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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.
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?
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!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables