Originally Posted by Morgon

Which only strengthens my point: You cannot save people from themselves. You can only make the craft as safe as it can be, and redundant sensors is the way to do that. I'm still not sure how Casey's issue has anything to do with the Geo system.

In your mind, what technical feature(s) is(/are) the Mavic (and other DJI products) missing that would somehow fix human behavior?

Okay. I'll try to explain. It's not about the technical aspects of GEO. It is about the irony.

Let's say I have a drone company, and I hire some employees. One employee is a marketer who's job it is to sell as much product as possible. One is a policy guy who's job it is to lobby government on the companies interests that will ultimately help sales over time.

The marketing guy does what ever they have to to increase awareness and excitement of new products. The policy guy rolls out a geofencing product that he can use as proof to legislators that the company is a good citizen with intent on keeping their less knowledgeable or less responsible customers in line so that hopefully the legislators don't enact more restrictive rules.

Then, the marketing guy (or his surrogates) provide new gear to some folks that fit perfectly into the "irresponsible" category that the policy guy is telling everyone that DJI is policing (with geofencing) .

Even after the marketing guy finds out that some of the guys they are giving pre release gear to are way on the irresponsible side of the ledger, they still choose to repeatedly give them more gear because they have lots of views.

Some of us here see this as an irony.

[QUOTE=Morgon;35925128]Apologies that this has gone way off-topic, but I do want to address Fox's reply ..

"I understand this may be difficult to grasp if you haven't been in the situation, but try to open your mind to the idea that receiving a company's product by a third party is not involvement with that company inasmuch as being responsible for anything that person does. "

You're missing the point, I have no problem with Ed responding professionally to the situation. I was pointing out his attitude and condescending tone isn't appreciated. He used to be a great "to the point" resource for DJI. Now he loves to stir the pot just as much as the rest of us. That said for someone in his position, its not professional and at least for me, turns me away from reading all these posts. All I was asking is that we stick to the topic. If ED can't handle the questions and critiques from paying customers then maybe he should find another job... When we work as professionals many times we have to keep our mouths shut and do our job even though we disagree. Just because hes on the other end of a computer screen doesn't make it okay.

Ed, I hope you can take this as an honest critique. lets get back to the GEO conversation and forget about the attitude. That said, I am interested to know how Casey's Mavic or P4 was able to fly in various restricted zones?

Originally Posted by Dave Pitman

Okay. I'll try to explain. It's not about the technical aspects of GEO. It is about the irony.

Let's say I have a drone company, and I hire some employees. One employee is a marketer who's job it is to sell as much product as possible. One is a policy guy who's job it is to lobby government on the companies interests that will ultimately help sales over time.

The marketing guy does what ever they have to to increase awareness and excitement of new products. The policy guy rolls out a geofencing product that he can use as proof to legislators that the company is a good citizen with intent on keeping their less knowledgeable or less responsible customers in line so that hopefully the legislators don't enact more restrictive rules.

Then, the marketing guy (or his surrogates) provide new gear to some folks that fit perfectly into the "irresponsible" category that the policy guy is telling everyone that DJI is policing (with geofencing) .

Even after the marketing guy finds out that some of the guys they are giving pre release gear to are way on the irresponsible side of the ledger, they still choose to repeatedly give them more gear because they have lots of views.

Some of us here see this as an irony.

Two different things to me, because I still don't understand what this has to do with Geo itself. See below:

Originally Posted by FoxRacing426

That said, I am interested to know how Casey's Mavic or P4 was able to fly in various restricted zones?

Which restricted zones? Admittedly I don't know NYC enough to know all of the places he's flown, but if I go to the Flysafe Map and type in 'Manhattan NY', I see a lot of clear air, and user-unlockable areas. Where specifically did he fly that you think he should have been prevented? (Besides 'everywhere' of course :P )

Originally Posted by Morgon

Two different things to me, because I still don't understand what this has to do with Geo itself. See below:

In case you haven't noticed, you are grouping and relating 2 different guy's replies. My point has nothing to do with how GEO functions. It has to do with the PURPOSE of GEO.

Perhaps you cannot distinguish one from the other. But that is my point anyway.

Originally Posted by Morgon

Which restricted zones? Admittedly I don't know NYC enough to know all of the places he's flown, but if I go to the Flysafe Map and type in 'Manhattan NY', I see a lot of clear air, and user-unlockable areas. Where specifically did he fly that you think he should have been prevented? (Besides 'everywhere' of course :P )

I concur. I fly where CN has flown often. West side of Manhattan from the different piers. Plenty of open air to get aloft...I personally head out over the Hudson River...being mindful of the MANY manned aircraft...light fixed wings, lots of copters heading to Statue of Liberty. Regardless...I don't think its restricted...in fact, I am certain it is not.

Originally Posted by Dave Pitman

In case you haven't noticed, you are grouping and relating 2 different guy's replies. My point has nothing to do with how GEO functions. It has to do with the PURPOSE of GEO.

Perhaps you cannot distinguish one from the other. But that is my point anyway.

Thanks, I can distinguish one from the other.

To me, the purpose of Geo is to make people aware of restrictions or important landmarks in their immediate surroundings, and to prevent people from flying in areas that they generally shouldn't be in under most circumstances (barring FAA exemptions, of course). I don't like it any more than you do, but I'm more angry at the FAA overstepping their bounds than DJI putting things in to alleviate any further LOCATION issues.

I'm grouping two people's posts for reply because you're both trying to link Geo to Casey's flight (your initial post was specifically about him), and I don't understand why you keep using both in the same sentence. Casey's flight is not a LOCATION issue.

