Recent content by RMartin

There is bound to be more to this story than what was revealed. That being said, the TFR is for a naval weapons facility and the railhead leading to the piers. If there was a LOADEX going on at the time of the flight, or more plausibly that the pilot was within 3K feet of the railhead, that was...

I've performed the role on one job for another licensed 107 pilot who lacked the airspace authorizations for the area. I made sure that the failsafe programming was properly set up and the homepoint was correctly set for each flight. Then walked him through his preflight and briefed the...

As long as a 107 holder is present you are good to go.

As long as you do not stray from the country club grounds you max ceiling is going to be 200 feet AGL and you will need to file for Class B authorization via the LAANC system at a minimum of 24 hours in advance to be certain that authorization is granted. If you need to fly above the 200 foot...

Knowing exactly where you are going to fly will give us a chance to give you an accurate answer. Based upon the information provided, yes you are going to have to have a 107 pilot as the RPIC for your flight -or- obtain 107 certification yourself. Other than that, its all speculation and guess work.

I've done something similar with my Inspire. I created two flight plans that excluded a 25 X 50 foot box around the tower on both plans. When you put them together it creates a 50 X 50 foot exclusion zone around the cell tower. Not elegant but it got the job done. Make sure you don't end the...

Some of the community colleges are starting to offer UAV programs that will get your feet wet. That will give you an understanding of coordinates, projection systems, some GIS and/or CAD and maybe even some imagery processing software.

That covers everything Federal. It does not have any state sites listed though. Again, you need to be knowledgeable about your own state laws as well.

Haven't found one of note yet though I did go through a training yesterday on setting it up to run in Pix4D and the calibration routines. I reached out to the research side last week and am looking at options. We have a job pending that might develop into a paying event and multiple flights. If...

"Critical infrastructure" is supposed to be on the list and includes power plants but not sure about substations. I do know it has been included in the state laws here but state agencies are waived as long as they are performing state business. To check, I pulled up the FAA UAS Facilities map...

I've had that issue with the Inspire and Pix4D Capture. Never did figure it out. Just created a flight plan to fill in the affected area and stitched it all together. All your failsafe limits are filled out in the GO app. If one of them ever kicks in during a Pix4DCapture flight they still apply...

We file on every flight but 99% of our flights are in controlled airspace. Just good business.

Filing a NOTAM via ENII works better....you reach a wider audience.

I think a lot of people thought this was a new career not realizing that a UAS is just another tool. No matter how many tools your have in your bag, if you don't know how to use them, they are worthless. Buying a UAS does not make you a surveyor or an agronomist or anything else for that matter...