Drone Diverts Firefighting Planes, Incurring $10,000 Cost 268
An anonymous reader writes: Fire is raging through thousands of acres of forest in California. A few days ago we discussed how a man's personal drone was shooed away from a fire site. Now, the drone situation has gotten worse. The U.S. Forest Service is helping to fight the fire by sending planes full of fire retardant to drop on the surrounding area. Unfortunately, one of the missions had to be diverted because a private drone had encroached upon the planes's airspace. The mission involved three planes, all loaded with retardant. One was large enough to find another target on which to drop its payload, but the other two simply had to jettison and return to base. Officials say the failed mission wasted at least $10,000. They're now having to spend extra time keeping an eye out for these drones and trying to educate operators on the temporary restrictions in place around forest fires.
Shoot them (Score:3, Interesting)
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So now we're going to bring trained marksmen and their guns in firefighting planes? That'll cost more than $10,000.
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You are implying that a neighbor dumb enough to try to shoot down an RC aircraft with their shotgun is smart enough to have carefully considered what load to use rather than whatever they have in it for home defense.
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Why wouldn't they be dumb?
Most people who use a shot gun for home defense are either smart enough to understand how a bullet or shot penetrates (because a shot gun will go through walls but often not be deadly a few feet away from the wall on the other side where a bullet can go through multiple walls and remain deadly depending on the gun) or they picked it because they have other things to be concerned about besides humans invading. Wild animals and rodents are around a lot of places and just as viable of
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Don't get me wrong -- I shoot XTC high power, CMP, IDPA, etc. I'm pretty familiar both with the types of gun owners found in a club environment and those that just saunter up to the counter at Cabella's hoping the clerk can give them good advice. I'm pretty sure there are far more gun owners in category B than in category A. I like to hang out with the category A folks but I'm not fooling myself that they represent the majority compared those who buy a shotgun because "I won't have to aim much if I need to
This problem needs a technical solution (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I'd like to see drone operators exercise some responsibility, the system is completely broken if you can turn a state into a firestorm with a minor act of arson and some auto-loitering drones.
Step 1. Start fire
Step 2. Set drone to loiter over areas with the most fire, at about 1500 feet
Step 3. The world ends in fire.
If we cannot create firefighting craft which can tolerate drone strikes, then we're completely fucked, because any enemy can utterly destroy our country with nothing but a few container-loads of drones.
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Agreed. On the other hand... what plane can't tolerate a drone strike? Not really up on drones but seems to me the vast majority are smaller and lighter than a lot of birds. Bird strikes obviously aren't good if they hit an engine. But outside of that I'm trying to figger out what the major problem is. So did the drone encroach the planes airspace or did the plane encroach the drones airspace?
Re:This problem needs a technical solution (Score:5, Informative)
Putting aside any other consideration, you don't want that DC10 taken out of service during the fire season.
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That DC10 was designed to hit geese without sustaining damage. You think a 1 kg drone is going to do anything?
Besides, those retardant drops don't do anything other than provide fertilizer for plant recovery the next year. Fires burn out when they burn out - the guys on the ground and air have little impact. (Note: I worked over 100 major forest and range fires. Only 1 was not caused by logging or over-grazing.)
Re:This problem needs a technical solution (Score:5, Insightful)
If you know anything about jet engines, then you would know that a simple set of ear protection earmuffs can kill a multi million dollar engine if ingested.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Drones are a bit more harsh on the engine, because geese are made of relatively soft stuff. Even the bones are remarkably flexible.
You do realise bird ingestion tests are done with frozen birds right? I would hazard that they are more dangerous to an engine than carbon fibre and plastic. A frozen bird has considerably more mass concentrated in dense blob than more typical drones.
Thawed birds on the other hand a frail soft and squishy things which wouldn't stand up to a slow moving ceiling fan.
