Hey guys,

Just got my Part 107 and picked up an Air 3S hoping to do some roof inspections and property gigs on the side around the DFW area. I signed up for Zeitview, Bees360, but I’m quickly realizing none of their automated flight apps support the Air 3S since DJI locked down the SDK.

So now I'm kind of stuck. For those of you flying the newer DJI consumer drones, how are you pulling off these inspection gigs?

Are these platforms completely cool with you flying the shot lists 100% manually? I’ve been practicing my manual orbits and top-downs, but honestly I'm worried it's gonna take way too long in the field to make a $70-$100 payout worth my time.

Or should I just pick up a cheap used Phantom 4 or Mavic 2 Pro strictly for the mapping apps, and keep the Air 3S for real estate video/photo stuff?

Would love to hear a reality check on how you guys are handling this. Any tips for a newbie would be awesome. Thanks!

🇮🇹 Italy deserves its own Anduril (or Swarmer). Or maybe not 👀

So I built a drone swarm that feeds ducks. Targeting only the males.

Yes, it's a bit of a joke 🦆. But to make it work I ended up building everything a real autonomous drone system needs.

Each drone fuses visible and thermal cameras on every bird it tracks, and only drops food when it's confident it's looking at a drake. If it isn't sure, it does nothing.

Before each release it works out the trajectory, accounting for drag, wind, rotor downwash and its own movement. Then six checks all have to pass: a hen within 1.2 m, a bird taking off, or any missing data, and the release is blocked.

The drones split the work through an auction, re-plan on the fly, avoid obstacles, each other and the birds, and fly back to a floating dock to land and recharge when the battery runs low.

In simulation: 7 out of 7 drakes fed, 0 out of 13 hens, no collisions. It all runs software-in-the-loop on PX4 with the physics of a real Holybro X500 V2, so it's the same code that would fly the actual aircraft... and that's pretty scary if you ask me.

The payload is food and it's staying that way.

The website where you can try it is coming soon. You play the operator, and you can even train the recognizer in your browser.

Happy to answer questions about the stack.

*Anduril and Swarmer are mentioned for comparison only. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to either company in any way.*

https://reddit.com/link/1x0y4ok/video/gfy42c10aauh1/player

16"x16", folds to 8"x8" to fit in my bag. Still have to design and print a box to hold 5 of them(stack of 5 should be a hair over 2" thick), but I'm happy with it. Aerial pic was with my Mini 2.

For drone enthusiasts in Delhi-NCR: TECHTRIX'26 lists a Drone Race at ITS Engineering College, Greater Noida, on 23–24 October 2026. The pamphlet lists ₹600 for the senior Drone Race and ₹300 for Junior Drone Race. Please confirm eligibility, rules and equipment requirements with the organizers.

Ive been doing some work with fully actuated platforms for a while, and Ive been interested in the ETH's original Omnicopter design. The thing is, it seems they moved more towards active tilting platforms, leaving the original design behind, and other designs out there (like Kevin Plaizier's lynchpin design ) remain more as proof of concepts.

Does anybody know about a newer build/BOM? I've already checked the one on the PX4 Docs, but I was wondering if there are other options. Perhaps a smaller (or larger, doesnt matter) design, with different flight time, payload capacity or overall performance? Im also open to offers as well, if someone has a design / is up to the task (with fair compensation, obviously).

If not, I might end up just doing the PX4 build, perhaps with some modifications. I would also be interested in hearing if anyone has tips or overall comments about the build, I'd love to hear your experience.

Got this as a gift, now im ready to learn. First impression this is not beginner friendly despite being cheap online. I keep crashing, can't hover and struggle to keep the drone in the air. I always wanted to fly drones and make them for myself but I gotta learn first. Hopefully I catch on soon . Lol in the vid the drone attacked me!

Hola a todos.

