r/drones

Hi everyone,

I'm new to San Antonio, Texas and had some questions about the area. I am newly certified under part 107. I also am a private pilot with my instrument rating and have been actively flying for a couple of years now.

I'm aware of the prohibited areas, bases and the airspaces around the city. My concern is that outside of these in the uncontrolled areas (in class G under 400'), I still see a LOT of military air traffic. Obviously I don't plan on flying my drone that high, but I would like to ensure I am being safe and considerate of other aircraft activity.

Do you recommend filing a LAANC, even when flying outside of these areas?

Are there any other rules or recommendations I should know about before I take my drone out for some aerial photography?

Thanks.

HoverAir Versa can be used like drone or like handheld gimbal pocket camera.

But what gets lost: its the first drone in long time that contains two native microphones!

So Versa is not only unique because its modular, its also the only modern DRONE with MIC!

Also 4k60, auto tracking, 10-bit H-LOG, 1/1.3 sensor, up to 17.5 stops dynamic range, 230g

https://preview.redd.it/2uxwri1yp9kh1.png?width=1208&format=png&auto=webp&s=09510a18711111e87a745fff4679ac069fdd6a4b

I love this snapshot of my drone i bought a few days ago!!

I've never edited photos or anything like that but some photos i see on this thread look amazing. Is there any way to edit photos to make them look a bit better even as a complete beginner? I mainly just care about editng the colors and such to make them pop more

I was flying my sky Rover S1 in my neighborhood yesterday, and as it was coming back, a hawk was chasing it. It freaked me out. I had to lower altitude and rush it back. It was weird because I’ve never had this happen before. I recently started flying and was wondering if this happens often to other people? What’s a good idea to prevent this from happening? Are birds generally attracted to drones?

Hi, does anyone have experience flying in Istanbul? Was thinking about filming the Blue Mosque, but I’m afraid of the regulations. My drone is 249g so I believe I don’t need a flight license in Turkey, but the information online is ambiguous. Thanks :)

I have a bran new drone that I got as a gift, so didn't have a choice. I have a Ruko F11PRO 2. I've flown it about two hours so far. I live by the ocean in Southern California, and I'm a surfer, so I'd like to try taking some videos of my friends surfing, but the idea of flying over the water scares me.

I know the two hours is not much, and I plan on flying a lot more before I try the water. What tips or advice can you give on flying over water, other than just practice more? Are there any exercises I could try over land to better my skills for water shots?

Thanks

My son has (had) an old Holy Stone drone we got years ago--HS110 I think--and it has been, for lack of a better term, weird for a while. We learned that if you only use the provided controller, instead of a phone, it would follow your commands 90% of the time (an improvement to maybe 50% of the time if the phone was also attached). But lately it wasn't accepting inputs and would do things on its own accord. It's cheap, I didn't expect DJI level of software (I use a DJI Mini 3 for work recon), so we just had fun and enjoyed its random acts of disobedience. But last night, it left us. Maybe it decided to go to a farm upstate or something. My son was flying it and he said it's not listening to me...and he was right. The drone went up to about 100 feet and then started flying away, slowly. It went past the field beyond our property and we were trying to get it to land (I even opened the phone app) but it had its own mission. It kept flying farther and farther away and we lost sight as it crested a small hill. Hopefully it's in a better place now.

So we need another [budget] drone (under $200). I can't let him fly my work drone, so I was wondering if any newer Holy Stone drones are decent and better at not abandoning their pilots?

https://preview.redd.it/hg3gvzt5rzjh1.png?width=849&format=png&auto=webp&s=020e1cde37a62c2b2db53bf7df91f297c8690e25

I came across this video on Instagram and I'm trying to understand how this flight was legally possible under Polish and EU drone regulations.

As far as I understand, flying a drone directly over an assembly of people is generally prohibited in the Open Category. In this video, however, the drone appears to be flying over a large crowd.

How was this operation legally conducted? Did the operator have a specific authorization from the Polish Civil Aviation Authority (ULC), or was there another legal basis that allowed this type of operation?

I'm particularly interested in:

• What category of operation was this? category A1/A3?
• What authorization or operational approval would be required?
• Could this have been conducted under a specific scenario or exemption?
• Is there any way to verify whether the operator had the necessary authorization?

I'm not claiming that the flight was illegal. I'm genuinely curious about what permissions or legal framework would allow a drone to operate over a crowd in this situation.

Video: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcJA-0VCdjd/?hl=pl

Hi all. Some context: the drone is literally brand new. Opened the box 2 days ago, charged the drone and controller, connected them, and updated the firmware. Finally had the opportunity to fly it today because it was raining the last few days, so I charged everything back up to full and went outside, but nope, the drone simply refuses to connect to the RC controller. 

Did the usual of turning everything off and on several times with no success. Then I tried manual pairing by holding down the drone power button for 4 seconds, but it refused to go into pairing mode (did not beep and LED was the wrong pattern). Did that about 10 times before I gave up and tried connecting it to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) to try factory resetting the drone itself, but it didn’t even show up as a device on my computers (tried both Mac and Windows 11), and it isn’t the cable or my computers because the RC controller connected just fine.

Here is the full list of things I’ve tried and found:

• Unable to connect drone with RC controller (in normal pairing and manual pairing)
  • Unable to put drone in pairing mode for manual connection (drone does not beep after 4 seconds of pressing the power button, and LEDs do not flash in the correct pattern)
  • Does the same thing whether I am on home WIFI or a cell hotspot, so don't think the network is an issue.
• Unable to connect drone to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) software on Mac or Windows 11 using provided USB-C cable (the drone isn’t even detected as a USB device)
  • RC controller able to connect to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) using provided USB-C cable
• Drone isn’t able to power on once connected to computers (can only power on when it’s disconnected), but I’m not sure if that is just a design feature. In contrast, the RC controller can be powered on after being connected
• RC Controller stuck on “Locating” in top left corner (doubt this is actually related to the issue, but worth noting), but still displays my location and area just fine

I've spent hours trying everything I can find online, including from old Reddit posts. At this point, I suspect it’s a hardware failure of some sort in the drone, but it still baffles me as to why there’s no feature to simply factory reset the drone with a long press of the power button, which would make troubleshooting and isolating the problem source much easier. 

Frankly, I’m pretty fed up with the whole thing. It hasn’t even flown once and it already seems to be broken, and all of the troubleshooting steps are ineffective. 

With all of this in mind, what should I do at this point?

If it is indeed a hardware failure in the drone (motherboard, etc), would DJI provide a free replacement? I should note that the drone was actually delivered over a month ago because I bought it off Amazon during the Prime Day sale, but I only just got back from traveling. Maybe this kills any chance of a replacement.

If anyone has experienced similar problems and knows how to solve them, please let me know. Any help would be hugely appreciated. I am also happy to provide any additional details if needed. Thank you very much for your time