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As for the danger of a drone strike, we can safely say that the odds of losing lives and property from such a strike are not zero, even if they are small. However if drone kiddies would act in a rational and prudent manner and get their drones out of these restricted areas, those odds drop to zero. Thus it's stupid, utterly stupid, to allow these idiots to continue endangering life and property. It's a no brainer. I hope folks turn in these people and they get slapped with some heavy fines. And if an ai
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That DC10 was designed to hit geese without sustaining damage. You think a 1 kg drone is going to do anything?
Er, no. That's just untrue. See the relevant regulations [flightsimaviation.com]. Depending on the bird size, the engine has to either not explode or catch fire (for large birds), or continue to operate at 75% power for between 5 and 20 minutes (small and medium birds, flocks of smaller birds) before safe shutdown.
"Doesn't explode or require immediate shutdown" isn't the same as not "sustaining damage". And even though the aircraft would likely survive ingesting a drone doesn't mean it would be good to lose a firefighting a
Re:This problem needs a technical solution (Score:4, Interesting)
An example of a real operation from Greece [youtube.com] (you can find many in youtube)... watch how this planes approach and imagine a drone (especially some made with big metal parts) flying in their direct path...
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(just 2 months ago we signed a half billion Euros deal with Lockheed for upgrading our P-3 Orion...)
Maybe you could stop wasting money and pay your debts instead. signing deals and spending money you don't have while claiming your creditors don't want to work with you is not right.
Spending money for making sure you can protect yourself from Muslims is never "wasted" - plus, it is our money (ALL the amount given to us Greeks from our creditors -EU/IMF- is LOANS, added to our debt, used ONLY to repay our older debt... it is a cycle for not defaulting, so creditors can get all their money).
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pretty sure exploding lithium batteries are more violently destructive than a goose's breastplate, as would be metal parts such as motors.
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An incident commander spotted the drone, a fixed-wing craft about four feet wide, flying about 800 or 900 feet off the ground
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> Agreed. On the other hand... what plane can't tolerate a drone strike?
Most of them. There are many good explanations of the problem, including http://www.askthepilot.com/the... [askthepilot.com]. And a firefighting plane dumping foam is effectively "barnstorming" anyway, dumping the foam at the lowest possible altitude.. An impact on the cockpit is dangerously distracting, an impact in a rotor or jet engine could be catastrophic.
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A bird strike is damaging. If you have altitude, you have options. Firefighting aircraft don't have altitude - they'
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Irrational fear?
Police-style self-righteous indignation and privilege?
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Yup!
They had no need to divert the planes, they were just pissed someone dared to watch public officials doing their jobs, so they decided to not do their jobs and rob the guy.
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I remember reading stories and comments on slashdot referencing the British version of the US FCC, where they utilize vans/trucks of RF tracking equipment to triangulate locations of both unlicensed transmitters as well as unlicensed receivers.
As I recall they do this due to a mandatory "TV tax" type of thing on the receiver side, but more akin to preventing interference on the transmitting side very much in line with our FCC rules already.
Perhaps such methods and technology could be used to track down the
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The reality of the situation, though, is this: No private citizen needs a drone.
So you don't believe anyone should have anything they don't need? Log off immediately and throw your computer in the bin, hypocrite.
They sure as fuck have NO justification for flying one above a massive forest fire that fire crews are trying to get under control.
Yes, that much is true.
In this case the drone pilot, ideally, should be caught, perhaps criminally charged, and definitely be forced to pay for the costs incurred for playing with their toy in an inappropriate and dangerous manner.
Yes, I agree with all of that.
If their drone had been struck by one of the tanker aircraft, causing it to crash, they'd need to be charged criminally for that, and for murder if any of the crew died because of it.
Yes, and the state is free to take them to civil court to recover their costs in this situation, where no one was hurt.
As I said elsewhere,
Oh good, I'm glad you said something elsewhere.
There's lots of legitimate reasons for private citizens to own drones. There's no legitimate reasons for them to fly all up in the grills of the forest service.
