Drone News: Mavic 3 and DJI Air 2S updates. New FAA exam and recurrent training. And more!

So i’ll, let you guys know in a few weeks this week i actually got a ton of information. The first one is more information on the mavic 3 pro and on the air 2s from dji. We get some more information from drone excel. I want to talk about the new exam and the recurrent training that is finally around the corner. It’S happening next week. So i’ll give you more information, make sure everybody’s on the same page, siamo, going to take a look at footage of a drone hitting a windshield that was done during a test and the results are actually pretty surprising. I want to talk about the drone that’s on mars they’re, getting ready to do their first flight and it’s pretty exciting, E poi. Infine, i want to give you a pilot institute update so let’s get to it: Musica, ok. The first thing this week is coming from our friends at drone excel now i’m, not going to have haya this week on the show, because we’re going to be recording on tuesday in our podcast, our new podcast, the pixel drone show we’re going to be talking about More of this in more detail, so i didn’t want to bring him here and then repeat the same information next week. But if you take a look on the the page, there is a youtube page for the show and you can find much more information. Drone pixel drone show is the name of the show so make sure you head over to the youtube channel and, if you’re not subscribed, make sure that you subscribe.

We put content every single week in a bit more detail, but back to the mavic 3 and to the air, 2s dji seems to have a lot on their hands right now and primarily because this new drone, the the mavic 3, is around the corner. Based on the rumor from drone excel they’re saying that it could be going into production level entering the production stage. Allo stesso tempo, the air 2s seems to be a little bit further into the the production detail. So we may see the the 2s before we see the mavic 3.. Now with that being said, there’s more information posted on drone excel i’m going to put a link down here, so you can go and take a look at the the graph here’s the picture. In realtà. So you can see what i’m talking about, but they have a new drawing of the rear of the drone of the mavic 3, which shows a much longer battery than usual. That would actually slide in into the back of the drone. So a lot of speculation going on, but they’re hoping that this means a battery that lasts for more than 30 minuti, which is something that we’ve kind of been waiting that 30 minute time. Sai, mark is kind of a big deal for drones realistically 20 A 25 minutes when you take into account the the battery and all of these things that you know the battery having a little bit of a buffer, so that would be actually pretty sweet.

Having this uh speaking of the uh air 2s, which is the new drone, the replacement for the air 2 DJI, is talking about a one inch sensor, so that would match what we see on the mavic 2 Pro, which kind of will be interesting to see what Happens to the next level, la mavic 3 and what kind of sensors it will be equipped with. If you have the air 2s competing with the mavic 3 in terms of sensors, then well, then they only have one product to sell. So we’ll have more information on this, be sure to tune in, on tuesday, with haya and with kara murphy and we’ll go over and talk about a lot more of dji, stuff and kind of some positioning as well. So next thing is the new exam, and i know you guys have been waiting for this for a long long time, but the new exam with the fa and the recurrent training available online that’s happening on tuesday, tuesday april 6th. It has been delayed. Everybody was waiting for it march 15.. I don’t really see another delay at this stage and i hope that i’m right but i’m 99.9 sure that at this stage, we’re going to stick with april 6.. Now with that being said, the training is going to be done. Online with the faa for free okay on fa safety.gov, the training is going to cover not only for night training. I know a lot of people are saying night: Formazione, myself included but it’s going to include the new regulation flying over people operating over people and then over moving vehicles and then remote id as well.

So it’s going to be kind of a training encompassing all of the new stuff that that is going on with the new regulation. Ora, with that being said, april 6 is also the date of the new faa exam and the ufa exam is going to go live. So if you’re taking the initial exam, make sure that you’re studying the new regulation make sure you’re studying night operation, because there will be question on the new exam with this no remote id. So you don’t have to study about remote id. But you have to make sure you know the knowledge for everything else make sure you study these topics if you’re in our course we’ve had this information since the end of january, in the course. So not a whole lot has changed except those release dates, but we’ve updated the course. So you guys should be all ready to go and rock and roll on your on your exam. The training in itself that’s going to be available online, so there’s, two things right: the new exam with the initial exam, with the faa at the testing center that you have to pay for, and the faa training that is available online for free two different concepts. The initial exam you have to do to get your certificates. The training on the fa website will accomplish two different things. It will make you current again. So if your currency is expiring because of the 24 calendar months, then this will act as recurrent training.

You don’t need to take the ugr exam, which was the recurrent exam which cost 160 dollari. A dire il vero, i tested i went on the psi website and i tried to schedule the ugr for after april 6 and it wouldn’t. Let me it’s not available in there, so so it’s going away it’s disappearing, che è buono. ok, saves you guys 160 bucks and you can just do the training online for free and then be done with it, be done for 24 calendar months again, then you’ll come back and you’ll do more than likely a different training in two years, but uh but we’ll See when we get there, the i want to give you a few tips now. The reason i’m mentioning this is because there’s 220 000 remote pilots in the us at the moment, if everybody logs in on that one day april 6, the server is going to crash the the server is not designed for that amount of people, so who should be Taking the training on april 6th on april 6 only if you need to get current immediately if your currency has expired at the end of march, then technically between march and april march, 31st or april 1st, i should say at 1201 – am from that time. Until until you take the recurrent training online, then you’re not current, quindi cerchiamo di, let people who need to get this done, there’s quite a few of them let’s.

