Which One?

[nh phantom]

I have a job to look at in NH. Church steeple. I will need to buy a drone to look at it. Havent had a drone in a couple years. Last one was a Enterprise. I sold it because wasnt using it enough. question is which one should i get? Will only need for a day or so. Nothing to expensive. I also had a evo2 v1 and v2. never had experience with the smaller ones. Dont need professional quality video just enought to check out condition although I know most come with 4k. Will the smaller one do? Also would like to do it this year probably in cold weather How cold will these work?
Thanks
Wil also look around for a used one and in classified.

 

[herein2021]

I have a job to look at in NH. Church steeple. I will need to buy a drone to look at it. Havent had a drone in a couple years. Last one was a Enterprise. I sold it because wasnt using it enough. question is which one should i get? Will only need for a day or so. Nothing to expensive. I also had a evo2 v1 and v2. never had experience with the smaller ones. Dont need professional quality video just enought to check out condition although I know most come with 4k. Will the smaller one do? Also would like to do it this year probably in cold weather How cold will these work?
Thanks
Wil also look around for a used one and in classified.

If I were in your situation and used a drone that rarely then I would just rent one. If you buy one and don't use it the batteries will go back, you can rent them for about $30. Here is the one that I would rent. Unless you need no geofencing, DJI is the better option.

 

[nh phantom]

Ya need geo fencing. That was the reason I got rid of dji Can’t rent around here.

 

[gschulzuio]

I have a job to look at in NH. Church steeple. I will need to buy a drone to look at it. Havent had a drone in a couple years. Last one was a Enterprise. I sold it because wasnt using it enough. question is which one should i get? Will only need for a day or so. Nothing to expensive. I also had a evo2 v1 and v2. never had experience with the smaller ones. Dont need professional quality video just enought to check out condition although I know most come with 4k. Will the smaller one do? Also would like to do it this year probably in cold weather How cold will these work?
Thanks
Wil also look around for a used one and in classified.

Get a used DJI Mavic Mini 2 or 3 on ebay, you could then turn around and sell it back on ebay or FB marketplace.

 

[nh phantom]

Get a used DJI Mavic Mini 2 or 3 on ebay, you could then turn around and sell it back on ebay or FB marketplace.

Need non geo fencing.

 

[gschulzuio]

Need non geo fencing.

Get a dji custom unlock, it's pretty easy as long as u have faa airspace authorization.

 

[herein2021]

Need non geo fencing.

You can rent Autel drones as well. And they ship anywhere. I have rented equipment plenty of times for custom jobs from as far away as California. They just ship me the equipment and I ship it back.; that is literally how Hollywood movies are created, they don't actually buy any of that equipment. Here is one place that rents Autel drones. That's why I just shake my head when I read about people buying thermal Enterprise drones or smart controllers for just one job....makes no sense.

This is all assuming this job is paying enough to be worth the hassle. If so, and I have to rent equipment, then I always include the rental fee in my services proposal on top of my typical rate as well as an additional hour in labor to pay for the time it took me to drop it back off at the carrier and depending on what the equipment is; I sometimes charge by the hour just to box it all back up.

You could also outsource, if there is a local drone pilot just hire him/her add your fee to the invoice and bill the client. Plenty of options that don't involve being stuck with a drone that you don't use or have to try to sell almost undoubtedly at a loss.

Get a used DJI Mavic Mini 2 or 3 on ebay, you could then turn around and sell it back on ebay or FB marketplace.

Not worth the hassle by a long shot; you can't bill the customer the time you spend trying to sell it and even if you sell it at the exact price you bought it and assuming it doesn't have some hidden problem that prevents you from even completing the job, you still lost money on the hours you spent posting the ad, answering responses, meeting the buyer, demoing the drone, etc. etc. By the time it is sold you either lost everything you made on the job or you lost more than you made on the job. Renting is the only thing that makes sense in this situation. And if the job isn't paying enough to be worth it, then nothing wrong with just turning it down; I've done that plenty of times as well.

 

[nh phantom]

Get a dji custom unlock, it's pretty easy as long as u have faa airspace authorization.

How do you do the dji unlock?

 

[nh phantom]

You can rent Autel drones as well. And they ship anywhere. I have rented equipment plenty of times for custom jobs from as far away as California. They just ship me the equipment and I ship it back.; that is literally how Hollywood movies are created, they don't actually buy any of that equipment. Here is one place that rents Autel drones. That's why I just shake my head when I read about people buying thermal Enterprise drones or smart controllers for just one job....makes no sense.