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So you don't believe anyone should have anything they don't need? Log off immediately and throw your computer in the bin, hypocrite.
Looking at your other comments it's clear that you're one of those people who just likes to argue, so that's all I'm going to point out here. Getting in a 'discussion' with someone like you is a negative-sum game at best.
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The reality of the situation is that the persons taking video of the fire with their fancy flying cameras were probably unaware that they were interfering with the fire-fighting effort.
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...fire-fighting aircraft should also be drones.
That is a very good point. On the other hand, smoke-jumpers must be airlifted.
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FD dumps fire retardant on drone, problem solved.
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FD dumps fire retardant on drone pilot, problem solved.
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Of course we can. You going to pay for the tax increases for the R&D required to make firefighting craft which can tolerate drone strikes
How about we take the money out of the military budget that they use for the development of murder drones, and spend some on firefighting drones? Hey, here's an even more radical idea, let's go the extra mile and make reforestation drones, too. (There's no point in reseeding, I've read the studies, but you can replant.)
They don't just need fire retardant (Score:5, Funny)
They need retard retardant.
Post a reward for finding this guy (Score:3)
I guess it's time to post a significant reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who did this. Apparently just the news stories about how stupid this is isn't enough to dissuade these idiots. So a good stiff fine is needed, and his drone seized. Hopefully that would finally send a message. Time for someone to 'fess up and spread the word to others.
Being an RC airplane enthusiast myself, it angers me to see such lack of regard for the rights and property of others. It's exciting to see such technology but unfortunately the barrier to entry is now so low that people are able to act without thinking.
Re:Post a reward for finding this guy (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it's time to post a significant reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who did this. Apparently just the news stories about how stupid this is isn't enough to dissuade these idiots. So a good stiff fine is needed, and his drone seized. Hopefully that would finally send a message. Time for someone to 'fess up and spread the word to others.
Don't worry. The individual in question will self report via a youtube post within the next day or so. Problem solved.
Remember Folks (Score:2)
Drone in the same "airspace". Guffaw.
Can we go back to R/C Planes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we stop calling them drones. They're remote controlled (hobby) airplanes. Drones makes it sound like it's a weaponized, autonomous craft weighing hundreds of pounds.
Re:Can we go back to R/C Planes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can we stop calling them drones. They're remote controlled (hobby) airplanes. Drones makes it sound like it's a weaponized, autonomous craft weighing hundreds of pounds.
The only problem with that request is that today a percentage of hobbyist drones ARE autonomous craft in the 100+ pound class.
Limiting our discussion to one subset of aircraft (the small RC planes) would not allow for fully addressing the actual problem at hand, in that any/all unauthorized aircraft should NOT be in no-fly zones, and most certainly should not be in obviously dangerous areas such as over a forest fire where there is no justification or excuse for not assuming it would be a no-fly zone at that point in time.
And while no they are not specifically weaponized, in the sense of adding specific payloads to drop.
But similar to controlling a 2000+ pound car in and of itself can be used as a weapon, so too can the medium to heavier drones.
The point being that even non-weaponized doesn't necessarily mean the device can't still be used in a dangerous manor.
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Since when does a drone need to be weaponised?
Also most are autonomous.
These are not the same R/C toys you used to play with in your youth. Get back on your lawn.
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I am all for hobbyist RC helicopters. Hell, I own two. However, I also believe that if they are capable of flying high enough to interfere with actual aircraft they cease to be toys and become unlicensed remotely operated aircraft, or drones. This is not some $200 toy quadcopter from Amazon, this was a 4-foot wide drone in a no-fly zone.
simple answer (Score:2)
1. they're remotely operated UAVs, not drones.
2. Shoot the motherfuckers down. Yes, you read that right. If an aircraft is in airspace it shouldn't be, destroy the fucking thing. If there's a situation that calls for larger aircraft equipped to deal with the situation, and there's a fucking UAV in the way, tag it, kill it and wait for the first twat to roll into a police station to complain that his toy has been shot down and arrest the cunt,
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if it allows them to do their JOBS in the face of IDIOTS who have no regard for public safety, then I am all for it.
