Night flying.

[Steve Kennedy]

I don't go wandering at night, just an up, take some photos and back down and don't go too high, always in clear sight. I notice that the Spark does tend to wander on its own when it's dark as opposed to staying in place when it's daylight. I watch it and manually keep it in place. The question is; Is there a visual aspect of navigational stability coupled with GPS? It seems that without light, the wandering begins and GPS is only so good. Any insights?

 

[Heckmaniac]

I'm not an expert, but have done many night flights. When doing a return to home, GPS home point gets the Spark to the general location (within a few feet), and then the camera takes over to land the craft, recognizing the ground objects from where it took off from and initiates the "precision" landing. If the camera only see's complete darkness, then there will not be a precision landing and location of the drone can vary and instability when landing (like a hard landing) can take place. If you put a little light on where you take off from and land at, the camera will bring the drone in much closer to the spot and you will not have an uncontrolled hard landing. If you ever try flying the drone indoors in Atti mode, the bottom camera is what keeps the drone stable in flight. If the floor or carpet is exactly the same everywhere - I find the drone changes position and floats aimlessly if I don't take over with the controller.

 

[Steve Kennedy]

Thanks, you have confirmed my suspicions. Happy flying!

 

[Chips]

I'm still nervous about flying at night and only do so if I am in a very open area for landing. I trust the GPS to provide the location to RTH but I still worry about the descent not being exactly where homepoint is. If the space is not large, the drone may descend near obstacles. The idea about shining a light was also suggested by my son and I also think a strobe light might be useful to identify the landing spot if it is a very dark area. Having said that, I recently flew at night over a go-kart track which was quite brightly lit and the Spark returned and as it descended, it entered PRECISION LANDING mode and came down right on home point.

 

[Locutus40]

night flying is against the faa rules when you registered your drone... dont do it please... clear line of sight etc etc

 

[Heckmaniac]

Night flying is not against the rules if flying as hobbyist. Use proper collision avoidance strobes on drone and have line of sight. I use 3 Strobon Cree strobe lights and I can easily see drone for miles at night (can keep line of sight much further at night) and last I heard it is legal (unless something changed on that in the past few months).

 

[mano]

night flying is against the faa rules when you registered your drone... dont do it please... clear line of sight etc etc

There is a thread right now over at the Mavic Forum pertaining to this...A member there had a visit from the FBI, and they were trying to track down someone who was flying at night....So you may want to keep that in mind...Big brother IS watching, more than we know!!

 

[Heckmaniac]

There is a thread right now over at the Mavic Forum pertaining to this...A member there had a visit from the FBI, and they were trying to track down someone who was flying at night....So you may want to keep that in mind...Big brother IS watching, more than we know!!

I'll have to read the thread, but that's a pretty broad statement - guessing there are unrelated reasons if the FBI is on the hunt. I'm sure the FBI is not hunting down people for flying a drone at night. I've checked policies for hobbyists as well as contacted local police departments in the towns that I fly and nothing is there that says I can't or shouldn't. With proper collision avoidance lighting as well as notifying local airports, while following the normal AMA guidelines, that pretty much covers my proactive responsibilities as far as I know.

 

[BigAl07]

There is a thread right now over at the Mavic Forum pertaining to this...A member there had a visit from the FBI, and they were trying to track down someone who was flying at night....So you may want to keep that in mind...Big brother IS watching, more than we know!!

It's not the NIGHT portion of the flights they are questioning but the fact that "supposedly" they are harassing/interfering with Crane Operators at night. I also suspect that there is a LOT to that story we don't know about but merely flying at night isn't forbidden at the moment for hobby flights.

 

[BigAl07]

Here's the specific post on the thread in question:

I've been asked to contact an FBI agent tomorrow since he has some questions regarding my drone flying.

#5. The real purpose of the interview was to find out if I or anyone I knew was flying a drone at night along the river. He wanted to see if my drone had lights. The agent said there are drones flying at 3 a.m. on a regular basis & harassing crane operators who are unloading barges along the river. I've heard they're unloading the barges at night since it creates dust & community activists are trying to stop this unloading. I don't believe the drone operators are harassing the crane operators but the agent claimed there was video evidence.