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California Legislation May Allow First Responders To Take Out Drones
Required Snark writes: During the recent North Fire that burned vehicles on I-15 in California, firefighters had to suspend aerial operations because of the presence of drone aircraft, according to CNN. Quoting: "Five such 'unmanned aircraft systems' prevented California firefighters from dispatching helicopters with water buckets for up to 20 minutes over a wildfire that roared Friday onto a Los Angeles area freeway that leads to Las Vegas. Helicopters couldn't drop water because five drones hovered over the blaze, creating hazards in smoky winds for a deadly midair disaster, officials said."
In response, state officials have introduced legislation that would allow first responders to disable drones in emergency situations. A second bill would allow jail time and fines for drone users that interfere with firefighting efforts. "Senate Bill 168, introduced by Gatto and Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, would grant 'immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations.' Los Angeles County fire Inspector David Dantic declined to comment on the specific legislation, but said his agency's aircraft cannot operate safely if a drone is in the same airspace."
In response, state officials have introduced legislation that would allow first responders to disable drones in emergency situations. A second bill would allow jail time and fines for drone users that interfere with firefighting efforts. "Senate Bill 168, introduced by Gatto and Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, would grant 'immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations.' Los Angeles County fire Inspector David Dantic declined to comment on the specific legislation, but said his agency's aircraft cannot operate safely if a drone is in the same airspace."
Just exactly how do they propose 'taking out' a drone? I can only hope that they're not thinking about shooting out of the sky. Remember, any bullets that go up must come down
Bird shot doesn't come down with enough velocity to be a hazard. But of course, it has extremely limited range for the same reason.
You assume they are being actively piloted. The could be following a waypoint program in which case the only way to "jam" these would be to jam their GPS signal.
Do YOU want to be in a helicopter when a drone gets sucked into its intake. What happens then? The helicopter's engine likely stalls, the helicopter then goes into autorotation if you are lucky...landing in the fire you are trying to put out.
What if the drone smashes into your windshield in limited visibility, knocking the pilot out cold or worse.
You are very wrong here. Look at the airplane that landed in the Hudson River that was taken out by a goose. Seriously, a goose, a lot of drones are of similar weight or larger, also a lot softer.
If bird strikes are a hazard, how would a drone NOT be a hazard?
If emergency workers get immunity that means they could step on your 20,000 dollar drone while fighting a fire in your neighbor's backyard and do nothing but laugh in your face.
They can already plow a car out of a fire zone with a fire truck if they need to. Laughing in the face of the owner is optional, probably not endorsed by the fire dept.
They weren't afraid of damaging the drones, they were afraid of the drones crashing the planes dropping the water. The air dropping planes end up flying rather low to avoid dispersing the water too far since the heat in the fire is enough to otherwise boil it off before it hits the ground, making it roughly useless in that case. Since the drones are flying high enough that they could hit the planes or end up in the jets there's a real risk of a crash which isn't going to help anybody at all.
The short answer yes. If a drone was flying over the road at your windshield, as you are doing 65mph, you'll probably have problems driving, and even lower it could still do damage to your car if was at the grill level. Now double or even triple that speed, and your probably going to have even more serious damage. Remember double the speed, quadruple the force. As for around airports, they actually hire people to scare off and keep the birds away from the airport to protect the air space from bird strikes, and often civil airplanes are used at a high altitude limiting the time of risk to take offs and landings.
As for forest fire fighting, they are incredibly difficult for a pilot to work, with limited visibility, thermal up drafts and down drafts, high speeds, and drastic in-flight weight changes. These all create a massively complex flying environment, and in many cases considered as dangerous as flying a military fighter in combat. Now this is where drones become the problem unlike birds they might stay in an area where the birds would normally leave, secondly for water bombers they fly relatively low, often well within the limits of legal and physical capabilities of the drones.
Shotgun. Used to shoot things flying around from ground level. Though most of the targets have feathers...
"Even at 500' he'll still have time..." to auto-rotate into a fire.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain