Recent content by sar104

The aircraft must remain within VLOS of the RPIC, operator and VO at all times. The scenario you describe is not compliant with Part 107. §107.31 Visual line of sight aircraft operation. (a) With vision that is unaided by any device other than corrective lenses, the remote pilot in command...

You can hold any opinion you like, but the NTSB regards it as evidence and that is the opinion that counts. EDIT: To clarify - the pilot account may seem a bit too convenient or even unconvincing but pilots are held to high reporting standards and their accounts are afforded the status of...

A formal pilot report is evidence.

No problem. I guess I'm just dissatisfied by the more general tendency, especially over on PP and MP, for a large number of posters to jump to the immediate conclusion that it was likely, if not certain, that the pilot filed a false report. That looks like confirmation bias at its worst. My...

Fair enough. But I guess I don't understand why you would not by default, in the absence of counter-evidence, tend to accept a report from a professional pilot. Obviously it could be a false report. Would you prefer that to be the case?

It's possible, but do you see any evidence supporting that explanation?

The discussion in this thread was about a radial approach climbing to a circular orbit. The helix thread that I linked to discusses a axially horizontal helix, which is a quite different problem.

I don't think that is compliant - firstly because the RPIC cannot necessarily take control of the aircraft and secondly because the FAA has clarified Part 107 to mean that a spotter can only relieve the RPIC of VLOS duties for brief intervals, not an extended period or a complete flight.

I think it will fly, but you may need to adjust the speed. You have it set at cruising speed but don't forget that the vertical sections of the flight path will be limited to around 3 m/s, so if the horizontal speed is set higher than that it may result in a varying speed helix.

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All these things could be integrated into Litchi or a web-based application via an easy-to-use GUI but, as far as I'm aware, no one has yet done that, either as a fun project for someone with time on their hands or a commercial opportunity.

Thanks. Just to be clear - I haven't actually flown any of the flight paths depicted above - they are 3-D synthesized paths converted to KML descriptions and then imported into Litchi. They are ready to fly, but only flight plans.

You must have been reading What is a HELIX. Unless someone has already automated this process (quite possible, but a quick search did not find it), to create a level circular path in Litchi requires several steps: Define the circular path, of radius r, in cartesian coordinates centered on (0...

Depending on the path and the bridge, that could happen. It's not an inevitability though - survey flights are conducted under bridges without loss of GPS. And in the case of the hypothetical flight shown above, I'd be more worried about magnetic interference from the structure.

That's not a reflection - that's Google's imaging algorithm messing up and confusing what is above and below the water level. If you look at the underwater view in Google Earth you find that it assigns the roadway to the bed of the bay.