Author: Curt Eckert

Date: September 2020
Location: Irvine, CA
Airspace: Class C with LAANC
Specialty: Videography

Job: Take a video of the exterior of the building and then take a video of the inside. This job did not go as well as intended. The Automatic Airspace Authorization from LAANC worked fine the week before. I got approved within 30 minutes, however, the plant still needed to do some final cleanup, so we postponed it a week. The next week came and the day before I went to LAANC to file an Automatic Airspace Authorization Request. This time I was denied. I knew we were right on the border of a 0-foot surface grid and a 50-foot grid. I was told to file a manual request, which of course takes up to 30 days to process. My customer was not so happy, and I had to tell them that look there is a major airport within 5 miles.

Lessons Learned: I guess if there is a possibility of being denied airspace authorization, I should have confirmed it sooner than I did. I waited till 28 hours before though and was told 24 hours was required which I met. I guess I should have checked 96 hours before is all I can say. But the problem did not stop there, inside the manufacturing building with steel beams and heavy machinery and steel walls etc. the EVO II 8K did exactly what it is supposed to do. If at any time it senses too much metal which interferes with its IMU and compass the drones stops and hovers. That is good to know because outside the drone could raise up to its return home altitude. However, Autel told me that was what would happen to the EVO II indoors. It would detect obstacles overhead, which it did, and that basically turns off the RTH function. So, I had to change altitudes and slide around steel beams this of course meant I did not have a smooth video. My only saving grace was I turned on PVI and set it to 5 seconds so in addition to 3 movie clips I also gave them 147 screenshots to select from and that made them happy.

Date: July 2020
Location: Auburn, CA Winery
Airspace: Class G
Specialty: Solar Inspection with an IR camera.

Job: Using a MAVIC 2 Enterprise Dual with IR I inspected a roof with solar panels. I found one panel that was not right. To confirm if it was a panel issue or was it possibility glare from the sun, I panned to one side to see if the glare moved, it did not thus there is an issue with the panel. At this point all I can do is to inform the owner.

Lessons Learned: I should have taken a picture of the panel which would have provided me grid coordinates.

Date: June 2020
Location: Huntington Beach, CA
Airspace: Class G
Specialty: Inspection with an RGB camera.

Job: I was asked to fly my drone up the backside of a two-story house and take pictures of their gutter. I had to pan sideways and use my gimbal and zoom to keep things centered. What you do not see in this picture is that there was a strong wind coming over the roof that was battering me about.

Lessons Learned: I almost got my self-caught in a catch 22. There was just enough room to fly straight up from my launching point, but the real problem came when I was descending back down. The wind and obstacles all around to include a bi-level structure that may have confused my drone where the ground was made it difficult to control my drone. It all worked out ok but after looking at it again, I should have just flown up and over the house and landed in the front yard. Thus, that was my lesson learned. I also needed to know how to turn off my obstacle avoidance capability quickly. Here are some pictures I took. I was flying my Autel EVO II Pro.