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The View From Inside A Fireworks Show
kdataman (1687444) writes "There is a breathtaking video on Youtube of someone flying a quadcopter around and through a professional fireworks display. Of course, it was an illegal and dangerous thing to do. It also may inspire someone else to do something even more dangerous. But even so, I have watched it 4 times and get goosebumps every time. An article in Forbes says that unit is a DJI Phantom 2 with a GoPro Hero 3 Silver camera. The fireworks are in West Palm Beach, Florida."
Why on Earth did TFA call it 'illegal and dangerous'?
It's only dangerous to the drone. There are no humans up there to crash into.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
one time i was in Augusta, Ga for 4th of July and the river fest and saw the show. you could stand almost under the explosions. not like NYC where you are like 2 miles from the show
same with Shea Stadium, the old Citi Field. you could get closer to the show than watching the official Macy's fireworks
I see you aren't a camera person. Go read up on dynamic range, ISO (sensitivity), sensor noise, pixel size and the past 25 years of optics and you will see why the GoPro does pretty well for its size and price.
drone gets hit/diverts fireworks into crowd/drone goes offline/hits car (or close to) nearby highway....hilarity ensues.
Crappy camera work but I enjoyed it anyway. Surprised I haven't seen someone do it before (I realise someone may have).
The question remains though, when did this place become digg?
I thought GoPros were supposed to be good.
GoPros really do rock - You just have to turn off the ultra-wide FOV. The originals will go down to 137 degrees, and the GP2s will go down to 90 (basically a normal shot).
That said, it all depends on your intent... While the fisheye distortion seems annoying, how much of this show would the drone have missed with literally half the effective FOV?
In twenty-four hours this will go from "illegal" to "high demand professional camera service" for promotions, events, etc.
I don't understand the negative comments here. This is using technology to get a viewpoint of something in a way that a few years previously would have been impossible. Love it.
Oh, yes, god forbid someone should enjoy something without your blessing, Your Majesty.
It's that thing that is dangerous, not the drones. Drones are never going to get any more expensive than they are now. They're only going to get cheaper, more disposable, and harder to trace back to their pilot.
People are going to do whatever they please with them. If some other activity isn't compatible, then it's that activity we'll have to restrict.
How is this idiotic? Unless you're talking about the potential idiocy of wasting all that money on a drone and a Gopro camera potentially blown up by fireworks. This was filmed over water. Nobody was in danger except the drone owner's bank account. (And maybe the one in a million chance of the drone falling on the odd boater...)
While it was cool, I can see how this could be considered dangerous. I don't know much about fireworks, but I can imagine that a collision between a UAV and the firework itself could potentially alter the trajectory of the firework leading it to go somewhere it shouldn't. You get enough senseless idiots flying these things around pyrotechnics, something bad will eventually happen.
Though not as colorful, you can now imagine what it was like for a pilot and copilot doing raids in WWII. Scaaaary!
Not really. I've been on a commercial crew, and this has effectively zero impact on the safety of the show. The only danger would be the kind discussed by lawyers and insurance companies, neither of which would impact the actual firing safety of a show like this. It was shot over water, and even if this was knocked out of commission and landed on a barge, the weight would be insufficient to damage or misalign any but the smallest (3" or 4" mortar - and those are racked for stability.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The poppers which aren't regulated as regular firework, go for about 50 cents to $1 per box. I don't recall how many are in a box, maybe 25.
The better consumer fireworks are 2" shells and sell for about $18 for a box of six. 500 gram cakes are about $60. These are all Texas prices, near the import port at Houston. Hazmat shipping to other parts of the country may increase retail prices elsewhere.
Enthusiasts who spend $300 or more can pay 60% less by joining a group to buy at wholesale prices.
The area under a fireworks show already gets peppered with the remains of all the exploded shells. A little added debris from a drone struck by part of the fireworks would make no difference. They always make sure that the fallout zone is in a safe area.
Add to that that the shells are mortar-fired, not rockets, and the risk of this is practically nil. Way less than the risks of just using and handling all that explosive.
Every professional fireworks show - at least, all those that are televised - should include shots from a drone up there amongst it all. The spectacular pictures are well worth the tiny risk.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The shell smashes the drone into tiny bits of confetti, and continues on it's merry way. Or, more likely the shell snaps off a rotor arm without noticing.
They will not bounce off each other like billiard balls. That's what happens when you have a collision between equal mass objects in which kinetic energy is conserved. This would be a collision between different mass objects where energy is lost to work - destroying the drone. The one with the most momentum wins.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The drone genie is out of the bottle. This is the world we not live in - where the possibility of a cheap RC craft being in a particular airspace has to be taken into account.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
But I can also apply physics and see how the danger is very small.
The biggest point is that the sky is big and both the shells and the drone are small. The chance of the two coming into contact is negligible. The risk of anything bad happening if that happens is also very small - the only thing I can see happening is if a rotor happens to cut the shell's fuse. The shell is too heavy for a fragile drone to have much effect on it.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
In twenty-four hours this will go from "illegal" to "high demand professional camera service" for promotions, events, etc.
Sorry, that's already illegal (according to the FAA).
