soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-10 08:59
As I stated, try it yourself. Take it out and fly it across the face of a mountain. Have you never  ...

From Transport Canada:

Visual line-of-sight (VLOS) - means unaided (corrective lenses and/or sunglasses exempted) visual contact with the UAV sufficient to be able to maintain operational control of the aircraft, know its location, and be able to scan the airspace in which it is operating to decisively see and avoid other air traffic or objects.

Not saying you could or could not follow this to the letter... buuut as someone whom uses the phantom for commercial (mining surveys) purposes, we have a 500m distance fence as after that it really freaking hard to see.

RockyMountain O Posted at 2016-6-10 09:42
From Transport Canada:

Visual line-of-sight (VLOS) - means unaided (corrective lenses and/or sung ...

If your sleptical, there is nothing I can do about that, and that's OK. All I can do is be as truthful and as honest as possible and let the chips fall where they may. I was responding to a statement that put into doubt, whether or not a PIC could spot a drone at 1.8 km distance and in this case they could. And ATC had a RADAR contact to confirm the sighting. My comment about the distance I spotted my drone was not meant to open a new debate although clearly, it has.

As for your inference with respect to VLOS as set out in the CARs. I can assure you here and now that I was NOT in compliance with VLOS regs. Although I could have easily flown it back without aid by simply yawing toward its apparent direction of travel. As you can see by the link I posted to the screenshot in my google drive acct. It was miles from civilization and at least 12km from the nearest aerodrome, which is a seaplane base. They use this waterway if the wind is right for take offs and landings. They are usually 500' or higher flying through there because they have to maintain separation altitude until they clear the highway below. I do not push my luck with altitude though.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-10 09:59
As I stated, try it yourself. Take it out and fly it across the face of a mountain. Have you never  ...

I was joking ;)BTW, in my mind, line of sight is not just "i can spot it" it means you can maintaine control of the aircraft visually, therefore you can orient yourself and fly it if you FPV is gone.. but that is my assumption, and I DO fly out of sight sometimes, the temtation is too great! But if I was going to be 100% honest, really a bubble of 400ft should suffice for photo/film jobs.... certainly 1000ft for special things....

Phantomski Posted at 2016-6-11 02:55
I was joking ;)BTW, in my mind, line of sight is not just "i can spot it" it means you can maintain ...

I agree, sometimes when there's no one there to breath down your neck, you like to let the dogs run. I don't think there's anybody out there that hasn't at one time or another, as long as it's safe.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-11 00:19
They clearly state that it was a large drone. Let's not muddy the waters with conjecture about P4' ...

It would have to be a very large drone for them to see it 1.8 km away ... something about the size of a Cessna
Most flyers can't see their Phantoms at 300 metres.
And against the background clutter of the ground, drones are much harder to spot from a plane that they are for us on the ground.
That there was also a radar contact is a good indication that whatever they saw, it was nothing like our little toys.
The FAA has a database full of hundreds of reports where pilots thought they saw drones.
But look at the records and it very clear that the vast majority of these "incidents" had nothing to do with drones.
Here are just a few

i think you might be able to see yours at 1.3km but that is far, and you know where to look at what your looking for.  an airplane traveling at speed would fly by it and it would be really hard to see.  also for showing on radar would have to be a pretty big drone.

hjscm@me.com Posted at 2016-6-10 15:11
I don't think a p4 will show on radar.  also flying at that speed how likely are you going to be a ...

Are you really sure about that ?! Is anyone know if we are invisible on radars with our phantom drones ? Hopefully we are ;)

860462 Posted at 2016-6-11 13:22
Are you really sure about that ?! Is anyone know if we are invisible on radars with our phantom dr ...

It's most unlikely that a Phantom would show up on radar.
There just isn't enough of it and only some is metal.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-6-8 12:11
The 500m is the limit from the home point.

Yes I know. I measured the rise in elevation from the base of the ridge where I would take off to the target about 2.5 miles away up the ridge and it is more than 500 meters. Any suggestions?

VisionAir Posted at 2016-6-8 19:35
Maybe climb to the top of the ridge and takeoff from there?. Just a thought.

I would like to do that but various things prevent me from doing so.

tron Posted at 2016-6-9 01:12
You have to reach a goal in flytrex?

Nope. Something for a personal project of mine.

