Originally Posted by
TimJ
I don't buy that it was a DJI. I was under the impression that DJI had programing (maybe only the new inspire?) that did not allow their craft to fly at all within a radius of airports and other restricted areas.
The DJI software has some rudimentary controls in place. They have an airport database that restricts flying within a certain radius of some major airports and restricts altitude as you move away from the airpot. Around Reagan National there is a 1.5 mile NO-FLY zone, and then from there out to 8 miles the altitude goes from 35 feet to 400 feet.
http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc
The White House is just over 3 miles from Reagan National, so a Phantom could easily be flown around the White House area and at altitudes up to a couple of hundred feet.
In addition, this software is only operative on the Phantom 2 series of DJI quads and only if the most current software is uploaded to the quad.
The DJI "Fly Safe" is a joke. In the LA area only LAX, John Wayne and Ontario are in the database. Long Beach, Bob Hope, Van Nuys, Los Alamitos, Torrance, Chino, Whiteman, Hawthorne, Santa Monica, and El Monte are all absent from their database. So an uninformed DJI owner could fire it up and fly near any of those airports thinking he is good to go based on DJI's flawed "Fly Safe" software.