anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-15 18:43
Remote Controller
Operating Frequency

That is correct.  The Phantom is rated to 2km though some have taken them out significantly further.  The height limit is 500m.

anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-16 10:17
The 6000m is from sea level I think. Thats the best where phantom can reach up with perfect air de ...

That is correct.  I have flown my Phantom 3 Professional at 9000+' ASL.  It was a little sluggish but still better than a P2.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-9-17 21:19
That is correct.  I have flown my Phantom 3 Professional at 9000+' ASL.  It was a little sluggish  ...

Last day I did my 2nd flight with P3 pro but I got only 14 min time when the battery showed 'Low Battery at 30%. How come I didn't get the described 23 min?
The wind nearly 10mph I think.  I had prop guards on.

This is what I did. I went up to 10m and hovered then to 100m and descended to 2m. Then again I quickly went up to 200m and lowered after a while and landed when it hit 30%.
Outside temperature was 80F.

Or is the 23min time just for hovering?

willieb1172 Posted at 2015-9-14 22:48
I received my Phantom 3 Pro and I've flown it 40-50 times thus far. I live in a flat area so I've k ...

Was that video in real time or did you speed up the video?  At the end that car looked like it was going a bit fast, but if it was in real time it took just a bit over a minute to reach 500m!  That's impressive.

anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-19 11:30
Last day I did my 2nd flight with P3 pro but I got only 14 min time when the battery showed 'Low B ...

You answered your own question....
You had prop guards on....
You ascended and descended several times .....
And yeh 23mins is pretty much perfect conditions and letting your grandma take the controls.

As much as I'd like to crap my pants flying that high (and I have gone to the 500m).., I can see the dangers of others who are incapable of flying safely at those heights. And its probably not going to be anyone at this website either. But there will be eventually.., and we can't deny that. Nor, can we ignore that.

Worst case scenario. It could be used for terrorism, taking down planes at random. Now that's terror. Could be your next flight. Even after drones are banned/limited.., they are already released.

Now imagine if a chinese company started handing out all these drones capable of doing anything.., then a bunch of terrorists buy bloody 100 of them or something.., and just go around targeting VIP planes. Poor old Frank Wang (if that's his real name. Hmmm) would be the first suspect and probably Saddam'ed by a rope, while the real perps are planning ways to scare people like they are bloody ghosts at Casper's scare school or something.

But I'm sure DJI didn't just pull a random figure of 500 out of their butt.

If the Lily drone's ceiling height is also restricted to 500m, then that suggests there may be a bigger authority behind it. So we can't just jump to conclusions, and start lynching poor old Franky Wang (DJI). Perhaps it was a prerequisite legal requirement imposed by some type of international aerospace authority. Kinda like Rojer Ramjet or something maybe. I dunno. Thunderbirds?

I think that
1) No matter how well built and maintained a machine is.., it is capable of breaking. (As shown with real aircraft)
2) The higher you go.., the larger the crash radius. You'd need to calculate craft mass, height, wind at various levels, inertia/last trajectory, props spinning? to figure out a safe distance.

So, unless you can safely say there are no houses, dwellings, camps sites, or bushwalkers around.., you're putting others lives at risk. Technically.
But yea.., I'm up for lifting restrictions. Let's start thinking of solutions, as well as problems.
Umm..,
An automatic parachute with audible alarms and lights to alert "land dwellers".
Helium tank with balloon? lol.
Go, go gadget propeller from underneath with enough power to descend. Either separate battery, or based on real chopper physics where weight spins blades creating slight lift.

Tahoe, policy is made by the management and not by God. This means that policy can be changed easily if management decides to change it. So, can you please get a fair answer why this limit is set, and why users cannot be allowed to change this limit to higher? I, fit example, live near a mountain 643m high and I would like to view it from top. Why would your management decide to block me?

Rocket_Aus Posted at 2015-9-19 05:38
You answered your own question....
You had prop guards on....
You ascended and descended several t ...

Haha, prop guards..they kill flight time. Didn't know that.

willieb1172 Posted at 2015-9-14 23:48
I received my Phantom 3 Pro and I've flown it 40-50 times thus far. I live in a flat area so I've k ...