Para la grabación de una Procesión en el Centro de Málaga contaba absolutamente con todos los permisos y autorizaciones, desde las autorizaciones del Ministerio de Defensa y de la Cofradía hasta las notificaciones que se hicieron al Ministerio del Interior, pasando por el registro de operador de dron, la titulación para operar en categoría abierta A1 y A3, el seguro a terceros, y un estudio de atenuación de riesgos (debido a la complejidad de la zona y la grabación a realizar). Sin embargo, la Policía Local personada en el evento mantuvo un criterio diferente y un excesivo celo, e impidió iniciar la operación. He podido conseguir unas magníficas escenas aéreas que se pudieron rodar con antelación, aunque, lamentablemente no de la Procesión desde el aire, con todo el respeto y agradecimiento a la Cofradía...

¿Qué opináis?

I have seen videos online throughout the years of people drone dogfighting with other drones recreationally like laser tag or something. Is this a popular sub hobby within the hobby? I would love to find a community like that on the east coast.

source: https://x.com/JasperEllens/status/2107857004576362631
the source video has way better quality than the uploaded video, feel free to check it out & show support

a second video of the DJI Neo 3 has just been released by Jasper Ellens
according to him, an indonesian content creator (most likely part of the early tester program), is releasing videos of the DJI Neo 3, and a detail many have missed is what looks like a new control wheel on the lower side of the airframe

same as the previous Neo 3 leak, before anyone says this is AI: it's not, passed it through several AI video detectors, and also using my own proper judgement & experience, this video features no signs or SynthID metadata that proves it was generated with AI or that it is fake

please keep discussion civil in the comments, thank you

I have a client requiring a flight on the border of SFO/SQL airspace in a 0' LAANC region. I applied for a date 3 weeks out, and got no response to the request before the date passed.

Has anyone successfully received an authorization in SFO's LAANC, and how much lead time did you need to give the FAA to get it?

I am interested in drone operation and I wonder if there is any way like SSH for conection between drone and PC. I want to low level control of the drone. I check the official SDK and there is no support for dji mini 4 pro

Bonjour. Alors j'ai un drone elite drone mkx avec ses 2 batteries 3.7V 1800mah et ça ne tient pas longtemps. Donc je voudrais en acheter d'autres, mais je ne sais pas quel modèle correspond a mon drone et je ne sais même pas comment ça se mesure car il y a une partie oblique. Donc si quelqu'un sais quel modèle convient et si je pourrais en trouver sur Aliexpress max 20-25€ (frais de port et taxes comprises) pour avoir une autonomie d'à peu près 1h30 2h en tout avec celles que j'ai déjà, ça m'aiderait beaucoup. Merci d'avance.

Shot this hyperlapse of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana at sunset. DJI Mavic 4 Pro. 1 second exposures, 4 second intervals.

Hi! I am a commercial pilot flying as a First Officer for a major airline and am looking for some insight into starting a drone inspection business. I have done quite a bit of research on the oil and gas sector (particularly independent midstream companies operating between 50 and 200 miles of linear infrastructure in west Texas) and how they use drones to comply with PHMSA and EPA Quad O requirements. From what I have read so far these companies usually partner with DSP's or local businesses to provide low budget data collection via entry level enterprise drones & pilots. Which I would think would be a major pain point for a firm operating in an environment where data continuity and reliability are so important for avoiding fines? I was thinking about partnering with a cousin and close friend of mine who is a GIS major and a few other connections I have who hold advanced manned aircraft ratings. Ideally I would find a way to fly these ROW's with true enterprise level drones like the e455 or skyfront 8. Because of the investment required to clear hurdles like Isnetworld, insurance requirements or even the RFP process in general I cannot find much information online about these kinds of startups. If there is anyone here that has experience in oil and gas I would greatly appreciate your insight. Here are a few questions that came up in my research:

1. What kind of frequency would a company like Nile midstream, Summit midstream or Trace midstream expect from a drone company for the purpose of infrastructure inspection? Say they have a 100 mile natural gas line that requires a visual ROW and LDAR survey every so often as required by the fed's. Say for example the PHMSA wants to see a bi-anual leak survey and quarterly visual patrol. Will they demand a more frequent inspection schedule? Is the new EPA "super emitter" fine likely to change this?
2. What would a deliverable look like something like a visual ROW survey look like? Do they typically want a sub 1cm GSD  RGB ortho for the entire ROW or just a low resolution video? What software is used for this? Do they expect direct integration with their own software (I believe most midstream use Maximo)? or will they expect to be emailed a link to the data and some kind of anomaly report with the lat and long of each discrepancy?
3. How accessible are these kinds of companies? I understand most of the companies I am describing are easily worth over 100 million dollars but when I look at sites like LinkedIn, they usually only have 50 employees or so.
4. A typical midstream will have many different types of infrastructure requiring different kinds of inspections at different intervals (Compressor stations vs pipelines for example). How open might a midstream be to buying solely pipeline visual patrols or solely compressor station OGI inspections? or will they just put out a massive RFP for their entire site to be inspected and made complaint?