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Good idea. Enforce public safety by firing guns high in the air when there are firefighters, houses, cars, civilians on the ground all within a few miles of the fire. What could possibly go wrong?
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If those are remotely controlled wouldn't it be easier to just jam the signal?
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Yes, for example, by dumping flame retartant to the controller.
Two hours lost in fighting the fires (Score:2)
.
Incidents such as this one, and the increasing number of close calls at major airports involving drones, are making me re-evaluate my opinions about drone regulation.
Too many drone operators are putting public safety at risk in order to have their f
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What's it going to take before these idiot drone operators come to their senses?
Yeah! And what's it going to take before these idiots who start the fires in the first place come to their senses! We should definitely regulate matches, hot catalytic converters, hibachis, and magnifying glasses. Oh, right, it's already against the law to start wildfires. Just like it's already against the law to interfere with firefighting operations. We don't need new regulations (since that won't stop idiots from being idiots anyway) - we need substantial penalties for being a jackass. Like we already
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It's going to take locking some of these idiots up for a while until they learn.
Yup. As much as I am against regulating the drones, too many drone operators are doing stupid things.
The surest way to ruin a good thing: (Score:3)
Consumer-grade 'drones' are fun toys to play with (I don't own one but I'll take it on faith that they are). But as with just about anything, my 'rule of thumb' holds true: Get a large group of people involved in something that's otherwise good, and they'll find a way to ruin it for everyone else. Because of that here's what's likely to happen:
All drones, regardless of being miltary, government, commercial, or privately owned, will have to be registered (similar to any other aircraft), and perhaps be required by law to have some sort of transponder incorporated into their design, so they can be identified remotely just like any other aircraft. Furthermore, all prospective drone pilots will be required to take and pass a training course before even being allowed to purchase a drone. That way drone owners, like in this article, can be held accountable for their actions, and maybe the dumbshits that would do something like this can be weeded out before they even get their hands on a drone in the first place.
..and before you get mad at me for saying this, I suggest you direct your rage at the moron who's flying his drone in the airspace of firefighting aircraft trying to do their job. 'Muh freedoms' doesn't, and shouldn't, extend to anyone being stupid, inconsiderate, and borderline illegal.
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Anyway, tell you what: I'll agree to a concession on the line from my comment you quoted:
'Muh freedoms' end where putting other people's safety at risk begins -- in this specific case, that means impeding the work of the pilot(s) of the firefighting aircraft(s), putting them at risk.
That a little more agreeable?
Yes, it's sad that a few dumbasses being irresponsible with their toys are going to end up causing knee-jerking politicians and bureaucrats to write a bunch of rules, regulations, and laws to restrict the use of drones, but I maintain that you have
What we need is disclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
How much is Diane Feinstein's office paying Slashdot to publish stories like this? I fly R/C helicopters and I sure as fuck don't want them banned or restricted to the point where they have to be equipped with the sort of expensive equipment it would take for them to respect NOTAMs.
Not to mention that it won't work. There's already open-source versions of the control systems. What component are you going to restrict?
It was military (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.techenstein.com/cal-fire-aircraft-forced-down-by-military-drone/
This is an RS-20 UAV with orange wings, and has nothing to do with this story other than it fitâ(TM)s the profile and we needed an image. Stock photos are frequently used by the media because they have so little actual information to go on.
On Wednesday June 24, Cal Fire aerial tankers were forced to the ground by a military reconnaissance drone. The 4 ft wide orange fixed wing drone was first spotted at 11,000 ft and crossed pat
Drones don't scale, they fall (Score:2)
Yeah it's great for blowing jihadiis out of their Lexuses in Yemen but that doesn't mean it scales for civilian contexts and populated areas where, you know Newton's Laws of gravitational force act on bodies. You can't have even 4 lb objects flying anywhere they want because each one turns into a downward missle as soon as it malfunctions for any reason whatsoever or runs into a power line or a bird or whatever (whatever =~ 1 million other unforeseen events).
