Am thinking to fly my Mini 4 Pro to the East of Tower Bridge. Based on reviewing various posts on here, it appears that there is (or at least used to be) a DJI GEO fence around HMS President, located just to the East of Tower Bridge. Another member lost their drone after it became stuck here, couldn’t move and ran out of power. Obviously, I’d like to avoid that!
I looked on the DJI GEO Zone Information site, and it doesn’t show any restrictions. (In fact, it doesn’t even show HMS President!)
Drone Scene only mentions that ‘flying in this area is likely to be prohibited’, but the boundary is tightly located around the jetty and building behind it, where I have no intention of flying.
I had planned to take of from Hermitage Memorial Gardens, as there don’t appear to be other recommended locations near Tower Bridge.
My question is this: Given that DJI have apparently removed their GEO zone restrictions, is it likely to be safe to fly in this area? Is there anything else that is likely to cause the issues that the other member had where he lost his drone? What sort of wide berth should I consider given. (I had planned to fly the drone towards the South Bank, and then closer to the bridge, before flying back towards the North bank once I had passed HMS President.
with the DJI geo zone removed your unlikely to have the issue that people had where they basically hit an invisible wall that they could not move around and this is what caused them to lose their drones as it was during a RTH .
All that will happen now is your likely to stray into the restricted zones now if your not careful as the drone wont tell you as it no longer knows about the zones so your now responsible for your flight path and knowing where your flying as to if its legal and safe.
Be sure to check Drone Scene for these zones and the other posts about flying in this area for the best locations and what to do.
Yes I can vouch for that as somebody who did hit that invisible wall sometime back and just managed to get my drone safely home.
I’ve been back a couple of times since with no issues. If I recall on my last visit something did pop up on my screen before I took off but I can’t recall for sure what it was. Just stay to the east of Tower Bridge and you’re all good to go. Preferably carry out you flight at high tide as there is always the increased risk of low bird activity when the tide is out.
Yes, I just checked tides. High water is around 10am, which is about the time that I planned to go. I also plan to go closer to 120m than the ground, so should (apparently, according to a quick search) avoid most pigeons, seaguls and sparrows, although geese will often fly higher.
This will also have the advantage that the river will look nicer without the muddy banks. Flew Caerphilly Castle recently, plenty of geese there but they didn’t seem bothered. I was more worried about them on the ground; they can be quite aggressive if they see something they don’t like, but on the moat or in the air I wasn’t particularly worried about them. They are lovely birds to watch in flight, but designed for efficient long distance cruising and are a bit heavy for rapid ascent. A drone can easily outpace them going straight upwards left stick forward, and they need about 50m to get airborne off the water! Tasty as well…
My issue is with seagulls, which mobbed my Mini 2SE and sent it to a watery grave. About a dozen of them, juvenlies probably showing off like teenagers do, and out of breeding season. This was back in July and none have bothered me since.
Update: I did the flight, but did have a ‘brown trousers’ moment. Each time I took off I flew towards the south bank so as to avoid the potential no fly zone. There was a warning on takeoff about it. Flew with two batteries and was going to take a hyperlapse with the third. Had moved the drone into position and selected hyperlapse and the RC2 screen turned to static!!! Nothing at all on it, other than white noise.
I pressed RTH and the drone turned round, and then restored video feed to the RC2.
I don’t think this is was anything to do with HMS President (e.g. some sort of jamming) as the drone was stationary and still controllable. I am wondering if it was a bug within the latest firmware when setting up hyperlapses. I was about to set the first waypoint when the screen went.
I may report this to DJI to see what they say. In the meantime I have lots of (hopefully) great images and video to edit!
This was my third battery, and for all flights I gave it a very, very wide berth. I flew directly towards the south bank and then along towards the bridge. This incident occurred when the drone was by Butler Wharf and between the bridge and HMS President. The Thames at this point is around 230 metres wide, so I was definitely well over the 50m distance. Height was about 60 metres.
As I said, I was very, very cautious! When it happened I immediately assumed it was some sort of blocking, but when I could see the drone responding to movement I press RTH. That’s when the display returned and the green overlay was on as normal. I cancelled RTH and flew my same route along the south bank and across the Thames again without incident.
This image shows the approximate location of the drone, which you can see will be much more than 50m away from the jetty, assuming that was the starting point.
Very highly doubtful, It’s a Royal Naval Reserve establishment, there’s as much chance of my local Scout’s hut being fitted with C-UAV tech and that chance is none!
What you have to take into account is that area is buzzing with signals interference of all sorts. I encountered a lot of signal interference previously, so on my most recent visit I changed the transmission to 2.4GHz and the signal was perfect throughout.
As @milkmanchris has also said, please post your source.
Ahh, good tip. I’ve never even played around with those settings before, and had not considered it to be simple interference.
I’m still leaning to this being a bug though, as the issue started immediately I tried to program in a hyperlapse and disappeared immediately when I pressed Return to Home.
I am also in agreement that I’d like to see the source of this 50m distance from HMS President, as I did extensive research before making this flight, and while I knew to avoid this area, all the no-fly zones are strictly contained to the vicinity of the building and jetty, so if the 50m distance is true it is not clearly documented in the common places that people would look.
Did you ask for official documentation/legislation/byelaws that state a 50m distance?
Earlier today I was looking into this myself. Whilst the 50m distance is indeed enforced by legislation and byelaws for both Plymouth (HMNB Devonport and Portsmouth) - this is backed with specific legislation / byelaws for both bases. Not forgetting the Scottish bases also.
I also consulted the Port of London Authority Byelaws which mention absolutely nothing pertaining to HMS President. The only restricted area for vessels on the River Thames which a 70m zone is in place away from the site is the Houses of Parliament, Not that we can fly there anyway.
Unless all of a sudden HMS President has been designated a prohibited place under the National Security Act 2023, I’d take what they said with a pinch of salt unless you have been provided with official documentary proof.
I had a look through all the tabs and couldn’t see any anomalies. Signal was at 100%, which does lead me to think that it was a bug, especially as I had just gone into the Hyperlapse menu and was about to set waypoints. When I press RTH the screen immediately reappeared again, and I then cancelled RTH and brought the aircraft back manually, again taking care to avoid any potential geo-fencing, as you can see from the horizontal line returing.
I’ve marked the position on the map where the (brown trousers) white screen moment occurred - as you can see, it’s further away from HMS President than earlier in the flight.
P.S. Thanks to all that have chimed in on this - really appreciate it!