Just a few weeks ago the FAA issued an interpretation of existing rules that declared illegal any commercial use of video from a drone.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Nobody was in danger except the drone owner's bank account
Spoken like someone who has never actually built and or operated one.
... presto. From a few hundred feet, the drone could go into a high speed dive at an angle that could very quickly close the distance between the fireworks range (over the water) and the people on the ground. How'd you like 1500g of high-speed hardware coming at your head at, say, 35mph, in the dark, complete with high-speed spinning carbon fiber knives and a flammable LiPo battery onboard.
More likely than a direct hit on the drone by a shell (likely to make the drone drop straight out of the sky, probably in multiple pieces) is the prospect of some debris getting into one or more of the brushless motors. This could cause the motor to overheat, or cause the ESC talking to it to get things wrong. The flight controller can get confused by this, and you could end up with a high battery drain, and the machine doing a nice tilt to one side, with the remaining props spinning way up to try to maintain lift
Beyond all of that, this is about public perception. The complete tool who did this is practically begging to have members of the public pile onto the FAA's existing effort to, in practice, shut down this entire hobby and almost every attempt to put these tools to work in research and business. Gee, thanks.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The Fisheye distortion is insanely annoying. If you are going to use fisheye lens, don't pan the camera like crazy. Who the hell does several 360s in a row with a fisheye? Insanely annoying distortion ...
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Beyond all of that, this is about public perception. The complete tool who did this is practically begging to have members of the public pile onto the FAA's existing effort to, in practice, shut down this entire hobby and almost every attempt to put these tools to work in research and business. Gee, thanks.
More likely, members of the public will watch the video and think it's great and isn't it great that someone is able to do that. Relax.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
There is a nice video out there of a quadcopter that loses control and flips. But because it uses a stabilized camera mount the picture is still perfectly oriented with the horizon all the way to the ground, while the quadcopter is all over the place. That you don't understand something doesn't make it a fake. No reason to even get into the silliness of assuming that there is some massive shock wave that would have flipped the copter over.
I suggest that you visit Youtube, and do a search for Isle of Man TT. There are a lot of videos, and the very best are shot from helicopters. The second best are shot from beside the roadway, by professionals. Onboard video shot with GoPros are decidedly lesser quality in most cases, but the are still better quality than professional equipment was when I was a child. All that quality, packed into a unit easily mounted on a person's head, or on the forks of a motorcycle.
GoPros are damned good!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The camera is stabilized. At one point the copter tilts enough that part of it is in the frame.
zosxavius photography
More importantly we could all get killed by terrorists! Won't someone think of the children!!!!!
You have one of the most extreme cases of alarmism I've seen. I think we need to address your points individually in turn:
1. Flight controller may get confused and attempt to fly the thing. Or more realistically what happens when you lose a prop is the thing flips and splats straight down. Try it one day, or just jump on youtube and watch what happens when a quad suffers complete motor failure. They definitely don't come down at a nice angle, but simply fall out of the sky tumbling as they go.
2. The Phantom 2 is 1kg, this doesn't change anything but I thought I'd point it out since it'll significantly reduce the damage.
3. The Phantom 2 does not have carbon fibre blades. This is quite significant because plastic doesn't hurt when you get hit by it (spoken from experience).
4. It's night time, I think we'll be able to see the bright thing with 6 red and 6 green bright LEDs tumbling towards us, especially since we'll be looking right in its general direction.
5. LiPos aren't bombs. They burn well but they won't kill you, even if they catch fire while they are in your pocket, or on your lap (Google this if you want examples).
6. The public couldn't give a shit. They don't care about you, the drone or the FAA. What they will say is "awesome video" and hit share on Facebook. You know, kind of like everyone doing it right now. (Seriously like 6 people posted this on their wall in the past few days).
Now I wonder how many people die on the way to fireworks in car accidents, or die looking at fireworks while driving, or die getting hit by fireworks (this actually happened at one show I was at, my friend got a lovely payout and a great scar to tell war stories about). But more importantly shouldn't we be focusing on the terrorists? I mean all those people just standing there, in the dark, very little security, lots of people with backpacks. Think about it.
"Responsible hobbyists" fly planes in a circle over and over again with a group of other retired guys doing the same thing. What's to ruin?
Flight controller may get confused and attempt to fly the thing
The flight controller is ALWAYS flying the thing. And if you were paying attention (which you weren't), you'd note that I was talking about how the flight controller might handle the presence of debris gumming up a motor and overheating an ESC. It happens all the time - insects, dust, leaves, etc. As I also pointed out, this stuff will seem mysterious to smug people who obviously have no experience with this stuff in the real world.
The Phantom 2 is 1kg
About half again that much by the time you install gimbal, camera, and VTX for downlink. Regardless, shall we do a test where 1300g hits you in the head at 30+mph? No? Huh.
The Phantom 2 does not have carbon fibre blades. This is quite significant because plastic doesn't hurt when you get hit by it (spoken from experience).
Many people retrofit with CF props. Regardless, the stock props are plenty capable of taking out an eye, or laying open the meat on your face.
