I just thought I'd give a short summary of why DJI drones have been banned in the USA for those who arent up to speed

Under Section 1709 of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act US congress stated that DJI and Autel would face a US import ban unless a national security agency audits them and clears them of security risk by the dead line 12-23-25

US congress ordered that an agency with appropriate authority should complete the audit.
They purposefully chose not to name, assign or fund any agency like ( FBI,NSA or DHS) to do the job.

DJI begged 5 different federal agencies to audit them so they could clear their name, since no agency was assigned to auditing DJI the deadline has been reached and DJI drones were officially banned 12-23-25

There was no audit that happened by the December deadline despite DJI’s constant attempts to have them audit them.

My thoughts on this are that the US congress was purposely stalling, they avoided auditing DJI on purpose so that DJI could be banned by the deadline. I believe who ever put forth the idea of banning DJI has a direct or indirect financial interest to DJI’s competition ( Skydio)

https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2711&Year=2025

This is insane, and I never heard about it before today. I wonder if the people who are writing this crap actually think anyone will pay these fees. It is now cheaper to just pay the fine for not registering with the state than to actually register.

Is it worth investing in new batteries (probably aftermarket now as originals don't seem to be available) or is this drone old hat now?

Flew it today and it was fine (and fortunately landed safely) but it's going to be expensive to run if the batteries fail at this rate

Im from the netherlands. I have a a1/a2/a3 license.

In the netherlands we have an app godrone wich shows all the nofly zones etc
Is there a equivalent for norway?

Anything specific i should watch out for so I dont get in trouble with the drone rules in norway?

I have a i5 12 gen process, 16 GB Ram, 512 GB NVME4 SSD

Designated place for Ubuntu is 220 GB

Purpose : want to do my drone simultaion in a 3D environment ( large 3D environment is not necessary)

Method 1 : PX4, DDS agent, ROS 2 Humble, Gazeebo and QG Contron ( it gives a unreal 2 D environment)

Method 2: PX4, Ros 2 , Air simulation and Unreal Engine. ( Give a 3D environment but i have no dedicated graphic card)

Is there any possible way other than these ways to do 3D simulation or any way to do 3D simulation with these method but on my laptop specs?

It being my hobby, I like to record the construction of neighborhoods, new businesses, street improvement projects, mixed-use housing, and the like. Do I need Part 107 to share my footage/photos to Reddit?

A few months ago, someone posted a few really interesting aerial drone photos where they grabbed a few pixels of the image, then stretched out bands of colored ribbons from them.
I want to try it myself but can’t find the post. Any suggestions? Photoshop? 3rd party app or tool? Thanks!

I would like to learn as much as I can about the small drone commercial service industry. What books, trade magazines, websites, courses, etc should I investigate. All ideas appreciated.

It's just plastic housing and speed holes. Gonna see if I can access the firmware so I can fly this bad boy in Freestyle fpv style.

So far I can't even get the computer to recognize that it exists.

I've been thinking about this recently because a lot of discussions around surveillance drones seem to focus on flight time or payload, while the camera often gets much less attention.

In real-world deployments, which imaging features have had the biggest impact on your results?

Some that come to mind are:

• Low-light performance
• HDR for challenging lighting conditions
• Global shutter vs. rolling shutter
• Frame rate
• Optical zoom
• NIR or thermal imaging
• Image stabilization
• AI-ready image quality for detection and tracking

For those working on public safety, perimeter security, infrastructure inspection, or industrial surveillance, what have you found to be the most important?

Has there been a camera feature you initially overlooked but later realized was critical in the field?

I'd love to hear about real deployment experiences and any lessons learned when choosing cameras for surveillance drones.

Having a nice clean continuous shot is terrific when you capture something special but very occasionally when I import my 60fps 4k shot into FCP (latest OS/M1 MacBook Pro) it has the occasional dropout or interference on the shot which means it won’t export and comes up with an error message as if something has just fallen through a bitrate black hole.

I’m not a novice to editing or filming… however this is a first for me and suggests that the Neo 2 has some
Issues with its capturing process.

