I’m investing in six large DJI drones with a tethering system to keep them hovering 24/7 around my house. With 165-foot cables, they’ll form a permanent aerial perimeter—no charging, no downtime. Just a constant presence in the sky.
Forgot to mention, this is for security. Any thoughts on how to optimize this?
A helium filled balloon on a tether would be more practical, safer, and less rules.
Something like this:
Are you planning to have six people monitoring these drones 24/7? Even with tethers, they still require a pilot to maintain visual line of sight, and FAA rules only allow one person to operate one drone at a time. If you’re serious about this, you’re looking at needing at least 18 people rotating in shifts.
@Vern
Yep, FAA rules state one pilot per drone. This setup isn’t as simple as just plugging them in and letting them hover forever.
Are you serious? What exactly is the goal here?
Why would you need six drones hovering nonstop instead of just setting up security cameras?
At full charging current, the batteries will probably discharge faster than they recharge. Also, the onboard computer could overheat since drones rely on air movement for cooling. And don’t forget, the motors will eventually burn out.
This sounds completely insane. Why are you doing this?
Benn said:
This sounds completely insane. Why are you doing this?
Drugs, probably.
I love the chaos of this idea. One bonus: you’ll never have to worry about birds pooping on your house again. Are you adding lasers to them? 
Now I just want to strap six attack dogs to Matrice 300s, keep them in the air with tethers, and connect them to an AI security system that feeds and hydrates them while also collecting waste. The AI will drop the dogs on intruders, but never on me, my wife, or the Amazon driver. IS THIS POSSIBLE??
This is the kind of idea someone who’s never flown a drone would come up with. Just a thought, but they actually make things called security cameras. They stay in place, require no pilots, and work 24/7. Crazy, right?
That first heavy rain is going to be fun…
Also, stop wasting space on nonsense like this.
Real drone pilots know you need at least 24 drones running on 100-foot cables. Get serious.
Is this a joke? Have you ever been near a drone? They’re loud. With tethers, they won’t move much, so why not just put up poles with cameras, like every secure facility does?
So for the sake of argument, are we talking about six M30T drones at $12K each, plus six Light-T 4 stations at around $16K each, plus pilots? That’s a serious budget.
What happens in a downpour? Are they waterproof?
Anything is possible, but this seems like a terrible plan. If you’re that worried about security, maybe start with big fences, cameras, and some guard dogs?
Got plenty of tinfoil for your helmet?
