UAV, Drones, R/C aircraft, quadcopters

[Crazyjoker77]

Its not the law that concerns me its all the whack-job civilians. I'm always reading stories of civilian drones getting shot down and owners getting assaulted or there stuff broken.

Over on RCgroups I've been following a thread about some kid that was flying at a public beach and some lady had a issue with him filming in public... He caught the whole ordeal on camera and just today got the ok from the cops to post it. It got 500k views before he pulled the original. Also, the woman has now been charged with assault and lying to a police officer. Video is worth a few Lulz.

Link

I know I would never of been able to stay as calm as this kid does if I was in that situation.

[speedog]

Originally posted by revelations
Technically, even nets for streethockey are illegal, so is sledding in the winter time and THROWING A FOOTBALL in a park.....

People have gotten tickets for driving around their RC trucks on cul de sacs as well.

Don't know about your throwing a football claim - can't see anything on the assiociated bylaw that restricts that, bylaw link.

[revelations]

Yea I looked and it wasnt there anymore. It was something pertaining to "launching any projectile" .... which could be interpreted by a bylaw officer as a foot ball.

[Crazyjoker77]

Everytime I watch videos like this I really want to build a mini fpv quad. Proximity flying seems like such a blast and the fact you can pack everything up into a laptop bag and be flying in 5min seems nice. To bad the frames have been on backorder for like the last 3months, although I see lots of chinese copies popping up on ebay at half the price.




Seems FPV racing is becoming more mainstream too. I would really like to get into it but not much interest in Canada it seems.

[Unknown303]

Damn that was sweet.

[UndrgroundRider]

The dude's build log is here: http://forums.openpilot.org/topic/30...s-mini-h-quad/

Pretty neat stuff. Might build one of my own after I finish up the 20 or so projects on my list.

[reijo]

The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) and ASN/FiA Canada have essentially banned the use of drones and such at their events.

Apparently the motorsport insurance does not cover flying machines.

Don't know about the SCCA but ASN/FiA Canada have stipulated that the operator have insurance coverage before being allowed. Apparently the machines fall under aviation authority regulations (FAA etc.).

R

[Crazyjoker77]

Originally posted by reijo
The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) and ASN/FiA Canada have essentially banned the use of drones and such at their events.

Apparently the motorsport insurance does not cover flying machines.

Don't know about the SCCA but ASN/FiA Canada have stipulated that the operator have insurance coverage before being allowed. Apparently the machines fall under aviation authority regulations (FAA etc.).

R

The whole drone thing is a super grey area right now as there are no real laws towards them and they are basically handled as RC aircrafts(as long as they are under 35kg) The laws are coming but as it stands its basically the wild west when it comes to unmanned vehicles. It does become a bit more involved when its for commercial purposes but realistically that isn't where the issues are happening. The issues is that dumbass joe is going out and buying a dji phatom and flying it into a crowd at a football game.

The FAA is trying to crack down and come up with rules(in fact they just came out with a document this week that basically disallows FPV flying altogether) but the FAA is only a regulatory body and not a governing party. Therefore you are not obligated to follow their guidelines until it goes to legislation and becomes law.(and we all know how fast that process goes). This was proven with the whole trappy/team black sheep ordeal that made its way to the supreme court.

Lots of events are banning people from bringing in drones BUT what is stopping you from taking off from the parking lot and flying over or even for that matter taking off from your backyard several km away? There really is no way to enforce it at the moment. If you throw stuff at the drone to bring it down the owner is going to have you charged with willful destruction of property and if it hits somebody because you were throwing stuff at it and hurts someone YOU are the one that is gonna be held responsible for making the hazard not the drone operator. (as it wasnt a hazard just hovering it only became a hazard once you caused it to crash)

I don't necessarily agree with how its being handled right now but thats the reality of how it stands.

The only insurance you can get for non commercial drones right now is through MAAC which is geared towards the rc plane guys and really it is super restrictive and only covers you for places that you generally wouldn't ever need the insurance anyway.

[thetransporter]

I have a brand new phantom 2
I read the instructions for hours
but cant get the camera/unit to pair with an iphone...

[Skidro]

So how much money would be needed to get started in this type of hobby? Is it possible to have the drone "track" a gps target?

[BavarianBeast]

Shit.

I'm going to get one of these to take aerial photos of our jobsites.

No more paying a company $10k a year for 4 photos. Sweet.

[Crazyjoker77]

Originally posted by Skidro
So how much money would be needed to get started in this type of hobby? Is it possible to have the drone "track" a gps target?

It really ranges depending on what you want to do it and what you equip it for axillary equipment. Some guys slap 3 go-pros on them so thats over 1k right there... Hell just my 2 sets of goggles cost me over 700$

The first drone is always gonna be more expensive as you also have to buy a radio (controller),batteries, and a charger. once you have those you can reuse them on other drones. Some of the futaba radios are almost 3k on the flip side you can get a turnigy 9x or similiar for around 100$ that is still good for 1km range or so.

Even just going to a quad from a tri adds quite a chunk of change as you now need another motor and speed control.

honestly though I would say around 2k will get you a pretty killer setup.

APM actually just added the first steps to GPS tracking in the last firmware update (called Follow Me mode)

link if you want to read more

Even before follow me mode was introduced all you needed was a aircard/telemetry and you could use your laptop and click to a point on google maps and it would fly to that location at whatever altitude you desire.


I'm a huge APM-adrupilot fanboy when it comes to flight-controllers. I dont really know how any others are still around it is just so packed with features for the price (~300). Not to mention its adruino and opensource so really the possibilities are endless if you know a bit of programming. Another reason I really like it is because of the insane amount of datalogging it does. It seriously is impressive and is actually more info contained in its datalogs than in any of boeing jetliners flight data recorders.

[Crazyjoker77]

Originally posted by BavarianBeast
Shit.

I'm going to get one of these to take aerial photos of our jobsites.

No more paying a company $10k a year for 4 photos. Sweet.

Again I'm preaching APM but it actually was originally designed for commercial surveying.

Heres a good video that gives you a idea of just how good it is and in fact it has even improved more as the video is almost 2 years old and APM is rapidly evolving. I love the fact it already has most High end cameras programmed in.

[Unknown303]

My quad with batteries was about 350 for everything to fly it.

[Crazyjoker77]

Got lots of flying in over the long weekend. Thought I would share these couple nice shots.

[dirtsniffer]

Any idea where I cna get a decent beginners quad copter locally?

I was thinking this one

http://www.amazon.ca/Syma-Channel-2-...ds=quad+copter

[Unknown303]

I'd get the traxxas quadcopter QR-1 It gets great reviews.

[AndyL]

Pm hobbycraft, modelland ... Have the bigger local selection...

[clem24]

It surprises how high and long these things fly for (and how stupidly stable they are)!

[Unknown303]

Finally tested mine out in the open the other night. Going to see if I can strap the Gopro to it and get some flight/crashes tonight hopefully...