LiPos aren't bombs
Though you can use the same Google you're talking about to see lovely video of hot, instant fires caused by multirotors hitting the pavement from a long fall/dive and having their onboard LiPo rupture internally. They are very energetic. Just what we need - video of Lithium-fueled fire on someone's July 4 picnic blanket, right where their kid had been sitting in a crowd.
The public couldn't give a shit. They don't care about you, the drone...
Which explains why the FAA gets a steady stream of phoned-in tips from the public, which they use to issue subpoenas and cease & desist letters threatening fines. Or you could read up on the case of the 17 year old out having a nice time flying FPV in a wide-open public area, up until some lady started to quite literally beat him up for doing so. She gave a shit, enough to commit assault over it. Tip of the iceberg.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Hey, I look on the bright side; even if it's illegal and dangerous at least the person responsible didn't use "Sail" by AWOLNation like every other GoPro video uses. So it appears they at least have some taste.
He didn't get a shot of the ice helicopter shattering at the end.
I can see the drone somehow being hit by a fireworks missile, deflecting that missile, and the missile going who knows where? Back down into the crowd (or worse, the launch site)? If it stayed above the explosions, fine; within them, maybe. But fireworks on that scale are risky at best. Throwing a solid object like some of the larger drones into the middle of them just adds to the danger.
But I must say, even if never done again, that's a wonderful video, perhaps the first ever?
christ i hate chihuahuas. a yapping pestilence second only to mosquitoes, and they can't even pick crops for subsistence wages. useless.
if every American would just kick one to death, they'd be gone in a few days. problem solved.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Lately the media have latched onto anything drone related and put it in a bad light - and while I think the video is awesome (I'd love to do one myself!) - the media is yet again putting this in a bad light - driving the FAA further to action. I suspect too that if the pyro-technicians/firefighters below knew he was up there they would have stopped the show.
And when these "media controversies" come out its its always the DJI Phantom. When I first got into making model aircraft - the DJI kits were top notch - they didn't make pre-made aircraft like they do now. I think the process of building them from scratch, and working with the local model aircraft club taught you a certain amount of respect and safety for the devices themselves. Right now I can go down to a hobby shop - plunk down $1200 dollars and be flying within 30 minutes or less without any prior experience flying a model aircraft - quadcopters are deceptively simple to fly and lead inexperienced pilots to take risks others might not.
Lets face it though - the amount of views he's received has paid for this phantom setup - so the only risk was getting the video back off the gopro device.
Anyone in a boat underneath the display was already violating the restricted area (most likely) and if they weren't then the organizers would not have cared about the drone either.
Why would it matter if it were near the approach to an airport? The fireworks themselves are more of a danger than the drone based on the numbers of them up there.
Except fireworks aren't missiles in the same way that a baseball or paper airplane is not a missile.
At least fireworks are a better excuse for goose bumps than Obama but that was tingles so maybe it was different.
The video was obviously edited. Bad or boring parts didn't make it to the final cut.
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Not all jet aircraft have multiple engines.
The context here is a commercial jet aircraft - that is what we are talking about. If your single jet aircraft goes down and kill 3 people it barely makes the news. Loose a commercial Jet airliner and everybody wants to know why, because more than 3 people die.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Fair enough, the original context was: Until some moron flys one into the path of a commercial airliner, small plane, or helicopter, and people die so the context change you introduced was not invalid, just confusing. I get where you are coming from and that would be bad too.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So you're basically saying but someone could change the drone in the summary to something bigger and OMG DANGEROUS! Yeah good argument.
The other half of your argument is self defeating. Fires? Yeah because something that may catch fire is really going to kill you. Let me say that again, LiPo batteries do not spontaneously explode. Go get one and throw it really hard into the ground. Yes it may heat up, yes it may eventually catch fire, but if you get burnt as a result it will be because you got some really recessive genes which Darwin postulates may sort themselves out anyway.
In other news someone in my city stabbed someone else because they wanted a cab ride and they felt the cab stopped for the wrong person. Your little old lady has nothing on that, other than a case of the bat-shit insane. So let me commit the True Irish fallacy and say "No true sane person gives a shit". And that can be found by a quick Google search that shows the FAA hasn't done anything about individuals flying yet, only *attempted* to do something about a few commercial cases. So please, share with me your source on the steady stream of phoned-in tips, and the subpoenas and the cease & desist letters. No, Amazon and the guy who filmed the Tornado don't count.
By the way I like how you just pointed to the danger of drones, did you address the rest of what I was talking about? Think about it. With all those damn terrorists about we should ban fireworks and public gatherings. They are far more dangerous than drones.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. ;-D
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. ~~ Hunter S. Thompson
You're right. Our entire culture should only be able to be thoughtful about the safety of any one given situation at a time. People who want to fly RC aircraft should shut up and not worry, at all, about how some idiot is generating bad press and given the uninformed silly people media-hyped things to worry about ... they shouldn't even ADDRESS that issue as long as there is even one angry person anywhere roaming the streets ready to kill over an imagined slight. As a nation, we cannot possibly afford to deal with more than one topic at a time. Speaking of which, how do you have time to scold be when there are people with knives near taxis in your area?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.