Recent content by Joe Lipinski

Welcome! Again to reiterate - go slow (slow is smooth and smooth is fast). Practice, practice, practice. Use the flight sim and read over the manual and forums several times. Otherwise - have fun and fly safe. As for the laws - you'll have to check out local and state laws for Dallas but...

Yes, currently in the USA you need to have a 333 exemption to fly a UAS commercially (for any purposes). There are several people that have done commercial jobs without an exemption and although it's not being strongly enforced doesn't mean that you don't run the risk of being investigated...

Might just be me but it kinda looks like your gimbal is off horizon. I got that feeling of off horizon as it was flying between the two trees. Fairly smooth moves on the controls though - Nice job.

I've actually thought about using these ultrasonic modules to do some playing/prototyping. They would be great to make an obstacle avoidance platform (similar to the Matrice & Guidance platform) at a much lower cost. DJI actually allows additional hardware to talk to and control the phantom via...

I completely agree that avoidance should fall on the shoulders of the UAS operator I just wasn't sure what the SOP for said avoidance is. One could argue that avoidance could mean climb to avoid (that was my thought when this occurred because I was still getting out of the way but wouldn't risk...

Well aside for the possibility of a collision the consensus seems to be to reduce altitude. I started this thread not to provoke arguments about collisions but rather to determine what a pilot of a manned aircraft would expect from a drone pilot should there be a situation where the two crafts...

You can also use Airserver or Reflector 2 to airplay your iOS device's display and then record directly to your computer. One of the nice things about Reflector 2 is you can do voice overs while you're recording if that's important to you.

While I was flying recently (I was under the 400' recommended ceiling) I encountered a helicopter - I believe it was a Medivac helicopter - that had a flight path that somewhat intersected with where my copter was. I immediately increased altitude to ensure enough of a buffer between the...

Also a very similar backpack but about $25 cheaper - Backpack - AmazonBasics. Thanks to PhantomHelp for including it on their list of backpacks for the Phantom

Could absolutely be a relationship. The IMU (inertial measurement unit) helps keep the craft stable throughout flight. When you crash, The values the IMU uses to calculate (and compensate) for inertial movement tend to be off and can cause erratic movements. Anytime you crash you should always...

DJI also came out with a hood for your device - see this link. It looks to be well constructed and is a great deal compared to other ones. I don't think they've started shipping it but I would guess they will start popping up at DJI dealers soon.

Most likely you have the overexposure warning on. It will produce white and black stripes over areas that are overexposed. It is there to help you gauge proper exposure and is especially helpful when dealing with shots that have a lot of horizon in it. The zebra stripes will not record on your...

Just a heads up - the maximum recommended height by the FAA is 400' - it is not a law (yet). Check the FAA website to verify if you'd like. I too thought that it was a set height but found out after reading over the UAV recreational sections of their webpage that it is strongly recommended.

Hey All - this thread got me thinking about how to help out the new guys (including myself) so here's a new thread I started that i'd love to hear feedback on... Basically my thought is create a very comprehensive video series for all of the new people that covers almost everything. Check out...

Hi Everyone, I've heard many times that there is a lot of information left out of the Phantom video series and user manual. So in the spirit of helping out new people - I am going to try and make a video series that is rather comprehensive covering basic and advance topics of the Phantom 3. I'd...