Welcome, Commercial Drone Pilots!
Join our growing community today!
Sign up

Farmland

When this first came up I didn't think about his location. He is in controlled airspace, normal approach to San Jose, CA. Not only that a lot of general aviation and private aircraft use that corridor for approach to not only San Jose international, but Reid Hillview airport. That is a very busy area traffic wise, however normal altitude for both airports are well above the 400 foot limitations of UAVs. I think what has happened it the hospitals went to the FAA and screamed about drones flying in airspace they normally use. Helicopters in that area would obviously want to stay below the normal approach altitudes of San Jose and Reid Hillview.

Years ago pilots nicknamed this corridor MIG alley because of all the general aviation and private aircraft. The main problem was general aviation guys coming in VFR at whatever altitude they wanted. The TCA hadn't extended to Morgan Hill and Gilroy at that time. The other problem was years ago Reid didn't have an ILS approach so someone coming in in marginal weather would follow San Jose's ILS then break off and land at Reid. It did create some problems. I have flown into both airports many times in the past.
Yeap, we were talking apples and apples. Sound like the FAA is in fact involved. I just didn't see any hospital or airevac outfit setting airspace rules.
 
So it is the FAA, not the hospital.... :D

No, it is more, but not complicated to understand the process of how Lennar Development's UAV ground or air acquires a waiver. There are a lot of things involved and we operators has to follow these restrictions to the letter. We also have a safety guidelines that outside aerial contractors has to follow. There's a lot of things going during a build that aerial activities, drone or manned are scheduled on the calendar. Have you seen a google helicopter map a new construction site or newly constructed development? They are annoying, because they just pop out of the blue, here in the San Francisco bay.

Circling back... It is different here in California, and certainly different, when working with one of the biggest developer. In our pit, PART 107 means JACK! but if there are restrictions, we do not bend them.
 
No, it is more, but not complicated to understand the process of how Lennar Development's UAV ground or air acquires a waiver. There are a lot of things involved and we operators has to follow these restrictions to the letter. We also have a safety guidelines that outside aerial contractors has to follow. There's a lot of things going during a build that aerial activities, drone or manned are scheduled on the calendar. Have you seen a google helicopter map a new construction site or newly constructed development? They are annoying, because they just pop out of the blue, here in the San Francisco bay.

Circling back... It is different here in California, and certainly different, when working with one of the biggest developer. In our pit, PART 107 means JACK! but if there are restrictions, we do not bend them.

It's not complicated at all, I've been working with construction companies for 5 years; it is just that none ever handled the FAA for me (sweet), they paid me to do that. Yes, I understand a company may require adherence to certain safety guidelines; I deal with that all the time. I was confused when you mentioned what the hospital wanted; understood but it is still the FAA who grants airspace privileges.
Just wanted to ensure others that read this are not confused. No city, county, state, hospital, or helipad operator "authorizes" operations in the national airspace. However, in my state you fly over a prison in the furtherance of any criminal offense. and you'll face state felony charges (not FAA ,unless the prison is in controlled airspace ;))

We are still talking apples and apples; only the FAA grants airspace privileges.
 
It's not complicated at all, I've been working with construction companies for 5 years; it is just that none ever handled the FAA for me (sweet), they paid me to do that. Yes, I understand a company may require adherence to certain safety guidelines; I deal with that all the time. I was confused when you mentioned what the hospital wanted; understood but it is still the FAA who grants airspace privileges.
Just wanted to ensure others that read this are not confused. No city, county, state, hospital, or helipad operator "authorizes" operations in the national airspace. However, in my state you fly over a prison in the furtherance of any criminal offense. and you'll face state felony charges (not FAA ,unless the prison is in controlled airspace ;))

We are still talking apples and apples; only the FAA grants airspace privileges.

I am so glad that you said the things that are inlined with my thoughts, and I can use what you said to start a good conversation on this matter.

To site and example: I participated in the Mortenson build of the new Las Vegas Raiders stadium. (The developer already poses a waiver.) I took another drone with me that does not have a digital signature, so it has to be checked at McCarran International Airport, and the whole process became a PITA.

On the devs. Waiver it said that the flight alt. is 400ft and not to go over the freeway. Simple enough. But the drone that does not have a digital signature (none DJI product) it was granted 200ft altitude, and must stay within a lesser radius that’s granted on the waiver.