Casey's - or anyone else's - "irresponsible flying behavior" is not wholly covered under Geo, nor was it ever marketed to be, as far as I've ever read. Geo does not prevent people from flying on the other side of buildings, or in conditions where other safety features (e.g. Object avoidance) would not work. Any continued correlation between the two is wholly disingenuous.

That's a load of crap.

DJI could stop whomever is supplying Casey with product for reviewing anytime they like.

No one cares that Casey does the reviews, people are just pointing out the hypocrisy. Casey gets millions of hits on his reviews, the number of people complaining about it is probably less than .001%. If DJI would have just made a statement that they were supporting his review then the issue would have gone away. Its not like DJI is breaking any laws supplying Casey with drones.

But as usual DJI treats its customers (and critics) with contempt and a total lack of integrity.

The MAVIC will probably out sell all other DJI products combined. When it does DJI will be faced with the decision to continue to spend millions of dollars in developing commercial products that represent a very small percentage of their overall revenue or stop and focus on the consumer products their good at.

I'm sure DJI will show the same contempt and lack of integrity for its commercial customers right up to the point they cease development of their commercial products. Just one possible scenario, kind of like Apple and SGI.

Originally Posted by Morgon

] was specifically about him), and I don't understand why you keep using both in the same sentence; Casey's flight is not a LOCATION issue.

Then apparently you can't read a sectional. Casey's flight originated in Los Angeles, he flew in controlled airspace central. You can clearly see how close he is to the beach and how far the control airspace extends from the beach all the way to the mountains. He was certainly in someones controlled airspace and I doubt he got permission to fly there.

http://vfrmap.com/?type=vfrc&lat=34....18.359&zoom=10

I couldn't care less that he flew there, I'm not an airspace monitor, but its hard to understand how GEO prevented him, informed him or in any way made this a safer flight.

Its equally hard to understand how DJI claims that they don't support his efforts for these reviews when clearly they do. And claiming that it was a marketing company they have no control over is a very thin argument when its a pre-released drone. Oh yeah, I saw they BestBuy was having a sale on those for anyone with more than 1M Youtube subscribers.

The irony is that this was the intention with GEO, from the announcement phase at least. Give people access to more places to fly than with blunt NFZ software, but leave the authorisation and consequences to the operator. Letting Casey fly where he does, as long as it is not red NFZ areas, is precisely what GEO is designed for. It's up to him to ensure he is safe and legal.

The even bigger irony is all the complaints about how GEO has seemingly prevented people from taking jobs or having to abandon shoots, yet here is Casey flying from the hip in large cities every single day with seemingly not a problem in the world.

Originally Posted by Aerial_IRL

The irony is that this was the intention with GEO, from the announcement phase at least. Give people access to more places to fly than with blunt NFZ software, but leave the authorisation and consequences to the operator. Letting Casey fly where he does, as long as it is not red NFZ areas, is precisely what GEO is designed for. It's up to him to ensure he is safe and legal.

The even bigger irony is all the complaints about how GEO has seemingly prevented people from taking jobs or having to abandon shoots, yet here is Casey flying from the hip in large cities every single day with seemingly not a problem in the world.

EXACTLY! So what is the point of GEO? It enables the operator to do what they could do anyway?

GEO isn't preventing commercial operators from taking jobs, its preventing them from using DJI's on those jobs.

If all I'm shooting are real estate videos then the risk is not that great if the drone won't arm. If I'm doing something that took considerable time and expense to arrange, with a potential for more expense for security, crew, talent etc., then even the remotest possibility I won't be successful because the drone won't arm then its foolish to even attempt it.

GEO doesn't make the situation safer, it doesn't make it easier, it adds an additional layer of complexity which increases the odds that I won't be able to fly.

Trouble is DJI argues that the risk is minimal, that's not their call. If I'm on a shoot where the customer might be spending $150,000 per day and it takes just ten minutes longer to do my job because of GEO then my customer has lost more than it costs for the DJI in the first place.

That's true for everything, not just GEO. But I have direct local control of everything else so the risk to me is how good I am at preparing for that project. That I'm willing to bet on, I'm not willing to bet on it when DJI is essentially getting between me and my customer.

Chuck if you prepare for your customers and have the proper approvals, what prevents you from requesting that DJI unlock the area that you are working at for your customer? I understand that you do not like the additional workload but it is just an email and two days time.

Extra days and unknowns.

Com'on Ed. Why don't I just push the big red button and have the drone just do everything for me? I might have five or six projects going at the same time and I don't want to have to worry whether or not the drone is going to arm. Is that really too much to ask?

Here's a thought, if DJI wants to get serious about supporting their commercial customers, why don't you build your technology backwards from the markets behavior instead of trying to push it forward from an internally driven financial agenda?

Thats' a trick question, that's what they did, but it was the behavior of consumers you reversed engineered and now their trying to foist it onto the commercial market. We're not a bunch of teenagers with our first drone. Stop treating us like one.

It's a common viral marketing tactic. Neistat is one of many who gets new DJI product ahead of the public in agreement to feature it. The benefit to DJI clearly outweighs any concerns over Neistat's highly irresponsible flying. And it makes GEO a complete hypocrisy. More importantly, it also underscores that GEO does little to get people like Neistat to fly responsibly.

Originally Posted by Tahoe Ed

Chuck if you prepare for your customers and have the proper approvals, what prevents you from requesting that DJI unlock the area that you are working at for your customer? I understand that you do not like the additional workload but it is just an email and two days time.

When I go out to the airport and fly a Cessna 182, I don't need to get approval from Cessna.

I have a pilot's license. With that comes responsibility and the FAA assumes I will fly responsibly.

To get a Part 107 drone license one has to take a pretty extensive test.

Too bad, DJI doesn't allow people who have the certification from the FAA to not have to fly their drone without "just sending an email and two days time".