Couple guys at the field are all paranoid about their P3s sending data to the FAA. One went as far as selling his P3 because of that, regretting it a day later, lol. They are all worried about flying over 400ft, or outside the park. My ipad never gets connected to the internet anymore and is only used for my P3, but I don't think I would care anyway.
They said the info about the P3 sending data to the FAA is in the manual, but I cant find it.
Any thoughts?
Hi, I have read the manual and no there is no area that makes mention of the FAA and your Phantom 3 flight logs. Your friends are just paranoid and possibly just F'ing with you. And the FAA has no legal authority to tell you what you can and can not do with your quad in the USA as of this time. That doesn't mean they still can't try to harass you causing you both time and money.
It's also worth noting that there would be legal issues with respect to DJI collecting any personal flight logs from your Phantom without your express permission. And if they did so they would still not have the right to disclose that information without a subpena vs just randomly giving the info to any governing body automatically as is claimed.
Legalities aside here are some steps you can take if you are concerned about something dubious taking place.
Flight logs are stored locally within the internal memory of the Phantom 3. You have the ability within the DJI Pilot app to erase those logs from the Phantom 3
Lets say the Pilot app has the ability to automatically transfer Phantom 3 pilot logs to their server. The Pilot app can not do that without being connected to the internet. Delete your logs off your Phantom on a regular basis before you connect your tablet to the internet if you're paranoid they may magically get uploaded to DJIs servers somehow.
If you want to be super extra careful that no undisclosed transferring of flight logs are taking place you can take it a step further by completely deleting the DJI app before connecting your tablet to the internet. Assuming the uninstall process doesn't selectively leave files behind, such as discretely transferred logs from your Phantom to your tablet, then you should be fine. If it does leave files behind there are ways to clean that off too.
In Summary, I wouldn't worry about this whole thing. I think this whole DJI FAA log transfer is a conspiracy, rumor, BS and just that. But if you are concerned it is more and want to be safe then doing the above should sort you.