Let them do it and then, and then wait until maybe april 7 to log in or maybe at the end of the day on april 6, to do the training don’t rush in there for most people. If you want to do the training, if you want to fly at night, then you’re going to have to do the training, but you can’t fly at night until april 21st, so i’m going to say if you want to fly at night without a waiver after april 21St, then do the training any time between april 7 and april 20th, even april 21st, if you want so that we can spread the training. So we don’t overload the server anyone. Who’S got a currency that is expiring at the end of april. You can wait until technically april, the last day of april april 30th in order to take that online training, because because well, your currency is good until the end of the month. So make sure that you you’re smart about this. We again, we don’t want to overwhelm the server on the faa website and then crash it for the people that actually need it. Allora, In questo caso, just just think about it: ok, those people that don’t need to do the training. There are some people that don’t need to do the training. If you took the initial exam after on or after april 6, you do not need to do the recurrent training on the fa website.

Si, you covered you’ve, done your recurrent training technically. By doing the initial test, so you can skip that part, so anyone doing the training after on or after april 6, you don’t need to do the recurrent training until you do, che è 24 calendar months later so you’ve got time. You get plenty of time. Other people that don’t need to do the recurrent training if you’re still current and you don’t – want to fly at night. You don’t need to go on there. You don’t need to do the training, so some people don’t want to fly at night this. If you’re current, the only thing that doing the training does it’s going to allow you to become current and it’s going to allow you to fly at night without a waiver, but that doesn’t start until april 21st. Just remember that part not because you took the training that you’re ready to go. I know a lot of people are going to do that, but that doesn’t work, ok, here’s a pro tip, go ahead and create an account today as you’re watching this video or wait a day or two and go on a facesafety.gov create a a new account. It’S free you’ll have to enter some information in there. Your pilot certificate information and everything, and then you’ll have an account. The reason i’m saying to do it now is because on april 6 again we don’t want to overload the server. So if you create the account now, you’ll be familiar with the the website and how it works and then you’ll be able to go in there.

Ora, if you’re looking to search for the training it’s not going to be available until april 6 and i’m going to say that again, i keep repeating these dates, but it’s not going to be available. You will see there is some training in there called alc 451 and alc 515. These are training courses, they’re designed for part 61 students or pilots who already have a license and want to get their remote pilot certificate. This does not apply to you more than likely unless you have a private pilot, a commercial pilot or airline transport pilot certificate and you’re current then do not use these. So if you log in and you’re like, i found, i found a training course. A lot of people have told me this already. You didn’t it’s not going to be available until april 6.. It is going to be named alc677, quindi questo è. What you’re? Looking for on april 6 is alc677 that’s going to be the course name again fa safety.gov. Now you may be surprised, i’ve been calling it training, everybody’s been calling and training, but when you log into the website you’ll see if it follows the rest of the training. That’S available on fa, safety.gov i’ve done a lot of these courses in the past as a main aircraft pilot it’s going to look like a lot of text, there’s going to be text a page, probably another page, probably another page you’ll have to read through all the Text and at the end of it there’s going to be a review and then there’s more than likely going to be an exam.

Now you said greg, you said there was not gon na, be an exam it’s, not really an exam. ok, it’s it’s a little test to make sure you know everything, but you can actually answer questions wrong. The fa when you submit it is gon na ask you to review the questions that you get wrong, correct it to 100 and then submit it again. It doesn’t mean you fail it doesn’t do anything. It just validates the training to make sure that you’ve done it. Ora. I cannot guarantee 100. I have not seen the training. I cannot guarantee 100 that it will be an exam like this at the end, but all the training that i’ve ever done on fa safety.gov worked that way so expect to have an exam at the end, although it’s not the same type of exam, you can do It from home it’s online it’s, not the same thing that you did at the testing center, so there’s, niente. You need to do to prepare for this. Just log into the fa website read their training and then take that exam if it’s available and then you’ll be all set. What do you do with the completion certificate you’re going to get a completion certificate? Cioè? The proof that you completed the training that’s the proof that you can fly at night after april 21st, that’s something you need to keep for your records that’s. Also the proof of currency that’s when you clock resets for 24 calendar months, so keep that in your records.