So about "visual line of sight" I am going to point at the big elephant in the room: It does not matter if you can see your drone or not. It won't help at all in any situation I can envision. The reason is that humans have no stereo depth perception beyond about 30 meters or so. After that you would do as well judging relative distance between two objects by closing one eye. Since these are FAA rules, I presume they care about keeping your drone away from other aircraft. Again being able to see your drone won't help you at all. You are just as likely to fly into an approaching aircraft than out of its way. The only thing that helps see where the drone is in relation to other nearby objects is good FPV. I think the FAA knows this but does not want to admit it. Every single FPV pilot knows this well.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-11 00:22
So about "visual line of sight" I am going to point at the big elephant in the room: It does not mat ...

You may be right about depth perseption. That I don't really know about. As far as whether it matters if you can see it or not, of coarse it does. If I can see it, all I need is an RC link, and I can fly it home. And it doesn't matter if it's a speck on the horizon or 30 meters away. FPV is great, it's immersive, it's fun, and probably nesseccary for precision at speed. But it is not a magic pill. It will not give you situational awareness, and that is a must in aviation. In fact, situational awareness is one of the fundamentals of flying. The vast majority of incidences that could be attributed to pilot error, are usually do to the lack of this fundamental.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-11 00:09
I would like to do that but various things prevent me from doing so.

OK, against my better judgment, I'm prepared to help you out. Keep in mind this technique will only work if the drone uses the altitude barometer for setting the home point altitude. The trick is, if you cannot take the drone to the altitude, then bring the altitude to the drone. Build yourself a Hypobaric chamber, commonly called an altitude chamber. This is what they use to study people when they enter a hypoxic state. Like climbing Everest without oxygen. Build it out of something that is radio inert, LEXAN would be my choice. I wouldn't go thinner than 12mm thick. If you have access to a table saw you can easily put one together in an hour or two. You'll need a vacuum pump and a gauge. You  should have no problem simulating any altitude you want. A pump that can draw 30 inches of mercury can take you almost to outer space. I built one for evacuating gas from silicone moulds.

One more thing, you'll also want a relief valve for fine tuning the altitude and releasing the vacuum once you're ready to fly. And just to add a disclaimer, I have not tried this so I don't know for sure if it'll work but the theory sounds solid. I use a pressure cooker for my chamber so I cannot try it out.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-6-10 14:57
It would have to be a very large drone for them to see it 1.8 km away ... something about the size ...

It's difficult for me to discribe to DJI pilots, something they would need to experience for themselves , in order to understand what I'm referring to. Let's take a hypothetical flight at say 5000' and down below you, on a street, is a kid with a white balloon. You cannot see it right, because it is amongst all that clutter. OK, now the kid lets go of the balloon and it starts to ascend. The higher the balloon goes the higher it's speed appears to be against the ground below. It is the appearance of something out of place that catches your eye, not the actual balloon itself. But once it has caught your eye and you start actually looking at it, you recognize it as something in the air between you and the ground. When you look up at the night sky, you can find the satellites pretty easy, because they are moving. Not because they are bigger or brighter than the stars. A Cessna flying below you and silhouetted against the ground wouldn't be difficult at twice that distance.

Pilots see all kinds of things all the time, it's true, the vast majority may have nothing to do with drones. But they did see something, and sometimes what they saw was small. Considering there could be as many as 5000 planes in the air over the US alone at any given time. You'd think that list would be bigger, considering its sample size.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-11 09:42
OK, against my better judgment, I'm prepared to help you out. Keep in mind this technique will only ...

I am reasonably certain that GPS is used to determine the starting altitude and then the barometer is used to measure the relative altitude so a hyperbolic chamber won't help. What would help is to somehow reset the home position while still in flight. One way occurs to me: If I could find a nice clear flat spot half way up the hill and in good line of sight, I could land the drone, stop the motors, start the motors again and take off thereby resetting the home point altitude. Nice trick but it would take some guts. If I lost signal strength on the ground, there would be no way to take off again.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-11 08:12
You may be right about depth perseption. That I don't really know about. As far as whether it matt ...

It is routine for me to stop the drone and look around with FPV before attempting my next move. I have recently been working on precision flying at a great distance (more than a mile). This is where the drone is close to the ground and moving slowly (no humans anywhere nearby).

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-12 17:49
I am reasonably certain that GPS is used to determine the starting altitude and then the barometer  ...

GPS is so inaccurate for altitude (+/- 400 feet and swinging) that DJI do not use it at all for altitude.
It's the barometer or nothing.
So the hyperbaric chamber idea, though too impractical expensive and bulky to be of any use, might work in theory ...
500 m is just a limit you have to live with and work your flying around it.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-6-12 01:10
GPS is so inaccurate for altitude (+/- 400 feet and swinging) that DJI do not use it at all for alt ...

Just to clarify, a hyperbaric chamber is used to increase pressure relative to ambient, a  hypobaric chamber is used to lower pressure relative to ambient. The pump and gauge, I got off eBay for around $110.00cdn. I already had a pressure cooker so that was a bonus. I did need a LEXAN lid for it though, so I bummed a scrap piece off of a local glass store. I would estimate if you had to pay for the LEXAN it might be an extra $50.00. Throw a $3.00 petcock valve on it, and throw in some sweat equity, done. It does not have to hold a perfect vacuum but you'll want to miter all the joints.

That would give you the ultimate altitude chamber for under $200.00. Too expensive? Possibly, it depends what you're balancing the cost against. For some people it would be to expensive because they want to go higher. To others it's cheap because they need to go higher. That being said, this could all be purely academic because the difference between sea level and 500m is a little more than 1.5 inch/hg. You may be able to achieve that with a vacuum cleaner and a big heavy plastic tote (Walmart $10.00). Hard to say till you try, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I may even try the vacuum cleaner trick myself, I got some old totes kicking around here. I'll let you know how it worked, but it won't be for a couple of days at least. I got a lot going on right now.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-12 00:51
It is routine for me to stop the drone and look around with FPV before attempting my next move. I  ...

That's good, and exactly what you need to do to keep it safe. It's really easy to fixate when your view is so limited. A lot of IFR pilot errors happen because they stop scanning their instruments and fixate on one thing that may be puzzling them.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-12 08:08
Just to clarify, a hyperbaric chamber is used to increase pressure relative to ambient, a  hypobari ...

I am very curious how your experiment goes. I wish you luck. I had a similar idea of spoofing the GPS location and altitude on an Android device. One word of warning: If you manage to set your home point altitude to several thousand feet above you and lose contact with your drone, it will rocket up into the sky until it gets to the altitude at the RTH point you set plus whatever RTH altitude you have set. That could put the drone out of signal range for good. After that I am not sure what happens. My guess is it flies back to the home point and then descends slowly until it detects the ground. Scary all around.

I live in southern California and all the small aircraft fly low, especially along the beach. I would estimate that at least 3-4 aircraft are under 400 ft every day, and that's not including helo's, or it would be more like 6-8. I live in a very touristy area though, so there are a lot of things going on all the time. All the people and air traffic makes it hard to fly even though the nearest airport is 25 miles away.

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-13 00:00
I am very curious how your experiment goes. I wish you luck. I had a similar idea of spoofing the  ...

I'm not going to fly it, I'm not even going to install the props. I'll just set the home point and observe the altitude in the GO app. I've no need to go higher than the normal limits. But I will keep you posted. Maybe take some photos.

Cloud Chaser On Posted at 2016-6-13 01:11
I live in southern California and all the small aircraft fly low, especially along the beach. I woul ...

They maybe flying low over water but they should still be maintaining 500' horizontal separation from people & boats.

Do as the woman tells you!!

Swedrone Posted at 2016-6-12 12:26
Do as the woman tells you!!

Huh????? I think you need a joke to go with your punchline. Otherwise, it's just, not that funny.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-12 11:27
I'm not going to fly it, I'm not even going to install the props. I'll just set the home point and  ...

That's cool. I am still interested.

860462 Posted at 2016-6-8 15:02
Than every hobbiest should pay me 10$ otherwise I will do some crazy stuff and your governments fo ...

I know how to bypass the limit, but DJI might ban me, so I choose life.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-13 15:57
Huh????? I think you need a joke to go with your punchline. Otherwise, it's just, not that funny.

He obviously need a woman to tell him

grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2016-6-16 10:06
That's cool. I am still interested.

I did the experiment today. I used a plastic milk crate and covered it loosely with cardboard. The P4 fit perfectly without the props.


I turned it on then put a piece of plywood on top and put it in a garbage bag.


Using a std upright vacuum cleaner I wrapped the bag around the nozzle ang drew as much air as I could out. When I started the mothers I ended up with 170 meters of altitude.

I had to try it twice. The first time I got a barometric exception error and I had to cycle the battery to clear it. The second time I sucked the air out slower and that did the trick.

Do you want visit the moon?

Murilo Carmello Posted at 2016-6-8 21:02
Listen the woman, you will not want to be responsible for something like this:
https://www.youtube.c ...

Common known fake.

soundbyte58 Posted at 2016-6-16 23:06
I did the experiment today. I used a plastic milk crate and covered it loosely with cardboard. The ...

Neeeeeeat!