Have had a great first week with my inspire. Learning what it is capable of and getting some pretty good footage along the way. Have had no issues so far, keeping my FW up to date and not taking any risks with one exception. For my second flight I took the drone to Central Park in Manhattan. From what I had read, though this is all a gray area, quadcopters were allowed in the city with the known FAA flight restrictions (400 feet or less, not within 5 miles of an airport, etc.). I set my flight ceiling to 375 feet, just to be safe and took off in the southern part of the park. Almost immediatly after takeoff, an NYPD van pulls up behind me and several officers pop out. Shit! As the Inspire hovers about 100 feet away, the cops proceed to tell me that no R/C vehicles are allowed in the park. I'm polite and tell them that I will land immediatly. Except that's not exactly what happens. One of the officers tells me to wait and starts asking me questions about the Inspire. Since it's already in the air, he wants to see what it can do. We proceed to chat and fly around the park for the full length of the battery. In a situation that could have ended very poorly for me, I ended up having a great time flying with the officers, explaining to them the abilities of the drone and my thoughts on the potential coming regulations for drones in the city. After landing and having the officers joke with me that they were gonna need to take the drone as "evidence" (while secretely just wanting it for themselves!) I gave one of the officers my card, we shook hands and parted ways. All's well that ends well! Having said that, I won't be flying in the park again without written permission from Central Park officals. NYC is undoubtly a risky and dangerous place to fly a quadcopter and I will welcome clear cut rules and regulations for their use, but I am of the belief that it can be done safely with quite stunning results.
Nicely done. It's nice to see someone having a great time with there Inspire 1. We're you using iPads? I hope they get this issue with Apple worked out soon. I Bought 2 iPad minis just for my Inspire.
A Drone can be of great use to Law Enforcement. I intend to use mine for just that. I am retired PD and will be using it for difficult situations.a SWAT Team can use it for observation purposes instead of risking an Officer's life. I have flown my Phantoms with Uniformed Officers present and the public watching, now the word is out that the Police have Drones. Great physiological crime prevention tool.
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