Mavic 2 and power lines

[ttb3526]

Hello All,

I landed a job yesterday for what I thought was going to be a simple aerial photo shoot. Ground level, low, medium, and high shots ect of a commercial business going up for sale. While doing pre-flight stuff at the office I noticed two sets of high power tension lines running down both sides of the subject location. They both feed into a really big sub-station. You know where I'm going with this.....

I'm not concerned about hitting them, I'm concerned about interference that will take my (MAVIC 2 PRO) out of the sky! Being sandwiched in between to sets of lines makes it feel even worse. I plan on staying as far as (Mod Removed Language) away from them, but I'm concerned the various shots around the 100ft-200ft are going to be interesting. I did some poking around the forum and it really seems like the true answer is hit or miss.

I posted a picture of the location and some friendly photoshop stuff to help out.

So I figured I would hit the experts here and do it or RUN!

Thanks everyone,
Tim

 

[JMaeding]

From what I read in other RC model forums, the answer is no problem, unless sparking is going on.
You can imagine, no one ever talks about communication equipment failing because they are near power lines, like your cell phone.
If you get within 10 feet though, you may cause that big spark that glitches communications so don't do dat.

 

[Skycam509]

I was recently shooting photos near some 500kv transmission lines and had the same concerns. A couple of the angles I needed put my Air2s directly under the wires at fairly close vertical range. I gently eased into this whole area keeping a very close eye on everything. It worked flawlessly - no different than any other flight.

One precaution I took was that I performed my compass calibration on the way there, in the same general area, but far away from the power lines. I was concerned that the EMF's from the power lines would affect my compass calibration, as that has happened to me before when calibrating too close to high voltage lines.

Your situation might present an opportunity to charge extra due to the perceived additional risk.

 

[R.Perry]

I have one job currently that is right next to a power substation. I have had no problem with electromagnetic interference. What I did have problems with is there are multiple high power routers running on the 2.4 freq. I switched over to 5.8 for that location and no more problems.

 

[Aerial Edge]

Most power related EMI is kind of a thing of the past. With the move of sensors away from serial bus to CAN bus systems EMI is not as much of a concern. I have flown the air2s to the Obstacle Avoidance brake point on 230kv lines with no issues. I have between the M210V2 and the Skydio X2E over 200 hours of flight time on transmission lines. Cell towers are much more of a concern. The skydio we fly between phases on 500KV structures hundreds of times per day. Now with that substations you do have to be mindful.

We use to fly the M100 with the Z30 on them, and you would sometimes get the M100 get interference on the video down link or start to get toilet bowling from the compass getting interference so we use to practice switching out of position and into atti mode to recover and get some distance between them.

I have done many DJI compass calibrations in proximity to HV lines before and only had an issue 1 time. And we have to move about 30 feet to get the calibration to pass. Although not ideal, when you are 5 miles deep on a power line easement in a swamp or woods there is no where else to go.