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Flying over White Pass

NacMacFeegle

Well-Known Member
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Jan 23, 2018
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68
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Pacific Northwest
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I filmed this with the DJI Spark nearly a year ago, but didn't do anything with the footage until now. Looking back it's crazy how much better at flying I am now than I was back then! It's still got enough interesting mountain scenes to be worth sharing, and I hope to return soon to fly there again.
 
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I filmed this with the DJI Spark nearly a year ago, but didn't do anything with the footage until now. Looking back it's crazy how much better at flying I am now than I was back then! It's still got enough interesting mountain scenes to be worth sharing, and I hope to return soon to fly there again.
Really well done! Great scenery captured well! That's up in the Yukon isn't it?
 
Thanks for info,I'm your northern neighbor and I never new there was White Pass in Washington. I was in the Yukon back in the late 80's and road the old White Pass R.R.steam locomotive in Skagway. Rugged country up there to be sure!
 
Thanks for info,I'm your northern neighbor and I never new there was White Pass in Washington. I was in the Yukon back in the late 80's and road the old White Pass R.R.steam locomotive in Skagway. Rugged country up there to be sure!

I drove down from Alaska a few years ago through the Yukon - spectacular place! Got to see a bit of Kluane National Park and Whitehorse, so many beautiful, empty places up there. Wish I could go and spend a month or two exploring......
 
Beautiful footage. Love the use of foreground and reveals. And you weren't accosted by any mal-contents, rangers, deputy game wardens, or other anti-drone busy bodies, who know you shouldn't have been doing whatever it is you were doing?? You may have disturbed wildlife, you know...
 
Beautiful footage. Love the use of foreground and reveals. And you weren't accosted by any mal-contents, rangers, deputy game wardens, or other anti-drone busy bodies, who know you shouldn't have been doing whatever it is you were doing?? You may have disturbed wildlife, you know...

Thanks!

I always half expect someone to jump from the bushes shouting and red in the face, furious that I dare to fly a drone......
 
Amen... I've adopted the stealth strategy... I find out of the way, semi hidden places to operate from, away from my car. I'll search Google Earth for places just outside of State Parks, affording me direct line of sight (for telemetry range... not looking at the drone...it's pretty much out of sight in a flash). Today, I visited a unique PA site.... The Kinzu Bridge (Google Earth it!). This is a hundred plus year old railroad bridge (150' above the floor) that was partially destroyed by a tornado about 10 years ago. The remaining west half of the trestle was turned into PA State Park "skywalk." Of course, you can't fly your drone there.... So... I went in from the east side, thru some sketchy dirt roads to capture my footage... outside of the State Park and away from anybody wanting to F with me. It was a joy to fly 50' away, alongside this massive bridge, over the welcome center.... and there wasn't a flippin' thing some jerk was going to do about it. The max distance was 1/4 mile from my position, everything worked out fine. I will not be able to post any aerial video on You Tube...for obvious reasons... however, what a place to make a stealth mission into :)20190106_145612.jpeg20190106_142810.jpeg
 
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Amen... I've adopted the stealth strategy... I find out of the way, semi hidden places to operate from, away from my car. I'll search Google Earth for places just outside of State Parks, affording me direct line of sight (for telemetry range... not looking at the drone...it's pretty much out of sight in a flash). Today, I visited a unique PA site.... The Kinzu Bridge (Google Earth it!). This is a hundred plus year old railroad bridge (150' above the floor) that was partially destroyed by a tornado about 10 years ago. The remaining west half of the trestle was turned into PA State Park "skywalk." Of course, you can't fly your drone there.... So... I went in from the east side, thru some sketchy dirt roads to capture my footage... outside of the State Park and away from anybody wanting to F with me. It was a joy to fly 50' away, alongside this massive bridge, over the welcome center.... and there wasn't a flippin' thing some jerk was going to do about it. The max distance was 1/4 mile from my position, everything worked out fine. I will not be able to post any aerial video on You Tube...for obvious reasons... however, what a place to make a stealth mission into :)View attachment 8242View attachment 8243

That's a pretty incredible bridge! It's too bad PA bans drones in State Parks, Washington recently did the same (not entirely banned, but the convoluted permit process is essentially the same as a ban!). That's why even though I live in Washington I enjoy travelling to Oregon to fly as they have much more relaxed drone regulations (decided on a per park basis).

There's a big bridge like Kinzu here in Washington, but it's on private land that was recently closed to public access due to the huge number of instagrammers that flooded the area a few years back. I've been thinking of finding a place nearby where I can fly in to get some aerial footage of it.
 
PA's quite hostile to drone flying in the State Parks. So... shoot from outside of the park. (do Not try this in a National Park.) Here's a story illustrating why I'm going to mod my Spark to defeat NFZ's. The day I hiked into this site (the No Trespassing signs welcome you to the park...) I self-unlocked the Bradford Regional Airport blue advisory zone at home on my PC. The 72 hour "license" to fly the zone was visible as "valid" in my DJIGo4 app. However, after hours of busting my @ss hiking in from the deserted side of the gorge, my Spark was locked out, and would not arm for takeoff. I tried to unlock again from my Galaxy 9s, but got a box saying requests rejected over "mobile devices"...."use a PC.. " Yesh.... I'll just pull my PC out of my behind in the middle of nowhere. I was fit to be tied. To add insult to injury, if you look at how the blue zone overlies Kinzua State Park, you will see that I was at the extreme EASTERN boundary of the park..... NOT even within the blue locked zone... and still, I was locked out from flying. So.... I'm all in for defeating this stupid DJI NFZ baloney.20190108_095759.jpeg20190106_150251.jpegScreenshot_20190108-153412_Chrome.jpeg
 

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This blue zone is Class E airspace.... the lowest on the regulatory totem pole. Class G is "uncontrolled" airspace, where I was located. The associated airport doesn't even have a tower, but there is a published VOR approach, hence the Class E controlled airspace on the approach corridors to "cover" IFR flight plans. This area is so desolate that there are reported Bigfoot sightings in the area... .lol.
 
I'm really not a fan of DJI's heavy handed software - I know it's to stop people from doing dumb things, but it's so buggy and stupid that it ends up being a liability for everyone! I really hate the 1500 foot ceiling they enforce, as where I live there are lots of places where you need a lot more altitude than that in order to get to the top of mountains!

One thing to keep in mind with state and even National Parks is that its perfectly legal to fly over them, you just can't take off or land there.

For example, in my Chinook Pass video from back in November I took off from National Forest land and crossed in and out of Mt. Rainier National Park:
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I hope you are correct on that flying over Nat Pk info. I THINK that the FAA is treating Nat Pks as Special Use airpace. At least on the island where the Statue of Liberty is located, a videographer ( coaching drone pilots on how to shoot NYC legally) was cautioning folks to fly from a boat, and under no circumstances overfly the island, as it is Nat Pk territory. So, I may be wrong, but I think National Parks are verboden :( There is an east coast You Tube guy who tells a tale of woe on being busted from 2000 miles away for the crime of making a 30 second video over some Nat Pk land.
A year after the video was put up on You Tube, some ranger from that park saw the the vid, TRACKED DOWN the author, had a local CO prosecuter indict, put out a warrant.... whole 9 yards. In the end, they tried to fine him $2000, but a local judge reduced it to $850.... nice people.
 

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