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Amusement Park Aerial photography ideas SIX FLAGS GREAT ESCAPE

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Hi Guys im going to six flags great escape in a few days with a day camp of about 75 ppl. im looking for some ideas or cool shots these shots have to come out very good since its the major trip of the summer!

Thank You!

BTW SIX FLAGS GREAT ESCAPE IS A AMUSEMENT PART

BTW X2 I HAVE THE TYPHOON H WITH REALSENSE (IF YOU GOT ANY IDEAS REGARDING THAT)
 
Sounds like it'll be fun, but you're gonna have to go off-site to fly - that place specifically forbids any drone photography within its boundaries, and its policy page reserves the right to throw you out if you try !! :/ So I guess your best strategy is to fly neighbouring areas or attractions off-site, if that is possible...
 
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The best idea I can think of is to leave the the Typhoon H at home and enjoy the park with your friends. Your age does not absolve you of the responsibility to fly safely and flying at an amusement park is anything but safe.

On your profile page you mention you are running a business with your TH. Would you mind sharing your part 107 certification with the forum? I would love to have you do some aerial video of downtown Manhattan, and the northern parts of the Appalachian Trail, after you do your Six Flags video. Just kidding, all of those places are NFZ and you should know it!!!
 
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I don't think they give Part 107's to under 16's do they ? ;) So if there is a business going on, that'll be illegal.
 
I will suggest that you discard any thought of flying around that many people. Even if you have the best skills and equipment you could possibly have, which you do not, you cannot control the people under and around your drone.

From experience I can tell you the risks cannot be mitigated and everything has to go perfectly 100% of the time to pull it off. If ANYTHING goes wrong no amount of insurance will undo the damage done and you will likely end up in jail. Just don’t do it.
 
how bout' flying till' they tell me to stop becuz my employer payed 100 bucks to get it delivered from the kavservice to the hotel were staying at (it crashed a while ago and im only getting it back now!)
for overnight shipping do you think its better to fly till they tell me to stop, or ask them first for permission i have a drone license (not part 107, the other one (the hobbyist one)) because i was quite excited for this trip.
 
All safety considerations aside, if you ask them first, they will almost certainly say no, but they won't send you home, which is what might happen if you do it knowing it is against their rules and get caught. Not only that, but if you publish the footage anywhere you've just posted the evidence that proves you did it, so may end up facing consequences later. I guess you have to ask anyway - there might be a small chance that the person you talk to on site isn't familiar with the company policy or is prepared to override it in your favour in deference to your certification. Them saying yes is really the only chance you have not to get ejected if caught.

But, that said, if there are only 75 people, ie only your party on the whole campus, and they all know you are filming and flying, I suppose that is different to flying in a public theme park, which is what I thought you were planning to do initially.
 
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I’ll be a little more blunt. If you do not or can not control the movement and location of every person around the areas you would be flying you would be an idiot to fly.

if you intend to fly a rig fresh out of the repair shop without at least 5 full duration functional check flights to verify every feature and function on the aircraft you would be an idiot to fly the event.

If you have less than 50 hours of flight time on the particular aircraft, and less than 200 hours of total drone flight time you would be an idiot to fly the event. You are not qualified to fly if you can’t prove that experience.

Only an idiot would view a $100.00 shipping fee as fair compensation to offset criminal negligence and millions of $$ in civil liability. As you aren’t commercially licensed your “paid to fly” activities are illegal the moment the drone leaves the ground. As your employer paid for the shipping you would have already received consideration before lift off.

So the question is; are you an idiot and think you will obtain fame and glory flying an event where risks can be neither justified or mitigated? Can you afford a million $ lawsuit and a few years in jail? Can your parents afford them? Would they be willing to sacrifice all they have worked for in order for you to injure or kill someone through a few minutes of extremely foolish activity?

Being candid, if I knew the park and the group date you intended to fly I would alert park management of your intent in order for them to prevent your entry to the park.
 