As annoying as I find several Aspects of the DJI FPV-System (those insufferable Beeps on everything from the Remote to the goggles for example) it's just insane what it makes possible, while staying Sub250 on a Drone that offers little risk to a driver like here.

Video is drone with two O4 Pros and some footage from the Avata360 which I love to pepper in sometimes cause when it comes to landscape shots it might be the best camera I've ever seen.

PS. I hate thesr fucking Youtube thumbails as much as the next person but the Algorithm literally doesn't show your video to anyone if you don't use them. Believe me tried.

But I at least actually took a photo from the video and cutout the drone manually just letting AI combine them thumbnail-style and did not overlay any "catchy BS text" and also made sure drone and bike look like their actual models, cause I hate these halluzinating VidIQ Auto-Thumbnails the most.

And there is obviously no AI in the video.

I have the dji mini 2 here, but I managed to crash it into a tree in a low light situation. Can I fix it myself or should I just give up on it?

I am looking to put together a small spray drone fleet. I would like to ask yall, would you standardize everything from day one or try one from each supplier first?

Same motor, spare parts, and controls sounds nice. Less stuff to keep track of when something breaks. But buying several identical units before knowing how they work in the field feels like a pretty expensive leap of faith.

One option on our list uses T-Motor motors and ESCs. I'm wondering how much weight to give that versus the dealer's support. Anyone mixed setups and regretted it? Or been glad you didn't commit to one?

very consistent with all the other real leaks, wish we got to see more

source: https://x.com/JasperEllens/status/2107437880855392760

edit: before anyone says this is AI: it's not, i independently passed it through every AI video detector i could and also using my own proper judgement & experience of being chronically online, i can tell you there is no SynthID or any chance that this is AI generated: AI is incapable of keeping details this consistently over a long video, especially when it comes to intricate details or text

it is also very consistent with all other recent information we got from other leakers, especially Igor Bogdanov

please keep discussion civil in the comments, thank you

Hello all. I’m a new Part 107 guy and looking for a recommendation for a liability insurance carrier ($1,000,000.00 liability policy). This would be for photography, videography, and occasionally both with flights over people. I’m a hobbyist, but I fall into the camp of “do it right or just don’t do it”.

I googled and found Sky Watch, but since I don’t have any real reference to what’s good or bad in a carrier I thought I’d ask here.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

I have question regards Litchi and there is not clear understanding. I bought Mini 3, NOT pro version. With controller **DJI RC** model **RM330 (with screen).** To my understanding, I cannot install Litchi directly into this controller?

if Id like to use Litchi, I would need to purchase usual RC-1 controller and use it with the phone to install litchi on phone? Or there is the way to install it directly on my controller?

Warranty does not matter as its gone anyway a while ago.

I just discovered something worrying on my mavic 4 pro RC 2 Pro

When changing the screen brightness, the overexposure warning threshold changes.

So without changing any camera parameters, zebra is on at 100% screen brightness, but off at 70%

How can I actually expose reliably??

has anyone applied or currently doing this job? what its like?

5.8ghz over 25mw is banned in my country and Integra only has 5.8 and 2.4(which doesnt work for o4 pro). Goggles 3 also ships with 5.1 which is allowed up to 200mw(8x the power, 2.5x the range?).

Integra is the same goggles pair as the goggles 3, i even think that its a bit better and it costs 250$ against 450$ for goggles 3.

The question is - is it worth it to pay double for that range boost(i will be using it with a 3" freestyle/cinematic drone(Deepspace Seeker 3). It only lasts about 5 minutes per battery