Guessing at 400 feet!

LoneRCRanger

LoneRCRanger

Well-Known Member
Since the FAA has established the 400 foot altitude limit it has puzzled me just how can one determine what 400 feet in altitude is? Unless the quadcopter has telemetry that indicates altitude (even in meters), how can we know what 400 feet is, by eyeballing it? What do you compare it to? Yeah, tie a 400 foot thread to the bottom and fly it up until the end of the thread leaves the ground, right? Not practical and the weight of the thread will affect the quad's lift performance.

Any hints???
 
Both GPS module and barometer can be set up in your OSD to show distance, altitude, speed, etc. although GPS will only give you a rough estimate, it can be out by a s much as 20 metres. Barometer is much more accurate and quite a few flight controllers have built in baros.
 
Some variation of omnibus F4 have them but it is a feature you have to specifically look for, for sure. 400ft is 121m my baro said I got up to 20m I believe last time but I'll record DVR next time and try to see if I can get anywhere near 100m before deciding to bail, I generally fly low so it's not a real concern but now I'm curious.

According to internet 400ft is 37 story building if that helps give some perspective.
 
Neither of my quadcopters nor my fixed wing Super Cub, have that telemetry. That is why I brought up the point. My Model Aircraft do not possess those types of navigation telemetry. Many other model aircraft do not possess that type of telemetry but are still subject to the FAA restriction. So, how do we judge 400 feet? A good question for the dumb arses at the FAA, maybe?
 
I don't fly that high so it doesn't worry me But got me thinking you guys in USA Land have dudes that launch Model Rockets ! I have seen them on tv going a lot higher than 400 feet (121 meters as we like to call it) with NO Control! "Up is GO! .... And the Monkey Flipped the Switch"
How do they get on with FAA Regulations?
 
I loved model rockets as a kid for sure never really worried about the altitude my guess is the C rockets I used weren't enough to get it really high enough to worry about helicopters or airplanes for that matter https://www.hobbylinc.com/c-model-rocket-engines Have been thinking about getting back into this because of BPS space channel on youtube:


Unfortunately I'm closer to the city now so a bit hard to find places I could launch anything like this.
 
I was building and flying model rockets at age 15 through about age 22. I belonged to a Model Rocketry Club called the Wolverine Rocketeers of Detroit. We had a few members the built telemetry rockets with movie cameras in them that reached well over 5,000 feet. There were no restrictions then. The only reason there are restrictions now is because of the dumbbells that insist on doing dumb things with QUADCOPTERS. Model Rockets and Fixed Wing Model Planes weren't being used for that crazy stuff. 9/11 didn't help either. Everyone is fearful that terrorists are going to drop bombs on them from drones. Maybe so, but then some terrorists just terrorize to make us fearful. That being said, the terrorists have already won by doing what they wanted to do --- "make us scared"!!!
 
This video on the Falcon Heavy Lifter is stupid. He didn't have to do all that BS, Estes Industries has a Falcon Heavy Lifter Model that actually flies, not blows up two feet off the launch pad! We built rockets for fun, not to compete with SpaceX!
 
LoneRCRanger said:
This video on the Falcon Heavy Lifter is stupid. He didn't have to do all that BS, Estes Industries has a Falcon Heavy Lifter Model that actually flies, not blows up two feet off the launch pad! We built rockets for fun, not to compete with SpaceX!
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He builds for fun as well he's trying to develop more open source software and hardware for propulsive landing and other random flight control software. No problem with buying things off the shelf for fun but I think it's fun to try and develop things yourself too even if there are lots of failures along the way.
 
May Werner Von Braun and Charles Goddard bless him. It will probably take as long for him to develop the technology by himself. One thing that puzzled me was the engines and how they ignited. Unless he packed the engine tubes himself (which I think he didn't), building a solid fuel engine is extremely hazardous. He probably bought three "F" series engines from Estes or Century.
 
Take your 'telemetry free" quad and set it 400 feet away from you. Hold a ruler at arms length. Guesstimate the measurement of your quad.
Then if you want to know (approximately of course) if your approaching or at the legal altitude and the quad is directly overhead. Hold up your ruler and do the same measurement. Make sure your ruler has silly millimeters and you have 20/20 eyesight :eek:

Or with the help of a buddy and a smart phone. Use an app to measure height. Some apps use triangle math to determine the altitude ( amazing coincidence huh :cool:) of a triangle if you know the base (distance to you standing directly under quad) and it gets the hypotenuse from the phone angle.

Or you could say **** ** and just fly.:rolleyes:
 
Used to fly model rockets and RC airplanes. The local airport provided a flying field on the edge of the airport, just a hundred feet or so from a runway. They kept it mowed for us.

Of course, "It's just a matter of time before one of these things brings down an airliner."
 
Before 9/11, things were different. Now, everyone is afraid! The terrorists have won because that's what they set out to do --- make us afraid!
 
LoneRCRanger said:
Before 9/11, things were different. Now, everyone is afraid! The terrorists have won because that's what they set out to do --- make us afraid!
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I used do a lot of fishing at an Indiana power plant, the warm water and discharge bought in many trout and salmon during the winter. After 9/11 fishermen were denied access.
 
We've all sort of gotten off track here. In model rocketry, we had a simple device that we used to measure altitude of a rocket. It was called an Astrolabe. It worked by sighting through two apertures at the rocket when it deployed it parachute. There was a gauge strip that told us the angle at that point. Knowing the distance from the launch pad (usually 500 feet) and having 2 angles (90 degrees from where we stood to the launch pad) and the resulting angle, we could calculate the altitude using the Geometric Equation for a Right Triangle. When you're flying by yourself with a drone, you need that second person to do that type of calculation.
 
LoneRCRanger said:
We've all sort of gotten off track here. In model rocketry, we had a simple device that we used to measure altitude of a rocket. It was called an Astrolabe. It worked by sighting through two apertures at the rocket when it deployed it parachute. There was a gauge strip that told us the angle at that point. Knowing the distance from the launch pad (usually 500 feet) and having 2 angles (90 degrees from where we stood to the launch pad) and the resulting angle, we could calculate the altitude using the Geometric Equation for a Right Triangle. When you're flying by yourself with a drone, you need that second person to do that type of calculation.
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And, of course, you need to know the distance.

I had the wooden one from Estes.
 
I nearly picked up a rocket from MicroCenter the other day when getting some filament but need to find a place I can launch around here before it'd be worth grabbing, would be fun to chase the rocket with my quad too :D BPS channel had a new vid recently where he got certification for Level 1 and Level 2 rockets I guess was a way more impressive flight than the Falcon Heavy attempts if you're interested.
 
Tentoes said:
I had the wooden one from Estes.
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Yes, that's the one I had (or still have somewhere). For knowing the distance from the launcher, we estimated 100 yards (300 feet) and extrapolated from there. Of course, I was 15 to 20 years old building and flying Estes and Century Model Rockets. I was a member of a Model Rocketry Club called the "Wolverine Rocketeers of Detroit" We had about 40 kids ages 8 years to 20 years. After that We were Adult Member/.Sponsors. We were all members of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), which still exists today. I have a box full of rockets I built and some "old" engines too. I wonder if they will still work? WEell, I'm a 72 years old kid. So, those rocket engines are about 50 to 60 years old. Whoosh --- BoooM!
 
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