Drones... do you have one, which one and why???

[The Chairman]

I have found the AMA coverage seems good, but thankfully I have never had to use it. Also not sure if it covers commercial , professional activities.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/InsuranceSummaryMembers.pdf

It's hard to call what I do "work", knowhatImeanVern? I look like a tourist and am not paid directly.

 

[Caveeagle]

It's hard to call what I do "work", knowhatImeanVern? I look like a tourist and am not paid directly.

I know what ya mean.. Problem comes in when something goes wrong. Modern RC technology has really come a long way. Spread spectrum radios prevent most issues with frequency interference, but they are not bullet proof. If your Quad hits something.. or you get accused of causing an accident.. who's gonna back you up?

FWIW: ..I have a Dynaflight Butterfly that's a pretty big bird with a 99" wingspan. I was using a new Spektrum DSM2 radio system and had a "brown out" back in '13. Completely lost signal for long enough to cause a pretty bad crash. Fortunately, it went down in a "safe" area and was repairable. Spektrum (HorizonHobby) never really aknowleged the problem but upgraded my whole system to their new DSMx technology. Point is.. the technology is not infallible.

Maybe the AMA membership would be a good first start. They were one of the only voices out there advocating for the rights of hobbyist flying R/C aircraft over the last few years.

I know that many parks around here forbid "drones". There are county (state?) parks around the Chicago area that had designated airfields for R/C flying. If memory serves, the only requirement was to display a current AMA membership.

 

[victorzamora]

I can't speak highly enough of the AMA. Getting a membership there is WELL worth it. A friend had a plane brown out (also on Spektrum/JR DSM2) and decide to hug a car. AMA paid for all of it.

The second best bit of insurance is ditching DSM and heading to the superior FASST

 

[The Chairman]

Maybe the AMA membership would be a good first start.

I'm a member now.

who's gonna back you up?

My point was that it would be hard to exclude me on the basis of it being work. I've tried to figure out what it takes to become a professional pilot, but it's just confusion at this point.

 

[The Chairman]

The second best bit of insurance is ditching DSM and heading to the superior FASST

I don't understand what you're saying here.

 

[Caveeagle]

I can't speak highly enough of the AMA. Getting a membership there is WELL worth it. A friend had a plane brown out (also on Spektrum/JR DSM2) and decide to hug a car. AMA paid for all of it.

The second best bit of insurance is ditching DSM and heading to the superior FASST

Yea, that was probably the same AR600 rx that I had an issue with. My biggest issue with Spektrum is that they did not seem to get pro-active about resolving the issue with a full on recall. There was a well documented issue with that specific model. I can't speak to the FASST technology. Other than that one incident, I have been happy with the DSM2 and DSMx radios. I will say that on my 99" Dynaflight, I upgraded to a DSMx receiver that has a backup sat receiver, just for a little extra security. That plane can easily fly over 1k' and lost signal could be a huge problem.

 

[flyboy08]

I've tried to figure out what it takes to become a professional pilot, but it's just confusion at this point.

In today's world, money! And lots of it! There is a tremendous shortage of pilots out there now,...anyone considering the vocation will be rewarded with a job upon certification completion.

 

[Caveeagle]

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Most people who build custom mutli-rotor (drone) use one of the popular R/C radio systems available. Spektrum/Jr has a system called DSM2/x and Futaba has their FASST system. They use frequency hopping, or some variation on that theme and will sniff out several clean frequencies to "bind" your transmitter and receiver every time you turn it on. That's how you can fly around other drones and not worry too much about crossing frequency.

Old school radio control used either AM or FM radios that were set to a specific frequency. You had to be careful not to fly around other people that might be using the same "channel". And, you could end up SOL if your channel flaked out on you because of some background interference. I got a funny story about how we used to fly near an USAF signal outpost that would screw with us and force crashes before we realized what they were doing.

As far as I can tell... Your Mavic uses their own "FireBridge 2™ Technology". I would guess it is some variation of either DSM or FAAST, but could easily be their own recipe to accomplish the same thing.

 

[victorzamora]

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Sorry, Pete. It's a jab at CaveEagle's R/C Transmitter choice. DSM is a JR/Spectrum radio technology (one of the major brands) and FASST is Futaba's (the other major brand). It's just a Ford v Chevy, SM v BM inside joke.

 

[victorzamora]

Yea, that was probably the same AR600 rx that I had an issue with. My biggest issue with Spektrum is that they did not seem to get pro-active about resolving the issue with a full on recall. There was a well documented issue with that specific model. I can't speak to the FASST technology. Other than that one incident, I have been happy with the DSM2 and DSMx radios. I will say that on my 99" Dynaflight, I upgraded to a DSMx receiver that has a backup sat receiver, just for a little extra security. That plane can easily fly over 1k' and lost signal could be a huge problem.

DSMx was certainly an upgrade over DSM2. FASST was spectacular from the start and surprisingly robust to high and low voltage conditions. My buddy with the DSM2 brown-out was, in fact, using an AR600. Those seemed to be the worst of the bunch.

As for Pete's quadcopter: I'm fairly certain the technology is independent of DSMx/FASST. 2.4GHz spread spectrum is pretty common now and there's no reason to pay licensing to Futaba or Spektrum to get access to either. The world has changed since ~2007 when DSM/FASST first started hitting the market. What was then-revolutionary is now common.

Same with these quads. When I was in school (graduated 2013), my focus was UAV/Drone research. "Drone" to me is a fully autonomous vehicle of any sort, but usually with the implication of aircraft. What these relatively cheap multicopters are doing nowadays (go home mode, follow mode, loiter mode, etc) is incredible. It's stuff that took a team of us a while to get working. When I was doing this stuff, the follow-mode quadcopter drone was just to help validate testing methodology for our big drone (~70lb airplane with mid-air restart with a custom-made gearbox and starter I designed and built). The quadcopter was really a fun toy the professor wanted us to play with and spent extra grant money on. Today, that could be accomplished off-the-shelf. Then, it cost us far more than a Spark in custom parts plus hundreds of free man-hours of labor to get something even kinda useful.