Air space is controlled by the FAA , just some pe
Why the big diversion? (Score:2)
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Destroy Them (Score:2)
Simple solution: send out a chopper dangling a big heavy net to entrap and destroy the "remove controlled (hobby) airplanes." No warning, no discussion. Destroy them. I'm sure the FAA won't complain, and screw the owner.
Same choppers they use to haul big buckets of water to dump on fires, so I'm sure they're available.
Dump the retardant on the drone. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not dump the retardant on top of the damned drone instead of diverting. Idiotic paranoia about drones is rather dumb. Either that or just hit it.
Jam the control signals (Score:2)
F.U.D. until credible evidence is presented... (Score:3)
And the blogger raises several points:
1.) The alleged drone had a four foot wide wingspan fixed-wing aircraft with bright orange wings.
Most hobbyist don't operate unmanned aerial vehicles. They operate what is called First Person View (FPV) aircraft that have limitations due to maintaining a video signal link as well as a flight control link. To operate such a FPV drone at extended distances through a mountainous/hilly terrain, such as where this fire is, is rolling the dice as to whether you will ever see your drone back again. And given the costs of a setup capable of maintaining a video/control link at the ranges alleged means such a FPV operator has some serious money invested in their equipment. The blogger mentions that such capable equipment capable of this is not available off-the-shelf.
2.) The fire department claimed the incident occurred at 11,000 feet.
Is this 11,000 feet "AGL" (Above Ground Level?) or above sea level? Because if it is AGL, again this makes it less and less likely this was a hobbyist operated drone due to the extreme distances/elevation (effectively 2 miles up).
3.) The blogger mentions:
The color orange or red is frequently used by the U.S. Navy as well as other agencies to increase visibility of the unmanned aircraft, and is typically not a concern for hobbyists.
One user in the subreddit post pointed out that the El Mirage dry lake bed is approximately 10 miles from the fire area where allegedly
"there is a UAV/Predator testing site/company there".
While this is by no means conclusive, I'm inclined to call "Bullshit" given the scarcity of information. The lack of an arrested individual to publicly shame/ridicule (it's easy to follow a 4 foot wingspan bright orange drone back to it's controller...), ambiguous "facts" (actual elevation?, distance of separation?) and the proximity to a military unmanned drone testing site within 10 miles leads me to believe this was a military drone.
Leaving all of these media articles cropping up about this incident nothing more than F.U.D. designed to whip up hysteria about a topic that is somewhat controversial.
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Why doesn't the Forest Service simply set up RF generators to flood the local 2.4/5Ghz spectrum and cause them to lose control/crash?
Because they're drones, idiot. They tend to hover in place when they lose signal, or if they're fixed-wing, they fly circles which is even worse for your purposes.
If you want to bring down drones, you're going to need a net. Or a really big HERF.
How about fire retardant? (Score:3)
"If you want to bring down drones, you're going to need a net. Or a really big HERF."
Or maybe a load of fire retardant dropped on it. I mean, if you're going to ditch it anyway...
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You're 100 million% right.
It's very fortunate that none of them have little computer doohickeys on them that you could use for preprogramming a route.
In fact the very idea is crazy.
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The idea that we must come up with a single solution to every possible contingency, instead of coming up with one solution that covers most contingencies and then addressing outliers as they come up?
That is precisely what you propose when you suggest outlawing drones from these areas. Guess what? They're already outlawed there, but people are flying them anyway. These people aren't even malicious, they're clueless. Now, what happens when people do act with malice? It's the same reason why V2V is fucking ignorant. You can't trust the other actors.
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Why doesn't the Forest Service simply set up RF generators to flood the local 2.4/5Ghz spectrum and cause them to lose control/crash?