Luckily and coincidentally that said drone was not able to fly, due to interference.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: LUIS MARTINEZ
Just a quick update, the 300+ acre just when up to 400+

It was not a tough assignment, but challenging due to the weather. It is windy and HOT in this part of town. I guess this site can now formally/informally say that it is a go!
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2019-07-16 at 9.53.53 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2019-07-16 at 9.53.53 PM.png
    2.7 MB · Views: 8
3900 images is going to suck when you process it. Hope you have a 30+ thread machine to run it on.

[emoji23] that would really suck.

This map will be broken down into sectional zones and we will receive the next set of assignment in precise detail from the land surveyors of which area to map next.
 
[emoji23] that would really suck.

This map will be broken down into sectional zones and we will receive the next set of assignment in precise detail from the land surveyors of which area to map next.
I've had a job running since last Friday morning. DTM and contour lines finished at 4:39AM this morning and now the only part left is the ortho. That is probably going to take 24-48 hours to process. 2200 images at approximately 16,000K each. Next purchase: two Alienware Area 51 R7 units with threadripper processors.
 
Just a quick update, the 300+ acre just when up to 400+

It was not a tough assignment, but challenging due to the weather. It is windy and HOT in this part of town. I guess this site can now formally/informally say that it is a go!

What are the real numbers? I mean, in the end it was 12 batteries? how much time did you invest? All the same day? That kind of things.
 
I've had a job running since last Friday morning. DTM and contour lines finished at 4:39AM this morning and now the only part left is the ortho. That is probably going to take 24-48 hours to process. 2200 images at approximately 16,000K each. Next purchase: two Alienware Area 51 R7 units with threadripper processors.

I saw a good deal in newegg a while back, do you have any experience with the recent "area51" desktop? I bought my Macbook pro yearly last year under the Apple buyer plan, which I'm able to upgrade (Not the best plan in the world vs best buy) and I am planning to exchange it to either 2019 Macbook pro or if there are any real-world review in our field as side from the gaming reviews, I would like to checkout Area-51M.
 
What are the real numbers? I mean, in the end it was 12 batteries? how much time did you invest? All the same day? That kind of things.


I did not spend the whole entire day, I broke down the process into 2 days, every other week, I probably end up consuming 16 battery cycles. I know there are others that have tackled this size and more and trust me I wanted to get it done quicker, but logistics would not allow me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ArrUnTuS
I saw a good deal in newegg a while back, do you have any experience with the recent "area51" desktop? I bought my Macbook pro yearly last year under the Apple buyer plan, which I'm able to upgrade (Not the best plan in the world vs best buy) and I am planning to exchange it to either 2019 Macbook pro or if there are any real-world review in our field as side from the gaming reviews, I would like to checkout Area-51M.

Pix4D recommends a high thread count processor to do the work.The graphics card does not do a lot on the processing side other than to display the results. We are locked into a contract with Dell but fortunately, they bought Alienware and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X processor they use in the R7 is exactly what we need to do the large-scale processing of these massive data sets.
 
Pix4D's recommendations really need to be understood for what they are. Not because you have more cores will go faster, but you have to have a minimum of 6 for large projects. It is better to have less cores but faster than to have many. And a fundamental factor is the amount of memory. For projects that you are talking about at least 64GB but I would go to 96GB and an M.2 as the base disk (other than the disk containing the O.S.) to really speed up the processing.

This is the official information:

Code:
Recommended:

Windows 7, 8, 10 64 bits.
CPU quad-core or hexa-core Intel i7/Xeon.
GeForce GPU compatible with OpenGL 3.2 and 2 GB RAM.
Hard disk: SSD.
Small projects (under 100 images at 14 MP): 8 GB RAM, 15 GB SSD Free Space.
Medium projects (between 100 and 500 images at 14 MP): 16GB RAM, 30 GB SSD Free Space.
Large projects (over 500 images at 14 MP): 32 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD Free Space.
Very Large projects (over 2000 images at 14 MP): 64 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD Free Space.

I have an M.2 for the operating system and a 750GB SSD for the Pix4D working disk. I have "Only" 32GB of RAM. Processor: I have an I7 5820K. For what I have tested in other equipments the ideal one to work with 2000 or 3000 images, in my opinion, it would be ideal to have an octocore with the major possible speed. More cores do not provide almost advantage, but the speed of each of them, yes. 96 GB of RAM and said, minimum SSD as working disk, preferably M.2. The S.O. and the software in a normal SSD is sufficient.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Outta Control

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
4,287
Messages
37,641
Members
5,982
Latest member
Shook DroneWorks LLC