DJI Mandatory, uninterruptible actions are wrong, legally actionable

Here's the thing; I'm OK with GEO as in I'd like to have an automated system warn me before I'm going where I shouldn't. I enjoy that sort of automation. And it catching our "errors" in the air as we fly is cool, too. My complaint lies with what it does then.
Warn us - Turn us away - Stop us but do not EVER take away control of our craft, for which we are legally liable, from the pilot!

I beg DJI - when we hit that NFZ invisible wall, please just stop us, turn us away, back us up, do ANYthing but FORCE and unstoppable uncontrollable landing. That's just wrong.
 
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Drestin Black said:
Here's the thing; I'm OK with GEO as in I'd like to have an automated system warn me before I'm going where I shouldn't. I enjoy that sort of automation. And it catching our "errors" in the air as we fly is cool, too. My complaint lies with what it does then.
Warn us - Turn us away - Stop us but do not EVER take away control of our craft, for which we are legally liable, from the pilot!

I beg DJI - when we hit that NFZ invisible wall, please just stop us, turn us away, back us up, do ANYthing but FORCE and unstoppable uncontrollable landing. That's just wrong.
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I fly over water 75% of the time. Any forced landing caused by a GEO induced buggy NFZ would be catastrophic! I know where all the official NFZ's are, but it is the hidden, buggy ones that I have already encountered and reported that are all minefields! :eek: How many more are there, and how can I be sure that even the ones I have already reported have been removed? DJI has never followed up, as promised, in any way, to tell me they have been eliminated. I also have no reason to assume they have been fixed! I presume not! :eek:
 
Drestin Black said:
I beg DJI - when we hit that NFZ invisible wall, please just stop us, turn us away, back us up, do ANYthing but FORCE and unstoppable uncontrollable landing. That's just wrong.
Click to expand...

You have advocated many times that doing anything to take control away would be wrong, which should include stopping you, turning you around or backing up.

Mayhaps DJI should notify the FAA when we wander into airspace we should not be flying in, but not actually bar the action. Just a thought.
 
It's kind of a double edge sword. On the one hand, I understand your concerns about loss of control and auto return or land when it detects low battery or loss of signal. Since I have never experianced a restricted area, I was under the impression that it would just not allow it to fly into the zone. On the other hand, if it wasn't for those features , I would have lost my Phantom 3 more times than I'd like to admit.At the end of the day I am for the over rides that are built in to my UAS.
Regarding regulations in general, I believe the goverment is going a bit overboard. Contrary to one of the above post, in most cases,UAS's really are "Toys" . While I understand the safety concerns for dangerous "flying objects", " Drones " (even the name sounds menacing ) seem to be the bad guys.The registration with the FAA for 1/2 to 55lbs UAS's doesn't bother me but the not being able to fly them in most places does. One could argue that a carelessly thrown Frisbie , baseball, football or even worse, a lawn dart, should be regulated as they could certainly hurt some one as well. The point is, if people would just use common sense when flying thier UAS (Drone, football or what ever), the need for regulation would be unnesessary. Commercial UAS's probably should be regulated, as they usually are larger and since they are used for a business, would have to be insured as well.
 
Yes, I had the latest version of the DJI Go app. Ironically, I see that just today (Nov 15, 2016) Version 3.1.0 was released. I did not know about turning GEO on and off. I should also add that flying around in my neighborhood, at least five times I have encountered the message that blocked me from starting the engines, and I had to check the two boxes and confirm that I was authorized to fly after first logging in to the DJI website. On one occasion logging in did not appear to work, and I had to supply my credit card number to obtain authorization. Now, I want to read up on the emergency landing to find out why the Red X allowed me to abort the emergency landing, but only for a few seconds before the emergency landing recommenced. I checked the Flight Logs, and I aborted the emergency landing three times before crashing.
 
Really, this issue needs an attorney? Set the low battery to 30 percent and land it. You push the limits its your issue not DJI.
 
42FrankZ said:
You have advocated many times that doing anything to take control away would be wrong, which should include stopping you, turning you around or backing up.

