UAV - Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle
Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
During a sUAS flight with my Mavic 2 Pro; I accidentally flew in to the edge of ALB's class C airspace. Having recently switched to a new aircraft and flight controls; my typical pre-flight tooling was not available on the new platform and lack of familiarity with the platform and incorrect memory of the local boundaries resulted in an incursion of no more than 100 yards or so in to ALB's airspace.I mis-remembered the boundaries as falling on the far side of Starbuck Island when in reality it was on the near side to my take off/landing point. My new DJI Smart Controller did not provide warnings in a format I was familiar with and integration on controller with AirMap and other LAANC based systems is currently not functional.My initial flight plan did not include a path that would have flown in to ALB's airspace; however; unexpected wind conditions on site caused my path out to be unsafe to return on due to having to fly under a bridge structure. I decided to approach over land above the empty construction site on the island as the safest course of action without remembering that this flight path would enter in to ALB Class C airspace.The intrusion was discovered post flight during a review that I undertook due to lack of confidence in my own memory of the boundaries. During this review; I discovered the error.As a corrective action; I plan to review charts prior to a flight when in near proximity to controlled airspace even if my initial plan is to stay within a known area outside of the controlled airspace.A broader corrective action would be to encourage more consistency and uptake of LAANC and the UAS facilities directory as the standard mapping system in sUAS control systems. The poorly implemented maps in DJI's Go app was a major contributor to the incident and such an incident would not have been possible flying under AirMap or a similar program which provides more accurate charting; however; such apps do not currently work with DJI's Smart Controller.Established FAA regulations helped ensure that the incident resolved well. Flying within visual line of site and with a sufficiently high cloud ceiling allowed for the airspace to be easily monitored locally during the event.
DJI UAV operator reported an inadvertent intrusion into ALB Class C airspace.