Hi All,
Can anyone please share how much flight time can generally be expected when flying a DJI Matrice 300 with a R2A unit at a flight altitude of 50m and a speed of 5 m/s?
I potentially have 240 acres of gravel pit and river bottom to capture and being a FNG, I have no clue as to how many times I will have to swap batteries and if I need to break this project into multiple flight missions. The project elevation is 7800 ASL and I’ll be using UgCS for mission planning.
Thanks
Well, you can expect around 20mins of flight time.
240 acres should be about 2-3 batteries, depending on your local wind/weather and how efficient you are in flying (if you launch from the SE corner and fly to the NW corner, you will burn crazy amounts of fuel and time, launch as close as you can to your start).
I fly this mission profile all the time… try 60m @ 6-8m/s, you will get plenty of density for gravel piles.
FNG? Naw, you are asking questions and getting experience now… you won’t be FNG for long! 
Thank you so much for your advice!
I’ll keep you posted on my results.
What speed would you recommend if I fly at 30m?
That’s pretty low - generally it’s good to go slower when you’re lower since you have less coverage. Probably 4 m/s or so
Like Daniel says, that is pretty low.
Imagine your Lidar like a flashlight. When you turn on your flashlight, place the shiny end on the desk. As you lift your flashlight, you will notice the hot spot created by the light is very small, very bright. Now, pulling the flashlight higher, your hot spot grows in diameter. At a certain height/distance, your hot spot is no longer bright enough to be useful, although you can still “see” things.
Flying 30m is a very bright, although small, lidar laser zapping adventure. You will make nice detail, in a small small zone.
60m seems to be sweet spot, if not, I like 45m.
Thanks for the analogy. My constraint is the project location is in Class D airspace, so I think if I can get a waiver it will be limited to a 100’ ceiling.
Where are you flying?
I get restrictions, just seems rather low.
Can you plead with anyone to allow higher? I have many flights in “zero” airspace, after some introduction and a box of donuts (very important), I have been allowed up to 200’/60m.
But not all is lost… How big is your site? Are you able to hand-fly your mission? I conducted a site survey 500’ off the runway of our airport, limited to 30m. Hand flying the site allowed me to get fantastic coverage, maintain safety and complete the job, albeit with some “extra” data, but who cares?
Hand flying up to 60/80 acres can be done with one battery.