Mayhaps DJI should notify the FAA when we wander into airspace we should not be flying in, but not actually bar the action. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Works for me.

Non-sarcastic, logical me would rather that it didn't take control away but warned us and prevented further intrusion, which would include not letting further "wandering" in a a particular direction but leaving control to the pilot to go anywhere else, like, backwards, or make a Controlled landing -- anything but: We Are Landing Now Right Now Right Here And You Can't Do Anything About It.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
 
Drestin Black said:
What does that do to help?
Was referring to this part of the original post
However, When the battery hits critical low you force me to land (except the small "trick" of keeping altitude by forcing the left stick up ... what if I NEED to go up and over a small obstacle before I make a 100% safe landing

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
Click to expand...
W
 
Also why can't you just turn off the areas affected in the dji site. I just turned off 2 airports for 3 days. Would this work
 
Wayne Tripp said:
It's kind of a double edge sword. On the one hand, I understand your concerns about loss of control and auto return or land when it detects low battery or loss of signal. Since I have never experianced a restricted area, I was under the impression that it would just not allow it to fly into the zone. On the other hand, if it wasn't for those features , I would have lost my Phantom 3 more times than I'd like to admit.At the end of the day I am for the over rides that are built in to my UAV
Click to expand...

Your post tries to turn the issue into a black or white, off or on, for or against issue.

It's not.

Nobody is saying that the existing automation that you are "for" should be taken away. They are saying that the pilot should be able to take control back from any one of these modes. If the request was granted by DJI - it wouldn't change the way you use your drone one bit. All of the automation you say that you are "for" would still be there.

What would change is that somebody overtop of lake or stream at 8% battery and 10m offshore at 20m altitude would be able to cancel the auto-landing into the water and navigate safely to the shore landing their drone at 4 or 5% battery. Same thing if they hit their low battery condition while they happened to be directly over the freeway. Being able to cancel the automation allows a local pilot the opportunity to prevent a bad thing from happening.

How can you not also be "for" that?


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots
 
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I agree, as long as I can keep the safty procals, I have no problem with the overide options you discussed.
I still think we are being over regulated though.
 
First of all, didn't read the whole thread, so this may have been posted already. By the time I got to page three of the ( Mod Removed ) playing nanny rather than dealing with the issue (and there is a very real one), I couldn't take any more.

Dustin experienced a very real deficit in the design of the software running the AC. Because there is no necessity to land immediately right at the edge of an NFZ, it is a problem that it does because of all the unplanned possibilities, including injury to someone. It's that simple.

Also, there is the property risk to the owner's AC, which is a valid consideration as well.

The point of an NFZ is to stay out of it. This can be accomplished in many ways that also meet the objectives discussed above (safety for bystanders and property) far better than simply descending and landing autonomously.

As one other member suggested, have it initiate RTH immediately, with appropriate notification on the screen. Alternatively, it could treat the NFZ as what it is, and refuse to fly in there like an impenetrable wall (again with notice on-screen). Software could do this with a 50m buffer setback from the NFZ to ensure no violation occurs.

Regardless, the way it works is among the worst, and I would say opens DJI to liability because they are responsible for how the AC behaves once this condition is met.
 
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Drestin Black said:
p.s., DJI - there is a really quick and easy fix you can do for flying into No Fly Zones, by the way. Instead of initiating a unstoppable automatic landing. Initiate, without delay, a Smart Return to Home. This way, the NFZ isn't violated but you leave control of the craft in the pilots hands.
Click to expand...

This is a great suggestion! Returning to home would be a much better solution than auto landing.
 
Absolutely agree! The auto-landing solution is potentially dangerous, potentially costly and is not the answer. I suppose the first lawsuit to be filed where DJI is held accountable ... which becomes a big news event ... which costs DJI millions of dollars ... will convince them to implement such a change, hmmm?
 
I think Samsung set precedence when they bricked everyone's phones. Unless there are lawsuits coming out of that, then I don't see DJI having a problem with altering our crafts with firmware updates as well.

It appears we are moving into a world where we no longer own the items we purchase from vendors.
 

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