You are in a no-fly zone... today, yesterday you weren't.

[Shazbot4]

latest firmware update and i was the sucker who blindly installed it. now my inspire is a 3000 dollar paper weight over night and i didn't even have to crash it.

all of central san diego has been encompassed by the mother of all no fly zones. i can't fly anywhere near my house without a 20 minute drive in a direction where i wouldn't want to film anything anyway.

can't film boats. parks.. events... the ocean.... can't fly the inspire all the places i have been, like my back yard to lean the features and practice. the places a person would actually want to capture events on video all off limits.

according to DJI it's not their fault, it's the FAA's rules... so looks like im out. along with the worlds largest eletric r/c club which is now also in the no fly zone.

i bought this thing for a race this summer and was questioning to resell it when i was done. now there is no question.... whats the point of this thing if i can't film in the area where i live? there is no point, answer it's useless.. what if i travel some where and a no fly zone is in place, oh well? yeah i'll use something else.

picture shows the monster no fly zone and you can see im almost smack dab of the middle of it.

 

[Inspire1China]

Holy crap that is a huge no fly zone. Is that just for SanDiego airport?. Maybe someone can figure a hack around this by diconnecting the GPS or something....

Sorry to here this, it really sucks. Good luck selling it. There might be few more on eBay from your area as well.

 

[Shazbot4]

there are 2 airports there. Lindbergh Field, the one runway wonder which has a no fly zone just the air strip. no problem and the second one is north island air base which is in the middle of that thing.

the best part is. miramar air base, north out of picture (where they filmed top gun) is about twice the size of north island and it's no fly zone is not even 1/4th that size

 

[beatnik]

What if you only want to fly low level? Is it pretty much no fly from ground level up? It's always seemed a little conservative to think that flying lower than trees miles from an airport is a no fly zone. Pretty much rules out paper airplanes too. But I understand. Sometimes Gov entities require the "Sledge Hammer" approach. No Pun intended.

Beat

 

[Shazbot4]

i turn my inspire on. the light turns red and says" no fly zone." try to arm the thing and it says. "no fly zone" and shuts down. turn off gps mode, still wont fly with that big window in the tablet that says "no fly zone"

can't even turn the motors on. not much i can do about that. anyone know how to factory reset the transmitter and aircraft?

 

[DCGOO]

When I scroll my map out your way the No Fly Zone just barely covers the field at SAN. Does not even touch Coronado or Balboa Park. What happens when you take the aircraft outside and let it get a good GPS lock?

 

[Shazbot4]

i tried it just as you described about 5 times in my back yard where i have been flying.. the l.e.d. on the back of the inspire is solid or blinking red.

 

[Shazbot4]

When I scroll my map out your way the No Fly Zone just barely covers the field at SAN. Does not even touch Coronado or Balboa Park. What happens when you take the aircraft outside and let it get a good GPS lock?

can we trade tablets?

 

[flydogs]

**** I live right in North Park and fly at Morley Field a lot. Guess I am not putting this update in. I wonder if I need to keep the iOS app from updating too.

 

[Outta Control]

That Sucks. Sorry to hear.

 

[Whodatdere]

Wow, that is a ridiculous no fly zone. That's like 15 square miles from the look. Wth I thought it was supposed to be a graduated no fly zone not just one big x.

 

[Shazbot4]

good news first. i got my inspire operational again with the latest firmware. i reformatted the sd card in the camera then un installed and re installed the dji pilot app about 10 times. the app kept crashing on the start... and by start i mean starting the rotors up.

now this part is strange. i dont see any no fly zones on the google map on the tablet. zero of them... am i missing an option that displays them, i thought they were kinda automatic. did i break the FAA?

 

[Shazbot4]

i uploaded a picture to my OP. i took this picture of north island from the west looking east last month,. this was way way over 400ft. i think altimeter said 630 when i took the picture and nothing stopped me from going higherother then i couldn't see it anymore lol. i think i put it at 650 for kicks lol, took 2 minuets to bring it back down.

most the sail boats in that picture are over 30 feet long and im within 2 miles of the run way

 

[luinil]

As a cross check I looked at the Hover app, http://www.hoverapp.io. Hover shows about the same area that is covered as part of the no fly zone. There are are actually larger no fly zones in Arizona, NM, and other parts of CA. I have no affiliation with the app but have found it useful to check the areas where I will be flying.

 

[Shazbot4]

Try not to fly over 400ft. It makes us all look bad anytime someone goes against standing FAA safety guidelines. Nobody may have complained about your flight, but it's not really worth the risk.

fyi where i live is on a pretty good size hill. my house is about 100 feet above sea level and even at 650 feet above sea level the top of point loma has an elevation of 450ft. so if i were to go to the top, the inspire just sitting on the ground is above the height limit and 200 more feet and i'd be right at where i took that picture. whats the difference?

this whole no-fly zone is a joke only with DJI equipment that will probably be their downfall when the equivalent inspire release without "no-fly zones" by another company.

 

[Shazbot4]

Measurement is above ground level, (AGL) not sea level (ASL).

I agree that DJI should be forcing customers to abide guidelines and/or laws. It's should be left to law enforcement.

so then how does my picture make inspire pilots look bad? if it's ground level then it explains why i was able to get so high.

 

[droneshop]

What happens when we get government permission to fly within those zones? In Canada this is very common that we can fly near an airport commercially if we get approval, and now DJI says we cant fly there?

 

[Wormwood]

What's interesting is the assumed liability by providing altitude limitations in & around no-fly zones without the user/operator's affirmation or control. How can an operator be held liable for an accident if flight regulations was never in his power to obey or not? For DJI to offer these limitations in their software, would like GM limiting our vehicle speed based on GPS location & the roads speed limit. Over time, we learn to get in the car mash the gas all the way down & let this nanny system govern our speed. Oops there's a hiccup in the system & the road speed limit is now 100mph scrreeeech BANG! Who's gonna get the short end of the stick? The operator has very little money for compensation.

 

[Jason Mezinko]

Could you block the GPS, and then fly?
I've heard of ways to block GPS signal with foil or copper mesh.

 

[JimPA]

One thing I just noticed with the new App (Android) (This could also apply to earlier versions too.) is that it will not show no-fly zones that are not close to you. As in, where the AC's GPS position is. For example. I drove to Pittsburgh last night and turned on the drone inside the hotel room. The Inspire and controller could not get a GPS lock, so it still showed me in Erie, 130 miles away. It was showing the no-fly zone for the Erie airport and several smaller air ports with in 75 or so mules. However, it was not showing a no-fly zone for Pittsburgh International Airport.

Once I took the Inspire and remote outside and it was able to get a GPS lock, it showed me correctly on the map. Funny thing was it was still not showing any no-fly zone. This was because the tablet did not have internet access. Once I returned back to my room where I had my internet access, finally the map updated and showed the no-fly zone around the Pittsburgh Airport. Then when I scrolled back up to Erie, the no-fly zone for that airport was not shown.