Originally Posted by
porcia83
I don't own one or fly one, but I'm 99% sure there is no altitude limit programmed in to any of them. After the white house issues this and last year, I believe some of the manf's are programming code to not even let them take off at all within a certain distance of the white house. Problem is that will only take care of some of these, not all of them. Many of the folks flying these are well versed in programming, and don't rely on stock manf gear to get the up and running. I wouldn't doubt for a second someone had the technology to drop these things out of the skies with a button or two, but doubt it could be done easily without affecting other electronics.
Correct, the majority of flight controllers on the market to do not have altitude limits built in.
In many of the DJI controllers you can manually set an altitude limit and it will not fly above this. In some of the newer machines like the P3 and Inspire the maximum altitude limit is hard set. They also have no fly zones built in and if the GPS detects you are in the No Fly Zone it won't allow you to start motors.
The only problem with that is the No Fly Zones programmed into the controllers do not reflect actual airspace or runway dimensions.
In many cases the runway ends are outside the NFZ built into the flight controller.
One example of this is Sydney Australia, note the runways are outside the red zone and therefore you could start and fly your quad above the runway itself
Another example - Tucson Arizona. No protection at all against flying over the runway ends.
A totally flawed implementation of a good idea in my opinion. The No Fly Zones should accurately reflect real control zones.
http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc