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how bout' flying till' they tell me to stop becuz my employer payed 100 bucks to get it delivered from the kavservice to the hotel were staying at (it crashed a while ago and im only getting it back now!)
for overnight shipping do you think its better to fly till they tell me to stop, or ask them first for permission i have a drone license (not part 107, the other one (the hobbyist one)) because i was quite excited for this trip.

The responsibility does not lie upon the person/s that employ your services to know when or where you can legally fly. It is on your head and more importantly your parents/guardians since you are underage.

Since it sounds like you registered yourself as a hobbyist pilot, you should already know that part of the rules as a hobbyist, you cannot accept any type of compensation for flying nor can anyone using photos or videos you took for them promote their cause or business.

While I can appreciate that you an ambitious young man trying to earn money for yourself, I have to say that you are not a competent commercial sUAS pilot at this point of your life. The crash that rendered your CGO3+ unusable is evidence of that fact (I’m not saying commercial pilots never crash). You needed to test the installation of the RealSense module before relying on it to avoid obstacles, especially since you did the install yourself.

From some of your other posts it sounds as if you want to become an aerial videographer utilizing sUAS platforms. Please study the materials to become Part 107 qualified. All of the information can be found on the FAA website. Being a commercial sUAS Pilot is no different than being a commercial pilot with other aircraft. A lot of the same information must be learned and it takes time and effort to do so. Please put forth the time and effort to do it the right way, it will be much more rewarding in the end.
 
This is from The Great Escape website under the Park Policies heading.

Quote:

PHOTOGRAPHY
By entering the park, guests grant The Great Escape the right to film, video, record or photograph them on park property for any reason without payment or consideration. The Great Escape requests that all photographs or video taken by our guests be used for their personal use and enjoyment only. Any use, reuse or reproduction for commercial purposes without the express written consent of The Great Escape is strictly prohibited. The Great Escape reserves the right to refuse to allow photography of any kind as necessary at individual locations. No commercial photography of any kind is permitted. Specifically, the use of the following equipment is not permitted:

  • GoPro & action cameras will not be allowed on rides.
  • Any camera mounted to a vehicle, drone, cart, scooter or other moving objects.
  • No cameras (video, still, cell phone, smartphones, action, etc.) are allowed on any rides at any time. No exceptions.
All Great Escape rides, shows, and attractions are protected by copyright. Guests must have written permission to use photographs and/or videotape of The Great Escape images for commercial broadcasting, advertising, marketing or publishing in any medium.

Unquote.
 
That actually sounds like quite a prudent policy. Can you imagine getting hit in the head by a GoPro or a iPhone moving 80 miles an hour?

As far as the drone footage...no...you can be sued by the park and fined (or more) by the FAA. You can't even monetize your YouTube videos unless you have a 107. As far as a "hobbyist license", there is no such thing. You may be confused a little, but you registered one drone with the FAA, not the pilot. If you think you have protection from someone like the AMA's insurance program (if you are a member), breaking their safety rules (like flying over unprotected people) is going to void it.
 
As far as a "hobbyist license", there is no such thing. You may be confused a little, but you registered one drone with the FAA, not the pilot.

robport,

You are correct that there is no “hobbyist license”, but there is a hobbyist registration that registers the pilot with the FAA for three years and it carries a registration ID that must be affixed to any aircraft between 0.55 and 55 lbs flown by that hobbyist pilot. The ID can be used on an unlimited number of aircraft.
 
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Commercial operators have to register each individual aircraft. Recreational flyers register themselves and use that registration number for all of their aircraft.

Under the law, anyone that knowingly encourages an unlicensed operator to perform and/or provide commercial aerial services can be found in violation, with a fine structure that can be 10X what is levied against the violating operator. I believe the maximum fine for someone that enlists an unlicensed operator is around $120,000.00 per instance. Each individual photo or video provided to the customer is an “instance”.

As the park has gone to considerable lengths to define and make public their commercial photography policies I have no doubt they would enlist the free resources of the FAA to generate a criminal investigation of a severe violation to augment their civil prosecution of the violators. To date, the largest fine paid for violating the law by using unlicensed drone photography was several million $$ by an east coast professional photography company. That was just for shooting pictures and video. There were no crashes or personal injuries involved.