Because there is NO lawful justification for interfering with the band in such a manner. This is why there are no cellphone jammers along the highways. Idiots still causing traffic incidents while texting or checking out Kim Kardashian's latest status update. In fact, not even the GOVERNMENT are allowed to use jammers, which is precisely why they're being so cagey about Stingray.
Citation: 18 U.S.C. 1362 and 18 U.S.C. 1367, 47 U.S.C. 301, 47 U.S.C. 302a, 47 U.S.C. 333, 47 U.S.C. 503, 47 U.S.C. 510.
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Because there is NO lawful justification for interfering with the band in such a manner.
Of course there is. They're not permitted to use their radio equipment in an unlawful manner, so they're already operating without protection of the FCC.
We don't use cellphone jammers because they are indiscriminate. But they could use a direction antenna to bring down the drone... if it weren't a fucking drone, which will probably just hover in place until the batteries run out if you interrupt its radio signal.
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Because there is NO lawful justification for interfering with the band in such a manner.
Of course there is. They're not permitted to use their radio equipment in an unlawful manner
They aren't. And if they were, that doesn't grant someone else the hijack the airwaves in retaliation.
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They aren't.
They are. They are required to check advisories like any other pilot, and they had no business flying there.
that doesn't grant someone else the hijack the airwaves in retaliation.
As long as it's done directionally, I'm not seeing a problem... except insofar as that it won't work.
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"Curse you, red drone!"
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And then the bullets zip past the drone and slam into the ground and whatever happens to be there, like firefighters, houses and cars.
Thank you Mr. Heston (Score:3)
Amazingly, guns are not the solution to every problem, despite what the NRA has told you.
RF jamming and/or GPS spoofing would be a better/easier way to down these craft, and a drop from 500 feet into a forest fire would have the same deleterious effect on the airframe that bullets would.
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RF can be aimed; it's done all the time. You should take some engineering classes.
And it'a lot safer than firing chunks of steel and lead while there are aircraft around and firefighters on the ground, even if it's aimed "the wrong way" accidentally.
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But the problem is not how it is controlled, RF or GPS..but rather who is controlling it. Fix the moron, rather than intercept his RC toy.
Re:Thank you Mr. Heston (Score:4, Insightful)
But the problem is not how it is controlled, RF or GPS..but rather who is controlling it. Fix the moron, rather than intercept his RC toy.
You cannot make anything idiot-proof because nature will always build a better idiot. Slashdot moderation proves this. Also, it's non-trivial to even find the moron. Drones will fly waypoints and shoot photos and video independently. They can be miles away, and don't even need to be transmitting. Even cheap off-the-shelf drones will do this, let alone well thought-out hobbyist drones. Now, go forth and find the operator in the chaos surrounding a forest fire!
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except that guns would be a hell of a lot safer for all concerned than a fucking EMP.
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Amazingly, guns are not the solution to every problem, despite what the NRA has told you.
No, sometimes explosives are the right tool for the job.
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RF jamming and/or GPS spoofing would be a better/easier way to down these craft, and a drop from 500 feet into a forest fire would have the same deleterious effect on the airframe that bullets would.
Except that for many drones the default behaviour in such a situation is to freeze like a deer in the headlights right where they are. That's not going to help anyone in this situation.
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The problem is not the use of aircraft. The problem is the use of federal tax dollars. People who live there can pool their money and hire firefighting equipment, be it airplanes, be it trucks, be it jet packs to evacuate people. If the cost is really commensurate with the level of subsidies enjoyed by tax payers who choose not to live in fire prone (or hurricane prone, or flood prone, or mine subsidence prone) areas, we would not mind. It is the out-of-proportion entitlement mentality of these people that is in question.
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Exactly. If people want to move to the middle of nowhere, they need to take on the expense of protecting their homes themselves. There's absolutely no reason the rest of us should need to subsidize the lifestyle of people already rich enough to move to those places.
