FPV Flight altitude 3000m12:16

12000 feet high on a quadcopter

there are laws against this sort of flying. i dont have the balls to break
them. kool to see a flight like this though i wish i could. 

although I’m impressed and think that this is very cool – without
communicating to aircraft/controllers, a mode C transponder, or at least
some powerful strobe-lights on the thing, you’re potentially a very real
risk to aviation safety to do this. The FAA currently has a 400′ Above
Ground limit on UAV flying. And you must stay line-of-sight even when using
FPV

Obviously nobody in a YouTube comment is going to convince you to stop what
you’re doing – So instead I’ll give you some different pieces of advice to
reduce your chances of pissing someone off or causing a collision:

1. Know the airspace around you. Go to and look up
the area you will be flying. Set it to World VFR as it will be the most
useful to you. Take note of things in the area you will be flying,
primarily if there’s a red or blue circle around an airport near you. This
will be controlled airspace – and pilots typically rely on the air traffic
controllers to keep them apart. They won’t be looking for your craft. Also
note above 12,500 feet in North America is class B, and above 18,000 class
A airspace. These are also controlled, and at these altitudes pilots aren’t
even generally concerned with general aviation traffic because they tend to
stay below 6000 in most cases. I would strongly advise staying below 12,500
in any case.

2. Communicate. See if you can get a restricted radio operator licence, or
find someone who has one. This will let you talk on the air-band radio
frequencies and communicate to traffic in the area where your drone is, or
at very least listen on local frequencies (closest airport or 126.7) to get
an idea of who is where and keep yourself out of the way.

3. See and be seen. You’re flying FPV so you are able to see what the drone
can see – keep it on a swivel and continuously scan the sky for traffic,
particularly within a few degrees of the horizon. The drone won’t be able
to maneuver very fast to get out of the way but all else fails you can cut
the power and have it fall a few hundred feet in a hurry. To be seen –
strobe-lights, Bright ones. LEDs nowadays don’t use that much power,
especially if they’re strobed. I’d recommend putting something real high
powered (like a few tens of watts worth of leds), and flash it for a few
milliseconds every second or two. In dim light or even broad daylight it
should be enough to catch the eye of someone not looking for it.
Airliners and air traffic control use Transponders to see other aircraft.
Even if the transponder is not strong enough to get all the way to the
nearest air traffic control, a close-by airliner should still be able to
see it. Potentially look into the fees ability of an inexpensive, low-power
and lightweight mode C transponder. You would keep it transmitting the code
1200 all of the time, and to any aircraft going by you’d look like just a
172 or similar VFR aircraft, and they’d stay miles away from you. Here is
an example of a homebuilt transponder for a glider:

Some of these tips are potentially expensive or time-consuming, but some
are very simple and effective. I in no way condone breaking the law, but a
combination of some of these should keep you from breaking an airplane.

+Florian Stephan I’m more worried about my drone damaging my gopro and
other parts when its greater than like 50 feet..

my stuff can fly 200m and I have radio control

it was interesting, I learned a lot but if I were to start it all over
again I wouldn’t do it

the massive skills attained were cool but the cost is just so high.. still
cheaper than any technical certificate or an engineering degree so it is
worth it but I prefer to do nothing

Pretty neat quad! Love the sound while it’s dropping altitude. Soooo FAA
scary though. 

I want to buy a drone so I can take it to a foreign contry and fly it as
high as I can.

Crazy altitude for a quadcopter:



Yes, in the areas governed by the FAA this would be a very audacious and
illegal act, and rightly so. However it appears that the area of actual
flight, jurisdiction belongs to that of the CAAC, or possibly HKCAD.
Though possibly legal, I doubt that the Chinese authorities would be
gentle if/when/hopefully never a tragic collision should occur.

Fly Safe and remember that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

U.F.O at 4:22 :-)