Hi,
We are Mountain Rescue Team based in Highlands  of Scotland.
We are developing our use of UAS for use in Mountain emergency situations ie avalanches, missing or injured climbers etc.The main problem we are running into is the height restrictions.
We are in discussion with CAA about extensions to legal parameters and can already go beyond normal limits under recent changes allowing Police to authorise BVLOS up to 2km if life is in imminent danger.
If you can picture a 1400metre gulley rising from sea level to summit that we wish to search.We want to fly approx 30 meters off ground the whole way up but DJI height restriction ‘only”goes to 500 meters.Our question is if all necessary approvals were given by relevant authorities ie CAA and Police etc would DJI ever entertain removing the height restriction for the UAS under aforementioned controls and procedures.
In  so many ways this would remove a huge amount of danger faced by Mountainous Rescue Teams.
Is there a department in DJI who deal with emergency services?
Any info would be most welcome.
Thanks

Great work that you're doing up there. Will be nice to see if DJI can do that. I know they can unlock NFZ's - though altitude restrictions on a Mavic is another matter.

This thread might be able to answer your question. Probably not the answer you were looking for though.
https://forum.dji.com/thread-13105-1-1.html

Brian88 Posted at 2018-1-23 12:29
This thread might be able to answer your question. Probably not the answer you were looking for though.
https://forum.dji.com/thread-13105-1-1.html

Apart from the last response on that thread the most recent communication was nearly a year ago. It may be different now. I too doubt it TBH but you never know - not that I intend to fly over 400' AGL but would be nice to know if I decide to go down the commercial route with my hobby.

It is the same here. This 500 m limit is stopping us from using our drones as we can by the laws.
Some of us need to go higher up in the mountains than 500 m. Rescue Teams here have the same trouble. I have not seen any sign from Dji that they will allow this to be done on legal way.
It was possible to change this in the older FW. Few days ago I was trying to get pictures from avalanches here in the Mountain close to my home.  I would have needed 300 - 400 m more to get that pictures.


If you get some news about this let me know.

Would other applications like Litchi allow you to do this? I have never used it, so I don't know. But might be worth looking into.

Brian88 Posted at 2018-1-23 15:42
Would other applications like Litchi allow you to do this? I have never used it, so I don't know. But might be worth looking into.

Litchi is just other app which use the same FW in Mavic. So no. I used it on my old P3S because it works without signal in Waypoint missions.

It would cost you much more, but I'm wondering if one of the large commercial grade drones are as limited.  They cost plenty, and are large and powerful, much more able to handle the wind you will likely find on the slopes of mountains.  They could likely handle a small load to deliver emergency radio to survivors, etc.  I just don't know how limited the professional drones are.

The only solution is downgrading to a firmware that doesn't have height restriction. You can try contact DJI support but I'm sure they can't help you on this one.
Downgrading firmware is possible and if you are interested there are guides out there on how to do that.

AG0N-Gary Posted at 2018-1-23 17:23
It would cost you much more, but I'm wondering if one of the large commercial grade drones are as limited.  They cost plenty, and are large and powerful, much more able to handle the wind you will likely find on the slopes of mountains.  They could likely handle a small load to deliver emergency radio to survivors, etc.  I just don't know how limited the professional drones are.

The MP certainly isn't the best choice for these kind of rescues but from the icon you can see that OP already owns one. Too late for another choice.

What gives dji the right to over-ride the national laws of a country outside of china?

If your government allows you to to fly within your country's regulations and dji cannot agree to this then it's time to switch to another drone manufacturer.

Why should you even have to ask dji for permission in the first place and why do they have to poke their nose in to your legitimate business?

You paid for the drone so you own it. It's using creative commons software https://creativecommons.org/ so everybody and nobody owns it, yet try getting the source code from dji which is in complete violation of the creative commons licence.

Read this and copy it while you can before the censors spot it

In case I get kicked (don't give a rat's), bye from * hex *

  

Hi all,
Sorry have not thanked you for replies as we are in n middle of an ongoing rescue operation on Ben Nevis
Without going into too much detail we lost our mavic during operation.
We deployed it knowing it was pretty much one way into a gulley but imminent risk to missing person made decision easy.
I will try and get back on soon to maybe elaborate on decision making process and also go through with you guys the answers you posted.
https://stv.tv/news/north/1406822-rescue-drone-lost-in-search-for-missing-ben-nevis-climber/

LochaberRescue Posted at 2018-1-24 05:50
Hi all,
Sorry have not thanked you for replies as we are in n middle of an ongoing rescue operation on Ben Nevis
Without going into too much detail we lost our mavic during operation.

Did you ever find your Mavic Pro?