Welcome Inspire Pilots!
Join our free DJI Inspire community today!
Sign up

Unlocking restricted zones

Joined
May 13, 2014
Messages
73
Reaction score
11
Is there a way to unlock a restricted zone? I am wanting to fly my Inspire 2 at an airport that’s in Class E airspace. I have the airport manager’s permission to video a balloon festival.
 
The answer would be yes, with the proper authorization and credentials a restricted zone can be unlocked. Please note that is can take time to receive this authorization so plan in advance.

UNLOCKING REQUESTS
GEO displays zones of various risk levels in which flight may pose safety or security concerns and allows users to unlock them. Unlocking low-risk zones requires just a few taps or clicks, while high-risk zones require users to submit particular credentials to ensure compliance with local policies and regulations.

Here is DJI's portal for unlocking authorization zones: DJI - The World Leader in Camera Drones/Quadcopters for Aerial Photography

Any inquiries regarding unlocks should be directed to [email protected]

Hope this helps, safe flying! :cool:
 
We unlocked a red restricted zone to operate at our local airport just last week.

For the UK they needed the following information:

Copy of your PfCO
Copy of your passport or driving licence
The model & serial numbers of the DJI aircraft & remote you plan to use
The email address of the DJI account linked to your equipment
The coordinates of the location and radius you will be working in
The reason for requesting flight
The start date and duration for the unlocking
Confirmation that you have permission from the ATC at the airport

Simply email [email protected] with the above information and they will get back to you with instructions on how to activate the unlocking or a request additional requirements for the location you plan to fly. The whole process took 2-3 days. They were very helpful but I guess they are only responding during Chinese working hours so please bear this in mind and make the request in plenty of time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: axelz and Advexure
Flying in a Red Zone comes with a few tricks and warnings. You must be inside the red zone to unlock. If you are even a meter outside you will be in yellow zone with different restrictions (even if you have cleared a much wider area with DJI).
Flying the edge of a red zone can cause any number of weirdness.
A weak GPS or intermittent GPS will also cause much grief as you will be forced to land and re-unlock.
OF course DJI changes things without notice so your experience may vary.
BE REALLY CAREFUL as the zone is RED because it is near and airport. That the system makes your aircraft less reliable = double jepordy IMHO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pescatoral Pursuit
For the UK they needed the following information:

Copy of your PfCO
Copy of your passport or driving licence
The model & serial numbers of the DJI aircraft & remote you plan to use
The email address of the DJI account linked to your equipment
The coordinates of the location and radius you will be working in
The reason for requesting flight
The start date and duration for the unlocking
Confirmation that you have permission from the ATC at the airport

In the UK, does the regulating authority require it's certified operators to supply this kink of information to third party vendors like DJI?
If they don't, I don't understand why you would put up with it.
 
Is there a way to unlock a restricted zone? I am wanting to fly my Inspire 2 at an airport that’s in Class E airspace. I have the airport manager’s permission to video a balloon festival.

Unlocking you craft aside, if the airspace at the airport is surface class E, the airport manager has no authority to give you permission to operate in the airspace. If you are a hobbyist doing it for fun and won't be using the imagery for anything other than personal enjoyment, all you have to do is notify the manager of your intentions. Asking for permission is a nice thing to do but not required in that case.

For Part 107, you must either use the FAA's web portal (FAADroneZone) or the LAANC system if the airport is included.

If you are a Remote Pilot and this is all news to you, I would respectfully submit you need to do some studying.
 
Last edited:
Is there a way to unlock a restricted zone? I am wanting to fly my Inspire 2 at an airport that’s in Class E airspace. I have the airport manager’s permission to video a balloon festival.
So I will be putting up a video soon. The bottom line is you can custom load FW 01.00.0330 which was the last firmware to allow you to edit the NFZ setting. I have confirmed that you can load FW 01.01.0200 but using the flight controller packages from FW 00.0330. You could do the same with FW 01.01.0010 if you prefer that FW. I will test FW 01.01.0300 when I am able to download it. If you are unfamiliar with how to do then then you can watch the video from DigDat0 on YT. It is the same process for Mavic, P4, and the I2.
Obviously you must fly repsonsibaly and leagally!! But this solves the problem of DJI causing any problems with your flight when you are legal to fly but their system does not allow it. The link to Steve's video is
.
I rolled back to 330 then updated to 01.0200 after deleting following packages from the .0200 FW zip file.
wm620_0305_v34.10.00.21_20160621.pro.fw.sig
wm620_0306_v03.02.30.13_20170405.pro.fw.sig

I did not test just simply adding the 2 packages above to the newer firmware?? But it was easy to just roll back to 330 and then update with the .0200 modified FW. Hope this helps.
 
Proceed with caution.

I had a job adjacent to an airport. I was very happy with my fw 1.08 and hadn't upgraded because of the restrictions dji was beginning to add, and as far as i was concerned I liked exactly how my drone flew.

Flew the night before the job to make sure all was in working order and it was, then emailed request dji provides to temporarily remove the nfz. The next morning I had a notice to update my go app, and did thinking it was the removal of the nfz. Get to the job and fire it up and NO CAMERA. Black screen. So in haste I updated all fw which brought the screen back, but with no camera or flight control.

After several phone calls to tech support over the next 2 weeks I got it cobbled together enough to fly but go app had to be uninstalled and reinstalled almost every flight and had bogus warnings and video feed would cut out about 200' away.

The only remedy dji offered was to send it in which wound up costing me several hundred dollars.

Lightbridge is a great program but the company wrapped around it is a revelation of the Chinese mentality when it comes to their product and customer relations, which is to say expect a lot of flaws, glitches, and paying to have those glitches fixed that shouldn't be there, while receiving terrible customer service along the way.
 
That is why I wanted to let folks know this works. As of Feb 15th I was using latest GoApp4, latest FW on Cendence controller.

You must hit ignore the update notices. I know that my I2 flies correctly and safely so I do not want any changes made. Before I updated the GoApp on my main ipad I used one of my kids ipad with latest GoApp to make sure all works fine. After that is confirmed I update my iPad GoApp4.

I am using the x5s.

If you watch the video from DigDat0 and use DrankDroneDownloader, you can download 4 different FW versions.

01.00.0240
01.00.0330
01.01.0010
01.01.0200

00.0330 is the last FW that allows you to mod the NFZ.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
22,277
Messages
210,655
Members
34,326
Latest member
BobbyeriGop