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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.
If you got nosy neighbors I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a dork's drone ain't one. Serious suggestion, start shooting toy drones down when they're interfering with something important.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They need retard retardant.
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.
"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...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Leave the drones to the professionals at Amazon, Google, and Verizon. They're the ones to best manage that public airspace soon to be worth billions of dollars. And be sure and spread all the FUD possible about private drones, anecdotal "evidence" is great, if you don't have any, make it up.
Drone in the same "airspace". Guffaw.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
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?
Get a bunch of people involved in it.
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.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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 them.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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?
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.
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 paths with a Cal Fire tanker and spotter aircraft. In fear for their lives, the Cal Fire aircraft had to return to base, as did all other Cal Fire aircraft that were in the air.
Oh, it wasn't a civilian drone - story was wrong.
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?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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 in vehicles excrutiatingly regulated in their form, maintenance, and use by the federal government.
I think the best way to handle the drone situation is to requirement to carry a light and transmitter as well as obey automated instructions to avoid areas (basically a flight unit with a GPS can be set to have "no-go" areas).
Or, people could simply follow existing laws, and stay under 400', away from airports, and use a simple app on their phone to be made aware of FAA NOTAMs so they no when specific areas are off limits. And people who don't care about laws and rules? You're not going to be able to do anything about them (unless you can catch them after the fact of having done something stupid) than you are about people who illegally parachute off of tall buildings, or illegally drive their ATV off-road in parks, or operate their boats too fast in a no-wake zone.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.