Isn't it supposed to go up some 30m before RTH? clearing the tree line? First video.

miki Posted at 2015-9-19 13:44
Tahoe, policy is made by the management and not by God. This means that policy can be changed easily ...

Miki, I don't make policy. I can only tell you what DJI's policy is.  You have heard it.  I have passed your concerns on to DJI.  If they decide to change their policy they we will announce the change.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-9-20 00:12
Miki, I don't make policy. I can only tell you what DJI's policy is.  You have heard it.  I have p ...

I don't intend to fly over 400m. Usually I keep it in sight. Don't want to waste $1259.

jayhkr Posted at 2015-9-19 01:29
Was that video in real time or did you speed up the video?  At the end that car looked like it was ...

That wasn't my video so I don't know. It does look like it could have been sped up a little to me too...

anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-19 19:01
Isn't it supposed to go up some 30m before RTH? clearing the tree line? First video.

Yes. That's what I was explaining. The Phantom thiinks it's above 90' because it computes altitude from the home point altitude, not real altitude that's below it.

Let me give an example. Say there's a hill that's 100' high. You take off at the bottom of the hill. When you take off the Phantom makes the home point location as 0'. If you go to 110' and go directly over the hill, you will be 10' off the ground, but the Phantom will think it's 110' off the ground. So if there's a tree at the hill that's 50' and you lose signal and RTH is triggered, it thinks it's at 110' so it's not going to ascend and could hit the tree. That's exactly what happened in the 1st video.

This is an important concept to understand when flying your Phantom in hilly or mountainous areas!

There is an easy fix to the height limit, Litchi,,,,,

maxverschr@gmai Posted at 2015-4-26 21:06
You lucky basterds ... In Belgium in 2 months a new law concerning multicopters will arrive and the  ...

In Denmark it is 100m - do you always follow speed limits on the freeways?

jmtw000 Posted at 2015-4-27 15:40
Let me get this straight, there's a 500m (from home point) altitude limit in the P3 firmware which c ...

JMTW000 - The 500m limit is form any home point you set on the copter!

Start altitude 700m above sea level - you can go to 1200m
Start altitude 1700m above sea level - you can go to 2200m
Start altitude 100m above sea level - you can go to 600m

john.lambert4@o Posted at 2015-4-28 02:57
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the RTH height should always be 0m (0ft) relative to the drone - UNLESS ...

FTH should be set above the highest obstacle within flight range. The copter will flig to this altitude - the retur to the home spot and then decent.

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-9-26 19:06
There is an easy fix to the height limit, Litchi,,,,,
https://vimeo.com/139072540

Not any more. Litchi now has 500m limit.

Prometheus Xex Posted at 2015-10-22 15:50
Not any more. Litchi now has 500m limit.

Not true lol

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-10-29 08:39
Not true lol

WHAT'S NEW

- new setting to sync photo/video previews with your HealthyDrones.com account
- new mission setting "Rotations Direction: Managed or Manual", with Managed, rotations should always use the shortest path.
- new settings for voice feedback
- new setting for battery voltage
- new follow setting "horizontal movements" on/off, on by default. When set to off, only the aircraft's altitude, yaw and gimbal will be controlled by Litchi
- max altitude for P3/I1 users is now 500m (enforced by SDK)

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-10-29 07:39
Not true lol

Please provide a link, that is very old, on the beta loads:

redesigned settings layout to use tabs
to set a new home point, you now have to drag the previous home point, rather than do a long press on the map
new follow setting "horizontal movements" on/off, on by default. When set to off, only the aircraft's altitude, yaw and gimbal will be controlled by Litchi
a tap on the rc signal will now show an help frame for the custom key bindings
setting the Orbit subject altitude using the RC gimbal wheel should no longer produce jerky gimbal movements
Litchi no longer prevents you from entering a "maximum selectable altitude" above 500m

Prometheus Xex Posted at 2015-10-30 10:34
WHAT'S NEW

- new setting to sync photo/video previews with your HealthyDrones.com account

I run litchi 2.4.1 and no restrictions

The short answer is: never do anymore updates to your app, drone or remote.

solarscar Posted at 2015-10-31 22:42
The short answer is: never do anymore updates to your app, drone or remote.