This is all assuming this job is paying enough to be worth the hassle. If so, and I have to rent equipment, then I always include the rental fee in my services proposal on top of my typical rate as well as an additional hour in labor to pay for the time it took me to drop it back off at the carrier and depending on what the equipment is; I sometimes charge by the hour just to box it all back up.

You could also outsource, if there is a local drone pilot just hire him/her add your fee to the invoice and bill the client. Plenty of options that don't involve being stuck with a drone that you don't use or have to try to sell almost undoubtedly at a loss.



Not worth the hassle by a long shot; you can't bill the customer the time you spend trying to sell it and even if you sell it at the exact price you bought it and assuming it doesn't have some hidden problem that prevents you from even completing the job, you still lost money on the hours you spent posting the ad, answering responses, meeting the buyer, demoing the drone, etc. etc. By the time it is sold you either lost everything you made on the job or you lost more than you made on the job. Renting is the only thing that makes sense in this situation. And if the job isn't paying enough to be worth it, then nothing wrong with just turning it down; I've done that plenty of times as well.

Thanks i will look into this.

 

[gschulzuio]

How do you do the dji unlock?

You can self unlock using your app, you can also get a custom unlock code from DJI via the DJI FlySafe site. For more details and examples of both, type "google how to unlock dji geo zone with fly app".

 

[Limewood]

How do you do the dji unlock?

You can contact DJI directly for details on unlocking. Send inquiries to [email protected]. They are easy to work with. This was a response I received when looking to fly in some complex airspace:

 

[nh phantom]

How long does it take to get approval? I drove 3 hours to a job and was locked out. That sucked. That was before you could get approvals.

 

[gschulzuio]

Ive had custom unlocks for NFZ and above published alt as long as I had the airspace authorization (e.g. LAANC or coa/107.41) processed by DJI in a matter of minutes. Usually I do them ahead of time before I head to a site or location along with codes preloaded into controller/aircraft so dont have to mess around when on site. However have done onsite impromptu custom unlocks with quick turnaround. Also keep in mind that you can do some self unlocks from the fly app.

 

[Limewood]

Standard unlocking approvals took maybe 10min. A custom one my take a bit more, but they answered my email in less than 15 min. Their approvals last a long time so it doesn’t hurt to make the request early. Know where you need to fly beforehand.

DJI geofencing has always been a threat to pilots. That was one reason I originally went with Autel. I have since learned it hasn’t limited my flying in any way.

 

[gschulzuio]

Standard unlocking approvals took maybe 10min. A custom one my take a bit more, but they answered my email in less than 15 min. Their approvals last a long time so it doesn’t hurt to make the request early. Know where you need to fly beforehand.

DJI geofencing has always been a threat to pilots. That was one reason I originally went with Autel. I have since learned it hasn’t limited my flying in any way.

Back in the day, e.g. when LAANC didnt even have training wheels yet, the old DJI unlock portal IMHO was better and easier in that you could unlock a bigger area, for longer duration (e.g. almost a year vs several months) and have one unlock for all your DJI aircraft, as long as you had a COA/107.41 that covered the unlock area. For example had COAs for multiple airspaces (B & Ds) in a given area, then submit all of those with the unlock request, along with all aircraft FC #s, and you could get the code. The new interfaces are in some ways easier, e.g. you can unlock from your controller if you have internet, also their website is nicer, however have not found way to unlock all aircraft with one code, so now have to get one for the different aircraft types. You are correct in that usually a custom unlock is about 10 min or less, once had one turned in under 5 min for indoor flight during a security TFR which was interesting. With the newer fly safe portal emails/request submissions get responded almost instantly (kind of like regular LAANC requests), then they go into review state which can take a few minutes, then your approve or reject. Found some tips to reduce chance of a reject are 1) have your air space authorizations for the given area slightly larger than what your unlock request is for (or make your unlock area slightly smaller), 2) keep your area radius if using circle around 29km or less along with have authorizations for any affected airspace, 3) if multi-day unlock, then get multiple LAANC or a coa/107.41 and attach those, 4) also pay attention to altitude requests (verify feet vs meter), 5) verify active request from to dates, old system you could request about a year, now find it more like 5 or 6 months or so, 6) verify you are using FC/Flight Controller # which is not the aircraft serial number, 7) name your unlocks with something meaningful, for example, if you have multiple aircraft A & B, and flying same site, something like ASite120923, BSite120923, makes selecting and verifying the unlocks a lot easier, especially when out at a site. Good luck.