Slashdot Mirror
Drone Diverts Firefighting Planes, Incurring $10,000 Cost
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.
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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?
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.