Has anyone else experienced this or have some suggestions? Currently the only fix is to trim that bit of footage out but it breaks the magic.

Thanks in advance.

From Rocklin, California, USA. While filming the vibrant sunset, I came across a Chinook helicopter cruising along. You might notice the apparatus it's carrying below the airframe, it's a water siphon and the helicopter is taking part in putting out a forest fire not too far from here. Taken with a DJI Mavic 4 Pro, July 20.

I am looking for a subject in a mixed hardwoods/grassland/swamp over a couple hundred acres. subject may have died from an overdose yesterday afternoon. It is summer here with highs in 80s-90s over the next couple days.

How long before I could expect to see a heat signature from the corpse?

Edit: Thanks for the responses. I ended up finding him a couple hours after making the post in an area we didn't search last night, quite a ways from the 'most likely' area we were working from last night. I got out early enough the IR was still useful, which is how I found him. I consider it very lucky I found him, just being very slow and methodical, scanning my best guess area from multiple angles as low as I dared to fly. He was under trees but near a clearing and I caught him on an angled view. Better lucky than good, as they say.

For science's sake I'll reveal the following. He was deceased and likely deceased since last night given other info we have received. He was about 2 degrees Celcius warmer than the surroundings according to the drone, and my best guess is I found him about 14 hours after TOD and at around 9AM.

The small business I work for had me take drone training classes because they want me to use their drone to take photos and videos of our clients yards for marketing purposes. They are telling me that it's fine and to just ignore comments about getting certified because it's no big deal, but in the classes they stressed that we need it and can get in trouble.
Is it really that deep? I'm not sure what to do.

Thought people might be interested by the latest blog post from FPV UK

FPV UK membership now includes commercial cover in compliance with EC785/2004 - FPV UK

Hey, I’m new to this drone situation. I have a mini/toy drone that I got for Christmas and I lost the instructions. I need help figuring out which app to use to take photos and how to operate it. I wanted to use this one in order to learn how to fly the drone before spend money on an expensive one. Any advice, suggestions or insights are welcomed and greatly appreciated. Thank you

*** I don’t know how to upload pictures to the post for you to see it.

Hey guys, ive got a Bingchat, airdrop, supposed to 7.5k, but I lose video transmission at a block or 2 away.

Is there anyone/anyway to upgrade this feature? My mini5 pro is incredible.

If I could get the same transmission I get with dji into the Bingchat, I'd be extatic!

Is this even possible? The Bing is well over 249g, so I know the legalities involved, etc.

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys

Would appreciate eyes on this and any feedback the community has around the shot composition, editing, colour grading etc.

I'm planning my first drone build and I'm interested in the Voltus V3 Fatboy frame. I've already looked through the frame and watched the assembly video.

In the video, the builder used specific motors, ESCs, flight controller, battery, and other components.

My question is:

• Are only those specific parts compatible with the Voltus V3 Fatboy?
• Or can I use different brands and models of motors, ESCs, flight controllers, batteries, GPS modules, etc., as long as they have the correct size and mounting pattern?
• Are there any compatibility issues or limitations I should know about before choosing my own components?

I'd really appreciate any advice or recommendations from people who have built with this frame. Thanks!

I recently bought a parts lot containing several DJI Mavic Air 2 and Air 2S drones. I was trying to determine whether one of the Air 2S drones had a faulty ESC board or main logic board.

To test it, I connected a known-working Mavic Air 2 logic board to the suspected faulty Air 2S ESC board. The logic board did not power on. After reinstalling that logic board into its original working drone, it would no longer turn on.

I then connected another known-working Air 2 logic board to the ESC board from the previously working drone. It did not power on, but I immediately disconnected it because I suspected that something was wrong. Thankfully, this second logic board still works normally.

However, the ESC board from the previously working drone now appears to be dead. It seems that the original faulty Air 2S ESC board damaged the first working logic board, which may have then damaged the working ESC board when it was reinstalled.

I have now accidentally disabled a previously working drone. What type of ESC or motherboard fault could cause damage to multiple boards like this? Could it be a shorted power rail, failed MOSFET, or overvoltage condition?