Originally Posted by ianwood

I don't see anything in 107 that mandates being on the latest firmware.

EDIT: This is from 14 CFR 107 Section 7:



Inspire 1 Maintenance Manual:
http://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/inspi...ualV1.0_en.pdf

Nothing about being required to be on the latest firmware. Which is good because I can recall a few times when DJI issued a new firmware and all sorts of bugs were found that sometimes caused Inspires to crash. DJI would pull the firmware and tell everyone to avoid it. Now that's QA!

Originally Posted by Dave Pitman

Does the manufacturer (dji in this case) say somewhere that the aircraft is not airworthy if on non-current firmware?

My post was tongue in cheek. I know the Internet makes it tough for tone to get across some times, but yeah, I'm not updating anything

Originally Posted by BuffaloJustin

Straight from the FAA... If you're operating your UAS under Part 107 on anything except the most current firmware, in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations, you are in violation!

So those of us running pre-GEO firmware or Go app versions, time to update

Who determines airworthiness, since an airworthiness certificate is not required for part 107??


Sorry, late to the party but I thought in Part 107, it was the pilots responsibility to determine "Airworthiness"?

It is.

Aircraft Requirements • FAA airworthiness certification is not required. However, the remote pilot in command must conduct a preflight check of the small UAS to ensure that it is in a condition for safe operation

Originally Posted by cali_drone

Aircraft Requirements • FAA airworthiness certification is not required. However, the remote pilot in command must conduct a preflight check of the small UAS to ensure that it is in a condition for safe operation

YES, and it is left up to the pilot to determine if the latest and "greatest" firmware is "safe"

Like it has been argued, MANY corporations will not blindly accept software updates without testing them fully, in the environment that they will be used in. It should be no different here.

In the EU the EASA are proposing that the geofencing data has to be kept up to date.

The guy answering the audience's questions on that FAA Part 107 webinar which I screenshot gave several half-cocked answers, on more then just that question about firmware updates. He had to be corrected at least twice that I saw. He was an FAA employee but it wasn't the same guy who was actually giving the presentation, who I thought did a good job overall.

Originally Posted by Aerial_IRL

In the EU the EASA are proposing that the geofencing data has to be kept up to date.

Yea their stuff is looking bad.

God Knows what our "independent" clowns will come up with.

String most likely.

Originally Posted by Mad_angler1

Yea their stuff is looking bad.

God Knows what our "independent" clowns will come up with.

String most likely.

It's like a whole different team wrote the last Prototype document. I suppose with Brussels being in Belgium and them introducing a ridiculous 10m height limit recently you can kind of see there's a huge range of opinion across the EU. Maybe they just didn't want the Belgians to look foolish so picked something in between the more sensible 120m and 10m and came up with 50!

In fairness it is mostly to do with the injuries a drone can cause falling from 120m but all they had to do was introduce some sane weight categories, like 1kg, 4kg and 7kg and keep rookies flying something heavy down low.

It's not a done deal yet so hopefully some more sane heads will come together.

For as much as people complained about the FAA, the NPRM process worked pretty well in the US. Although Rule107 can be made better, its a great framework to start from.

Its the Nanny states and companies that are beginning to screw it up.

Originally Posted by Av8Chuck

For as much as people complained about the FAA, the NPRM process worked pretty well in the US. Although Rule107 can be made better, its a great framework to start from.

Agree, the FAA has proved much more reasonable and measured than most (including me) ever suspected they would be. At this point, I consider them a virtual advocate for sUAS operations.

I agree. Part 107 is a good start. Like Justin I tuned in to the FAA guy on the webinar last evening, and I got a real positive vibe. It doesn't make any kind of sense that a manufacturer would want to put themselves in the position of middle man in any form between certified operators and the government. They can only loose in that position. I'm real curious why Brendan doesn't make that happen in the quickest way.

Instead of a 'quick' system to unlock an area, why not a comprehensive system to eliminate the GEOfencing completely. It just seems to be some other motivation than safety.

Originally Posted by bmschulman

Do it once, and you are unlocked for the entire day. If that's not your experience, it may be because you aren't running the latest firmware and GO app. If you are, and still getting prompted during each flight, it's a tech support issue and something we'll fix because it was not designed to work that way. I have not seen other reports though. Are you running the latest software?

I am on the latest software. However, even if it works as you currently intend it to, it's still a major problem to be forced to deal with in flight. Why can we not preauthorize all these Enhanced Warning Zones that we know our planned flight will take us through prior to launch? Why are they hidden from us until we arm the motors? Why can't GEO be turned off in the air? Precious flight time is stolen on every flight having to deal with these Green zone authorizations after arming the motors.

I am not moving. These Enhanced Warning Zones are not changing. I fly this same route repeatedly on an almost daily basis. Why can we not permanently remove these Enhanced Warning Zone authorizations? Why not give us the option to turn them into Warning Zone type notifications that offer the same information WITHOUT requiring ticking three boxes in midflight every time, while FPV is blocked, and flight must stop to deal with them? If you are going to interrupt my flight with them, you must give me a way to preauthorize them like the Yellow Zones. But, alas, you think they aren't that important, yet they are important enough to force the user to stop flight to acknowledge them! You can't have it both ways!

Originally Posted by Gadget__Guy

I am on the latest software. However, even if it works as you currently intend it to, it's still a major problem to be forced to deal with in flight. Why can we not preauthorize all these Enhanced Warning Zones that we know our planned flight will take us through prior to launch? Why are they hidden from us until we arm the motors? Why can't GEO be turned off in the air? Precious flight time is stolen on every flight having to deal with these Green zone authorizations after arming the motors.

I am not moving. These Enhanced Warning Zones are not changing. I fly this same route repeatedly on an almost daily basis. Why can we not permanently remove these Enhanced Warning Zone authorizations? Why not give us the option to turn them into Warning Zone type notifications that offer the same information WITHOUT requiring ticking three boxes in midflight every time, while FPV is blocked, and flight must stop to deal with them? If you are going to interrupt my flight with them, you must give me a way to preauthorize them like the Yellow Zones. But, alas, you think they aren't that important, yet they are important enough to force the user to stop flight to acknowledge them! You can't have it both ways!

Because its the DJI way!
Looks like the mavic is not any different.

Originally Posted by HighFlyer2015

Because its the DJI way!
Looks like the mavic is not any different.

What is unknown is how Mavic will deal with GEO using only the controller and no app. If I have understood correctly, the app and phone is optional. Can you somehow authorize Enhanced Warning Zones from a controller without a touchscreen? Can you enable a C1 or C2 button to automatically tick the three boxes of the modal dialog box, so flight can continue without removing hands from the sticks? Just give me some unintrusive way of dealing with these Enhanced Warning zones, that look like they are less important than Green Zones, as they appear at the very far right of the bottom of the map, which is ordered RED=NFZ, YELLOW=Restricted, GREEN=Warning, GREEN=Enhanced Warning (but not a just a disappearing warning, but a silly "modal dialog" self-authorization in the MIDDLE of the screen, blocking FPV, that you CANNOT unlock in advance on their website, because DJI doesn't deem it important enough!).