Have it available if the faa is asking or anyone is asking for currency that’s, what you’re going to give them? You can also give it to your insurance company, so they know that you’ve done the training that’s all i’m, going to talk about this i’m sure there’s going to be comments. Questions leave them down in here, Sono, more than happy to answer them. The next thing i want to talk about is this video that surfaced of a drone that is hitting a windshield, and the drone is hitting the ritual at 62.5 miles an hour which happens to be 100 kilometers per hour. This was done by virginia tech ictas, and this was done in partnership with state farm and i’m guessing they wanted to find out what would happen if a drone hit a car going 60 miles an hour and and the result was actually surprising. You see the the drone it’s a mavic 2 pro that is hitting the windshield straight on at 60 miles an hour and the front legs kind of collapse absorb. It looks like most of the shock and then bounce off the windshield, and there it goes. The clip is very short: it doesn’t look like there’s any crack on the windshield, which i thought was interesting and um and that’s it really now i hate showing these crash tests, Perché, because people always kind of assume that well, i guess you know it hit the Windshield, Non è successo niente, so it means that we can fly over cars now and it’s, not as much of a danger.

Bene, not necessarily, ok. So the fact that the windshield didn’t crack is good, questo è questo è, a good sign. Does it mean that you can go and fly near cars and and near near uh near moving vehicles on the highway? No don’t. Do it? ok, it’s still not legal as it is. ok, next update is the mars drone uh. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. We have the uh the perseverance rover that is on mars right now and it’s carrying a drone, a uas nasa likes to call it a helicopter. I call it a uas because it’s, an unmanned aircraft and it’s got two propel true propellers and it’s pretty cool and getting ready to do their first flight. And if you watch the video before the first flight is going to be a hovering test. They’Re making sure that this thing can hover a little bit it’s going to go. I think it’s three feet up and then come back down and then test is successful, they’re hoping to do more tests down in the future, but the process is pretty cool. This thing is attached, underneath the the rover, the rover, è, dropping it off. It actually took a week for the arm to unfold and to drop this thing on the surface and then the drone kind of rolls away, and then the drone is going to do its flight and then come back. And then the rover i’m guessing is going to pick it up again and then transport it to the next spot, so it’s really cool.

The goal is really to test flying on ballard aircraft. On the surface of mars, so can’t wait to see the results. I’Ll be talking about this. I love space, stuff and uh uas in space. Double. Why me okay, last topic is some pilot institute news. We have the podcast. I mentioned this every tuesday. Last week we talked to john mcbride from rmus and john is a dji dealer. And if you remember, we talked about dji, changing their policy and changing direct and and selling enterprise drones directly to the customers, and we kind of speculated that this was going to create some issues and we have a kind of a fresh take on this. From john john is one of the largest dealer, if not the largest dji dealer he’s, the oldest dealer for dji in the us, and he has a really cool take on all this. We talk about a lot of different manufacturers and kind of their approach to selling their drones and it’s it’s. A very fresh look and and drawn is very direct. It’Ll tell you how it is, and john has been in the industry for a very long time. So if you haven’t, listened to the episode it’s about an hour long, but if you’re driving it’s available on podcast it’s available on the youtube channel on a pixel drone show so make sure you find it and listen to it. I really enjoy interviewing jon because he’s kind of straight to the point, which is cool so more updates, we hit some really big milestone this week, actually pretty much all of them in a row.

We just hit a hundred thousand course enrollments on our platform, which is huge hundred thousand uh. Seventy thousand students. We have fourteen thousand followers on youtube. This happened yesterday. A hundred thousand uh course enrollment also happened yesterday and then earlier this week we had our four thousand member join our facebook group for part 107, which makes it the largest part 107 group. Anche, personalmente, i think the best group really good feedback in this q. In this group we have 30 posts a day, all very respectful people asking questions and learning i’m really proud of the community that we’ve built communities is only available to our paid students. So if you’re paid students and you’re not in the group, make sure you join there’s a ton of really good information in there, we also in three weeks, are going to hit our 100th news update episode. So i don’t know yet what i’m going to do? Probably just wear a cool hat but that’s about it, but i’m really excited 100 consecutive. We didn’t miss anything in the last hundred shows so really excited about this, and then we finally have new shirts. A lot of you have been asking about shirts uh, with the graduate underneath it so polo shirts, just like the one that i wear on the show with the pilot institute logo and it says graduate underneath it. These will be, and these actually are available. They’Ll be available tomorrow as i’m recording this, but when you watch it it will be available i’m going to put a link down here.

You’Ve got two different types of shirt. You can buy from three different colors and i hope you guys enjoy them. I know you’ve been asking for them for a long time and we finally delivered so i’m excited. Not only that, but the person doing the shirts is actually one of our students dirk and he reached out. We worked together and i’m excited to be sending him some business, so that’s it i’m excited about that part. Before i leave make sure you check out the airplane news update. We have a news update going on over there this week, i’m talking about a flight training survey that was done by a company and we’ll talk about those results, there’s a new advisory circular for doing pre flight briefings. In realtà, this one may also be of interest for pilots of drones, c'è, some really good information about the weather so head over. There you’ll get more information, and then there was some videos of the last airbus a380 flight, which is a little bit sad in a way. But just a majestic airplane taking off for the last time and going to the last customer, so i hope to see you there, as always like subscribe, do all the stuff that you do leave a comment: um loving it we’re getting close to 10 000 views every Week on these videos and a ton of engagement from you guys and makes my heart very warm, so i love it.