Right you are! And there's no reason we should subsidize people who choose to live near the coasts and risk hurricane damage. There's no reason we should subsidize people who choose to live in tornado-prone areas. There's no reason we should subsidize people who choose to live too close to rivers in flood-prone areas. There's no reason we should subsidize people who choose to live in earthquake-prone areas.
Uhhh...
Where the fuck should we all live???
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It is NOT our job to bail out failing banks, nor irresponsible people, nor obsolete industries. Yes, the government routinely does all
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Except that most of the forest fires happen on Federal land. Especially in the western US, the Federal government owns huge tracts of land. If you don't do anything then you are liable for damages when problems on your property start interfering with others. The government does have some immunity to suits like this but has been successfully sued for damages caused by forest fires.
People are starting to think along your lines but old bad habits die hard, especially when you have to pay for them yourself.
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Except that most of the forest fires happen on Federal land.
Yeah. You know why they have forest fires raging out of control there? Piss-poor management. See, the only management that goes on in the BLM land is mismanagement. Strip-mining, clear-cutting, oil-pumping, cattle overgrazing. And then we stop forest fires that really need to continue, to burn out the old brush. So then when we do get a fire, we get a supermassive fire that's expensive to fight.
We could institute building codes that prohibit the use of flammable materials in a fucking forest. We don't do th
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This might not have been a 'five pound drone'. The most annoying part of the reporting on this incident has been a lack of clear description of what sort of device it actually was. According to the Ars article it was flying 800+ feet above ground at an altitude of 11,000 feet above sea level. That implies a class of UAV more sophisticated that the $1000 Phantoms. TFA implied that this was a professional class drone which could have weighed in the 10 kg range.
That sort of object hurts when you ingest th
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Was this a five pound or a hundred pound drone? Both are available and it's hard to put them on the scale when they're a few hundred yards away and flying.
Even a five pound hunk of metal and batteries seems like a bad thing to go into a propeller or a jet engine. A hundred pound hunk of metal? Ouch.
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The whole effort is one big exercise in running away.
Irony: our fearless leaders forgetting or failing to comprehend the import of the story about the Hydra, then compounding that failure for so long that the Hydra is now made out of fire.
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We're working on it...
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One of the problems here is information- dissemination.
First, how did the drone operator know he was in the path of the flights. It could very well be that the flight path changed because the winds shifted a bit and they needed to approach differently to hit the intended targets. You also have the problem of the targets changing. These planes were dropping retardant which means they would want to drop on different spots with each flight. Finally, why not- if you have to abort and I assume drop the retardant
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For the entire route? Don't think so. Please provide a link of any nature to support that view.
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Drone owners are idiots.
Really? There are literally millions of them. Are all of them idiots? People driving cars have a wildly worse track record when it comes to deaths. For that matter, licensed media helicopter pilots have caused more deaths. and there are merely thousands of them, not millions. What's your point?
Re: (Score:3)
Millions of drone operators? I think that's a little generous.
What? People have been flying remote control hobby aircraft for well over half a century. And between companies like Blade and DJI alone, people are buying over 200,000 of the devices per month.
There's a always a risk a drone will fall out of the sky conk someone on the head.
Yup, and indeed there have been a handful of minor injuries along those lines. Statistically what amounts to zero, of course, compared to the number of people who are actually killed attending motor sports events as spectators, or while skiing, or while commuting to work... or while flying as actual licensed pilots
re: idiots (Score:2)
IMO, there's a big difference between the traditional R/C aircraft people flew for fun and some of these larger-sized drones people are operating now.
I could see some sort of mandatory licensing for the bigger ones, but I think they need to do so while leaving the rest of the hobby alone.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
And Uber scares the crap out of taxi medallion holders. Same reason; might make their licenses less valuable. They both talk about safety and propose onerous restrictions which would just happen to make the service untenable unless you're a large operator.