Reportedly, it is the most photographed event in the world, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The festival stretches over nine days in New Mexico, from October 6th through the 14th. With over 500 balloons it is the largest hot air balloon event in the world. With all the colorful balloons and the thousands of people attending, the event naturally attracts many photographers, including aerial photographers. However, you are not allowed to fly your drone at the event location. Even in a four-mile radius around the event drones are not allowed, as a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) has been put into place. However, there’s one exception. Jesse Samson is allowed to fly his DJI Matrice 600 with a high-end Canon camera.

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Earlier this month U.S. aviation regulators quietly filed a new proposed rule that would require recreational drone pilots to place their government assigned drone identification number on the outside of their aircraft. Currently, the roughly one million recreational drone pilots that are registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are already required to identify their drones but the marking can be placed inside the battery compartments for instance where it is not easily visible.

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DJI’s VP of Policy and Legal Affairs, Brendan Schulman talks about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Congress and how new upcoming regulations may impact hobbyist drone pilots. Brendan has been part of the Aviation Rule Making Committee (ARC) to create a report with recommendations for the FAA. This report addresses among other things, remote identification. Brendan is also working with other stakeholders from the manned aviation world, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) and DJI customers on a proposal for Congress to create an online test or tutorial for recreational drone pilots and to prevent section 336 from being repealed.

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Yesterday, we had the chance to talk to DJI’s Managing Director of North America, Michael Perry at the AUVSI Xponential 2018 in Denver, Colorado. Michael spoke to us about the new Zenmuse XT2 dual-sensor thermal camera as well as the payload SDK and DJI’s push into the commercial drone market. We also spoke about how drones can help save people lives around the world and of course we asked him about what else consumers can expect from DJI this year.

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DJI has started to introduce new features for their ‘electronic license plate’ system for drones, called Aeroscope, in their latest firmware updates. The new features allow drone pilots to voluntarily identify their flight operations to law enforcement agencies.

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Chinese drone manufacturer, DJI just announced today that they will be adding new identification features to their “electronic license plate” for drones system, Aeroscope. Aeroscope is a system that remotely identifies and tracks airborne drones, allowing law enforcement and aviation safety officials to respond to safety and security concerns about drones. The new additions allow drone operators to voluntarily identify their drone and drone flights to law enforcement agencies. The new features are available in the DJI GO 4 app and as of now work only with the Mavic Pro.

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