Come Fly With Me - Drone Inspection of Spillway

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I take the Mavic down into the spillway and down the ravine a little ways, to search for potential trapped wildlife. I also inspected a longer, nearly 1/4 mile section farther around the bend, but other than overflying some ducks swimming by underneath, it was uneventful footage. The resolution of this video is only 480P because it's not taken from the drone camera itself, but from the screen recording app on the tablet. The drone camera is capable of 2.7K and 4K HD.

A few weeks ago I meet a fellow drone pilot also flying at Sikes Lake. We were mostly flying over the lake and being safe. Of course, because we have to. My drone is a DJI Mavic Pro which would cost about $900 to replace new, and his was a DJI Mavic Air 2, which was brand new and roughly $700. It was only minutes before the MSU campus police showed up (all three of them) to shut us down. The first to arrive took himself a little too seriously and started a full field interrogation, complete with requests for our identifying information, as if we were up to some criminal activity. Oh, did I mention the other drone operator was black? This hyper aggressive cop acted like there was something suspicious about the fact that this black guy and I would be hanging out just talking to each other about drones and that we had JUST met each other for the first time. Anyhoo...they had to read us from their rule book, which states we can't operate aircraft or skydive, etc. from university property. That's all the asshole had to say from the start, but this was probably the most exciting thing he did all day. One of the other cops was trying to be friendly, whom I've had interaction with in the past, and he offered that we could request a waiver on the rule from the university president...and that only she could grant the exemption.

Being professional and trying to show respect, I presented myself in person at her office a couple of days later, carrying the drone to present and intending to showcase its safety features and purpose as a professional camera platform, not a toy. She couldn't have been more rude. Said that she was literally on the way out of the office (she wasn't until I walked in and told her secretary the purpose of my visit). The president of the university was standing right in her doorway, 15ft. from me, and she turned her back on me and walked away as I was requesting no more than 10 seconds to present the question to ask if the waiver for my drone work was a possibility. Don't be fooled by the media representations of this woman in local commercials as welcoming and friendly. I got nothing but bitch face and attitude from her about the fact that I could even be in her office asking a question. It was blatantly obvious that she thinks she's living in an ivory tower there and is some sort of monarch. Well...after having done what I felt was the professional and proper thing by appearing in person, and having been treated with such disrespect, I will not ask a second time. I will simply operate my drone from just outside the property of the campus, thus, negating their rule's application on me. If I'm not standing on their property at the time, then they can't do anything about it. They don't control the airspace...FAA says I can fly there, and that's all the permission I need!

Tags: drone, wildlife rescue, wildlife rehabilitation