Throughout this thread the OP has demonstrated his lack of knowledge and understanding of the law, and a disregard for public safety. Should he persist with his intent to fly in the amusement park and get caught or cause an incident the penalty will likely be steep as the park will make an example of him. If he’s a minor his parents will be in for a **** of a ride, with publicity that will ruin them. As the maturity demonstrated thus far is more or less non existent I suspect the OP is indeed a minor. If not a minor then being incredibly stupid might be more appropriate.

No, that was neither polite or politically correct but there are times the use of a bat to get a mules’s attention is justifiable. This is one such instance.
 
I agree with all that PatR has said. It is a event such as this that; should it take place and cause any harm to an unsuspecting person or property it would surely bring national attention of the most negative kind to our community. The press would feed on an event where someone was hurt at a park where they should have been 'safe'. And to those that have spent considerable time, money and effort to obtain the privileges and obligations of safe and legal commercial operation; it is incumbent and indeed our duty to do everything we can to ensure it doesn't happen.
 
I agree with all that PatR has said. It is a event such as this that; should it take place and cause any harm to an unsuspecting person or property it would surely bring national attention of the most negative kind to our community. The press would feed on an event where someone was hurt at a park where they should have been 'safe'. And to those that have spent considerable time, money and effort to obtain the privileges and obligations of safe and legal commercial operation; it is incumbent and indeed our duty to do everything we can to ensure it doesn't happen.
Whether or not it is appropriate for the OP to operate his equipment in an amusement park is , in my opinion, beside the point (though he shouldn't). The fact that he intends to do so as part of a commercial operation interests me the most. It is exactly this kind of person that has killed my business. I hope he gets all the fines that are coming to him if he does this operation...I have absolutely no sympathy.
 
The park has been alerted to his intentions. I emailed the park president, and included a link to this thread.

I hope Yosef realizes that he can be traced via his IP used to register on this site, and in the case of legal action YuneecPilots would cooperate with the authorities.
 
I wanted to update this thread as I had further correspondence from Yosef in a PM that I feel needs to be added to the thread. The following is a quote of his message:


Hi its yosef I'm sorry for creating that dumb thread I was indeed not aware that there could be so many problems and it would create so much commotion I will not fly my drone

And regarding not having a part 107 license I was originally hired as a camp photographer and only after did I get my drone.So I wasn't really working as an AP Pilot I just had a drone as a plus.

And after one of those first posts of liability and insurance I already made up my mind that I'm not going to fly with with out permission and I was going to find out more about this. Someone also did mention on that thread that you have to be 16 to. Get a part 107. And the photographer status this just a summer job for a day camp as I do not have school in the summer.please accept the apology as I will never do something like that again.
Good Night

I will also currently shut down this account ( maybe temporarily) so I will not be able to reply here if you do want to reply to me you can email me at [email protected]

The following was my response to that message:

Yosef,

Your apology is accepted. Please take this whole experience as a life lesson. Thankfully, no harm came to anyone. Your apology shows that you are more mature than we gave you credit for. Don’t let this experience dampen your efforts to become a sUAS videographer, just realize that it requires extra effort to do so legally.

There is no need to cancel your account, and there are many members here that are excellent pros, and could provide very valuable guidance in piloting and photo/video techniques. We would much rather see you stay and mature in the hobby/profession and be a productive member of our community.

You have to realize that the use of sUAS craft is at a pivotal point right now. It is a time that any events that would show it in any kind of negative light could be devastating to our rights to using the airspace. This is the reason that so many responded so harshly to your post.

We really hope you will consider staying and being a productive member of the community.
 
Well with that @Yosef has shown the correct response and is to be commended for it. We all have made mistakes but it is what we do when we learn of them that shows the character of the person. This was a learning event for all and fortunately no harm came from it but a lot of experience did so I look at as a positive and I also hope Yosef will stick around and be part of the group, after all if you do have a Typhoon there is no better place to be. :cool:
 

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