pootle wrote:On the range issue, I fly a Phantom 3 Pro, a Phantom 4 Pro and an Inspire 1. They are limited in terms of legality to a maximum range of 500m from me and always in VLOS.
However, the Phantom 4 is good for up to 2.8km-3km straight out of the box. Disable the restrictions in the set-up (its a tick box) and you can fly it to those maximum distances. Likewise height. Legally I can't go over 500ft. Remove the tick box restricter and my law abiding nature and easily several thousand feet out the box......and that basically the same for all three of my units.
These things are very sophisticated bits of kit for £1000 new or even less on auction sites!
I've undertaken filming at sea and used longer ranges and the speeds they get up to as well is pretty impressive. I can outrun my local lifeboat doing a full 27 knots to get passing shots. A shotgun carried range is what 50m with the spread of the shot? bit to short to easily reach a drone flying around at 120m height! Using anything firing multiple bullets in any sort of automatic mode seems a bit 'Bruce Willis & Die Hard' for this type of drone!
Thats correct regarding the limits. Ive unticked the box before and had mine out at 3.7 miles. You can go further but i bottled it.
Kept the height at 150ft.
These drones once up a few hundred feet are very hard to see. So if they are flying these up to big heights say a thousand or more feet high in to gatwick, then dropping down then departing back at height, they are going to be hard to see until they just drop in.
Must be a at least 2 or more drones. Its been reported of 2 seen at the same time.
Add the battery life of 30 minutes tops. They have a handful of powerpacks and doing a quick pack change. They just push in and pull out, so takes very little time.