour north of Santa Fe.

Drone heaven......
https://www.newmexico.org/places-to-go/regions-cities/northcentral/abiquiu/
 
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Michael Thames said:
...This is the silly point you are trying to make, and tell me I'm not informed and haven't researched properly???? Really?
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Nothing personal, you stated something incorrect, then you did not know how to reach your local control tower, you did not seem to know about AOPA, Airmap, Digital Notification Procedure, AirNav. To you, these points may be silly. To me, and most drone pilots who are trying to play the game by the rules, they are not.
 
I bought a refurb P3 standard, it will be good enough to get me flying for fun and didn't crush a paycheck to get it. I'll get something better if I actually use it enough to justify, and if work finds me then I'll upgrade and certify to be able to do this for money.
 
Greg_E said:
I bought a refurb P3 standard, it will be good enough to get me flying for fun and didn't crush a paycheck to get it. I'll get something better if I actually use it enough to justify, and if work finds me then I'll upgrade and certify to be able to do this for money.
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Congratulations, it is addicting!
 
puredrifting said:
Nothing personal, you stated something incorrect, then you did not know how to reach your local control tower, you did not seem to know about AOPA, Airmap, Digital Notification Procedure, AirNav. To you, these points may be silly. To me, and most drone pilots who are trying to play the game by the rules, they are not.
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Of course I know how to reach the local airport. I was being sarcastic. Please don't insinuate I don't play by the rules thus making problems for others because I call the tower here in Santa Fe. What I find silly is your idea of notification vs permission.
 
Airmap requires FAA registration of your drone in order to notify an airport.

Recomending Airmap to notify an airport if you haven't registered your drone with the FAA is pointless. Reading further from what I gather, flying within a 5 mile radius of an airport requires you to register your drone with the FAA. This begs the question as to how Puredrifting can give notification a week in advance of his flight, using Airmap while hoping mandatory FAA registration isn't the law of the land yet!

For me I'll just call the airport and talk to a controller - our airport is pretty small - and I actually know some of the guys there, that's the best solution personally. I would rather have a tape recorded conversation between me and the controller in case of a law suit later. Simply giving notification seems a bit risky. It's all rather pointless for me because I have zero interest of flying this thing around my neighborhood any way nothing much to see here. I can drive a mile north of my house, and the 5-mile radius, closer to downdown where the interesting shots would be anyway.

I must confess I flew the drone in tripod mode in my backyard no higher than 6 feet under a patio roof. I hope the men in black don't show up anytime soon to take me away.

If anyone is slightly interested here is a video I made yesterday in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I was primarily learning how to fly her, so bright out I could hardy see the screen (ordered a screen-shade last night) as a result the footage was over exposed despite the 16 ND filter I used, and my inexperience with the video settings and controls...... one thing at a time..... just keeping her airborne and not hitting a cliff was the main priority. Also from a rough landing on an un level surface the gimbal came loose from the plate and I got an abnormal gimbal vibration warning and the focus was screwed up. Simple fix when I got home though..... but freaked me out!

https://vimeo.com/227675415
 
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I actually checked the DJI app and it said I could fly in my yard??? I guess my little uncontrolled landing strip must have a different rule or something. Either way it's good because that means I can cross the street and fly in the field without worrying about getting one of the few local pilots mad.
 
I wouldn’t rely on the DJI Go app to give you a go/no go. Your best bet is a sectional chart.
 
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