Drone News: Matrice 3D and Dock 2, Attempted Police Drone Crash, and DSPA Guidance on OOP Waivers!

Published: Nov. 10, 2023, noon

First up this week is the DJI Matrice 3D and the Dock 2!

The Matrice 3D is a simplified Mavic, designed for use in the Dock 2.

The M3D comes with two available payloads, one nearly identical to the Mavic 3 Thermal and the other seemingly identical to the Mavic 3 Enterprise. 

The M3D has a 55 minutes of flight time, obstacle avoidance, working temps between -13F and 113F (-25C and 45C), and a max take off altitude of 8200 feet.

The Dock 2 comes in smaller and lighter than the original dock, at 75lbs with an IP55 rating, an environmental monitoring system, security cameras and spotlights, air conditioning, and 4G/Ethernet connectivity. 

Currently the Dock 2 and M3D are only available in the Chinese market, with prices ranging between $9,600 for the enterprise payload to $10,700 for the Thermal.

We’ll keep you updated if we see anything else or hear of any plans to bring the dock to the US! 


Next up this week is a man in Missouri, who allegedly tried to crash his drone into a police drone. 

The sheriff’s drone was watching an area during a city-wide power outage when the other drone “attacked” maneuvering to hit the sheriffs drone. 

The officers were able to use the IR camera on the drone to locate the operator of the rogue drone, who was then arrested for obstructing government operations and attempted property damage. 

According to the sheriff’s office records have also been sent to the FAA for investigation. 

Don’t be that guy…


Last up this week is the DSPA, who has recently released their guidance on getting an operations over people waiver! 

This article explains how to apply for a 107.39 waiver and a 107.145 waiver with the Mini 3 Pro and the Mini 4 Pro.

Waivers can be tricky and we know based on the comments in our course how many folks are interested in flying over people and moving vehicles.

Check out the link below and be sure to write your own waiver — Don’t copy paste. 

The FAA has limited staff in the waiver office and will know if you’ve copied parts of someone else’s waiver. 

If you aren’t familiar with DSPA, they are an advocacy group focused on drone service providers and ensuring the FAA and other state, city, and local agencies create common sense drone laws that don’t restrict operators abilities to fly. 

We’re proud to support the DSPA and appreciate all the work Vic and Kenji put in to help the industry! 


That’s it! Have a great week and we’ll see you for our live on Monday!


https://dspalliance.org/107-39-107-145-application-info/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3wCMCVZ4_o


https://dronexl.co/2023/11/08/dji-releases-dji-dock-2-matrice-3dt/


https://www.newspressnow.com/news/regional_news/central_missouri/vandalia-man-arrested-for-attempting-to-attack-audrain-county-sheriff-s-office-drone/article_0648b2eb-3ee4-5ffb-8fcf-6864e7d0e4e1.html