i saw it posted on the DroneDJ site at-
DJI will include ADS-B receivers in all DJI drones over 250 grams from January 2020 onwards
and all I could think was "It's about time!".
Seriously, how long have I been posting about this and other improvements which should have already been incorporated into their UAVs? Remember my posts showing me using a Flightradar24 SDR dongle on a tablet as part of my kit to tell me when and where the aircraft are around me? HERE-
steve flying.jpg I took that photo in March of last year. I have everything from crop dusters to pipeline inspection planes to low flying helos doing inspections of powerlines in my AO which I have to keep an eye out for.
Of course, all of this depends upon aircraft having ADS-B transponders so we can receive their signals. Many general aviation aircraft will not meet the deadline to have the transponders installed. Too many waited until the last minute for purchase and installation of the transponders and now there is a backlog in getting them into aircraft.
Add to this the fact that the military is not required to be beaconing out, so we won't see them on our screens. One of the drone v helo crashes they cite in the article involved a military Blackhawk helicopter. Will military use ADS-B to prevent this in the future? I encounter everything from Coast Guard Dauphins to Army Apache and Blackhawks buzzing my area. I even had to descend quickly once to avoid a C-130 flying low along the Mississippi River levee where I often fly for videos like this-
So let's make sure the military planes have the same beacon.
Will we be able to install ADS-B receivers in our older model UAVs such as the Phantom 3 and 4 series or the Mavic Pro? An add-on chip and a update to the DJI Go software should be able to accomplish this retrofit. But my bet is that this is part of the planned obsolescence of the older models. Darn shame as many of them are still flying quite well.
Anyway, glad you could make it to the party DJI. Now work on some of the other things we have been asking for recently.