Above Wisconsin is excited to join the Yuneec community of Aerial Photographers with their latest UAV, the Typhoon H Pro. The Typhoon H Pro was announced in January and ever since Above has been anxiously awaiting its release scheduled for late August 2016. This powerful platform will allow us to fly in places once unreachable to drones. With its advanced 360 collision avoidance and vision positioning system we will be allowed the opportunity to fly through trees and in tight indoor conditions. These great features along with the 4k, 360º, 3-axis giro stabilized camera will allow us to capture high quality – hollywood like cinematic shots.
FAA considers rules allowing small drones to fly over people
UAVs may need crash testing to see how much force they dish out in the case of an accident.
By: Richard Lawler
Late last year the FAA implemented rules on drone registration, and now its working group of experts has submitted another set of recommendations. This time the focus is on rules for unmanned aircraft flights over people (who aren’t directly involved in the flight of the aircraft), and just as earlier rumors indicated, the group decided that the best way to set regulations is based on the weight of the machine in question. Small drones weighing under 250g (0.55 pounds) could fly over people, depending on their design, while larger drones up to 4 – 5 pounds (the DJI Phantom 4 pictured above weighs 3 pounds) could do the same, depending on their design, if they stay 20 feet overhead or 10 feet away laterally.
Larger or riskier drones that could cause serious injury — as determined by yet-to-be-implemented crash tests — up to 55 pounds could not be flown over crowds, and would have more limitations. Finally, the fourth group of drones that also pose a potentially serious risk but are intended to be used over crowds would have the most rules, with documented plans for risk mitigation, higher operator qualifications, and possibly coordination with the FAA or local law enforcement. Most of the committee members felt like a requirement for in-person testing would be ignored, suggesting online testing with no background checks for operators of the smallest drones.
DJI VP Brendan Schulman called the recommendation a “progressive approach,” that balanced the benefits of drones and public safety. His company was one of 27 groups (like 3DRobotics, GoPro, Google X, Intel and AT&T) that participated in the Micro Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee, and the FAA will use its information to develop new rules. Unfortunately, this will not be a part of the finalized small UAS rule (governing commercial use of drones under 55 pounds) that we are expecting to see in June. In the meantime you can read the full report for yourself (PDF) and practice some safe drone flying away from innocent bystanders.
Made by experts in electric propulsion and electric aviation, the Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K comes with a 5400mAh 3S 11.1V LiPo battery, giving users a superior flight time of up to 25 minutes.
The STEADYGRIP™ CGO3 system combines a 3-axis precision gimbal with Yuneec’s 4K Ultra High Definition video camera, allowing you to capture amazing and stable video footage. The camera pitch controller allows precise camera angle control while on-the-go, using a mobile device, with up to a 6.4-inch display.
Capture the future
Personal Ground Station with built-in touchscreen
Integrated 3-axis precision gimbal camera
4K/30fps ultra high definition video
1080p/120fps slow motion video
User controlled video resolution, white balance and light exposure
12 megapixel photos with No-Distortion Lens
Handheld SteadyGrip for capturing video footage
Typhoon ACTIONCAM
The Typhoon ActionCam cobmines the impressive CGO3 camera gimbal with a handle for stable ground footage, allowing you to record videos and take photos like never before. When using the Typhoon ActionCam, the camera stays level regardless of shaky hands or wobbling, making it the ideal tool for capturing life’s quick moments with unparalleled detail.
Ensuring utmost safety, the FAA compliant No Fly Zone feature prevents flight near commercial airports. The No Fly Zone feature also prevents flight above 400 feet from the ground. The built-in GPS establishes a 26 ft (8 m) diameter Smart Circle around the pilot when taking off and landing and also creates a Geo Fence that keeps the aircraft from traveling farther than 300 ft (91 m) from the pilot’s position.
If you took a stroll through the “Unmanned Systems Marketplace” at CES 2016 and saw the multitude of drone manufacturers hawking their wares, you’d think that drones are poised to go mainstream this year. And you might be right. Some of those products will go on to become highly successful in 2016. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was even on site to register attendees’ drones.
The leaders in the category (to date) had some news to share. Parrot introduced Disco, an ultra-light wing-shaped drone that is controlled by autopilot “with no learning process,” said the company.
Parrot also showed Bebop 2, an ultra-light “all-in-one” drone with a built-in full-HD wide-angle camera.
DJI announced the Phantom 3 4K, a 4K Wi-Fi version of its Phantom 3 Series that it called its “most accessible 4K aerial camera to date.” It also introduced a black version of its Inspire 1 Pro drone.
Yuneec introduced the Typhoon H, which it called “a more sophisticated drone” with features usually only found in high-end professional drones, with a “consumer price” of $1,799.
At most Tesla events we’ve been to, we always find at least one Tesla owner with a drone. It begs the question… what if Tesla Motors built it’s own drone? According to one enterprising Industrial Designer, a Tesla Drone could be “a unique reinterpretation of drone ingenuity.”
Why? Industrial Designer, Fraser Leid* takes a stab at what a Tesla concept design might be — he explains, “The common issue with personal drones today is their lack of battery capacity, which in turn, limits their flight time to 20 minutes and their charging time to an hour. With that in mind, I associated the drone design to a company synonymous with battery efficiency and incorporated an effective battery integration concept. The second key component I addressed was related to design and straying away from convention. By not replicating a Quadcopter, but configuring a new twin blade design that allows the propellers to act as the drone camera’s stabiliser, a gimbal isn’t required for video stability.”
Leid continues, “If the operator requires the drone for slow, wide-angled panoramic video’s, the propellers in a vertical configuration will allow the drone to move slowly and steadily. If the operator requires the drone for fast-paced, low-angled action video’s, the propellers in a horizontal configuration will make the drone nimble, quick and easy to handle at faster speeds, while also steadying the camera.” Pretty cool. We know Tesla Motors CEO, Elon Musk, has recommended a fifth mode of transport, the Hyperloop. Nevertheless, we’d love to see what Elon Musk and the Tesla Motors team would dream up if they ever ventured into something like this. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for this unique “interpretation” of a Tesla Drone, see below…