You got that right..

anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-19 14:46
Haha, prop guards..they kill flight time. Didn't know that.

Yeah they do, but not too much.

anstinantony@ro Posted at 2015-9-19 15:01
Isn't it supposed to go up some 30m before RTH? clearing the tree line? First video.

Yes, and you can set the RTH height to something different if you want.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2015-5-1 07:51
The FAA person I talked to at NAB gave me the deer in the headlights look when I explained the probl ...

Good point.

Dave

mike6250 Posted at 2015-6-13 21:29
I just bought a phantom 3 and found that in the US the altitude is limited to 120 meters in GPS mode ...

Not true.




Dave

willieb1172 Posted at 2015-7-31 07:22
Not that I'm at the present interested in going above 120m myself, but has anyone tried setting the  ...

That will not work. You can not set it to 0

solarscar Posted at 2015-10-31 20:42
The short answer is: never do anymore updates to your app, drone or remote.

Yeah but you can only do that for so long before you start having trouble.

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-10-31 17:06
Please provide a link, that is very old, on the beta loads:

redesigned settings layout to use tab ...

"Litchi no longer prevents you from entering a "maximum selectable altitude" above 500m"

Is that the lastest public release (Version 2.5.1) or the latest BETA release?

Prometheus Xex Posted at 2015-11-1 15:51
"Litchi no longer prevents you from entering a "maximum selectable altitude" above 500m"

Is that  ...

I run 2.4.1 beta and no limits on all beta versions after, I stopped updating at 2.4.1 because I am happy with everything it offers...

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-11-1 17:33
I run 2.4.1 beta and no limits on all beta versions after, I stopped updating at 2.4.1 because I am ...

Awww.

It's the latest public release that now has the 500m limit enforced.

I dont like the limit because I fly up mountains and 500 meters is not that high. You can be 500 meters away but only 10 feet of the ground.

I am very happy with the performance of P3, I do not even need to fly high above the ground as the shooting is not ideal etc. I flight really carefully in areas where there are no people and no airplanes. One thing bothers me. I regularly visit one very nice photogenic area where there are 2 nice rocky hills roughly 1,2 km apart form each other. I wanted to shoot from the smaller hill the higher hill but the altitude difference is just above 500 m, I guess the difference is 540 m and I cannot get above the other hill to shoot a nice video/photo. I can live with that but it is pity. If there would be in the future a way how to do it. Please let me know. What I did anyway. I soothed the smaller hill from the higher but it was not the same and it took me huge effort to climb the the peak.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-4-25 03:30
I am sorry, it is a policy set by DJI HQ.  Also note that if you loose GPS signal then the altitude  ...

hello
i have recently bought a phantom 3 advanced for my photography hobby and the dgi app 500 metre limit has made me consider swapping for a different drone ,, dont think id have bought it if i'd have been told !!!!!!

I live in Switzerland - 500m is nothing here. Interestingly, there are no altitude or range restrictions other than that there must be a line of sight between pilot and aircraft. When I read about the paranoid madness in the Netherlands and Belgium (30m???) being able to climb to 500m seems fine, BUT as I said this is a country of rocks and valleys. Hopefully someone will come up with a firmware hack soon.

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2015-9-27 07:06
There is an easy fix to the height limit, Litchi,,,,,
https://vimeo.com/139072540

Confirmed to me by email from Litchi that this is not true. No app developer including Litchi, Autopilot, etc can exceed the P3 firmware enforced limits.

solarscar Posted at 2015-11-1 12:42
The short answer is: never do anymore updates to your app, drone or remote.

That may be the short answer, but the real answer is for DJI to fix it.

Potential solution.  Why not set system height limits to (500m) AGL based on GPS coordinates vs topography maps.  Apparently the system has the ability enforce no fly zone.  Why not make 500m AGL a no fly zone- this would require implementing KNOWN topographical information into the system but would preserve the ability to work in the mountains and prevent the risks with RTH at extreme elevations.   Knowing local rules,  Being safe, and flying responsible are on the pilot.   I don't want a car with a max speed of 70mph. Just a thought?.

Cheers...  I do not yet have the confidence or skill as a pilot to risk these extreme flights but the lure of capturing images that can only be filmed by kicking dirt over the lines is why I invested my $$$.