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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."
More legislation by people who don't know how laws actually get applied, or probably rather just don't care.
If these people are flying their drones unlawfully then reasonable measures should certainly be allowed to stop them. But, if they are being flown unlawfully, the question of whether emergency workers had immunity should not even enter the discussion. If a drone is damaged it is the owner's negligence and conduct to blame. 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.
>> Allow First Responders To Take Out Drones
Er...how would they do that? Fire a weapon into a smokey background? Jam the radio...in a way that couldn't possibly interfere with other emergency communications? Or what?
All of those drones are controlled by transmissions on a fairly narrow band. Jamming that band would make the drones continue on in a straight line and eventually out of the danger zone. Of course, you'd have to make sure that they were heading in a safe direction before you started jamming, but the odds are that almost none of them would be heading on a collision course unless their owners were exceptionally stupid.
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Firefighters already have the ability to damage private property when it is necessary to contain an emergency situation. I can't imagine this law adds additional powers, but perhaps clarifies that existing standards still apply to a new technology that didn't exist at the time. Perhaps also a reasonable public awareness / scare campaign to remind people to keep their drones away from disaster areas where they are interfering with life safety.
In Soviet Russia, drones take out you!
[Uhh ... maybe not just in Soviet Russia.]
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.
FTA: "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."
Yeah, I wouldn't have asked permission before shooting those drones from the sky.
High powered water gun.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
FTA: "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."
Yeah, I wouldn't have asked permission before shooting those drones from the sky.
This makes me support the FAAs proposed rulemaking to make it necessary to register such drones. Then we would be able to know who was responsible and give them the bill for hundreds of millions of dollars of damage that they caused.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I'm sure helicopters have to deal with birds sometimes. These drones don't appear to be that durable or heavy, are you telling me that the propeller blades can't handle these little things without causing a disaster?
I am not a drone owner or user... but I just can't believe these things are that hazardous to an aircraft the size of a helicopter. Am I very very wrong here?
This sig intentionally left blank.
For firefighters, a high pressure water blast should do the trick. EMT's might have to fashion some sort of rudimentary surgical-tubing slingshot, though.
Anonymous coward responding to anonymous coward claiming that anonymous coward looks dumb for responding to anonymous coward.
-AC
Bird shot in wax slugs. It will hit hard enough to have a sizable impact, but will break up immediately so not to provide a hazard if dropping on someone.
They should have been doing that from the get go. Shoot them down, run them over, dump water on them. As soon as the idiot comes forward claiming the firefighters destroyed their $10000 drone, then arrest them and toss them in jail for putting their lives in danger. Simple as that. No legislation needed.
No need for EMTs to improvise. All they have to do is include a Wrist Rocket in their kit, plus appropriate ammo.
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They need a nonlethal solution. Bullets, or even shotgun pellets, would have to fall somewhere eventually.
The first thing I do in an emergency situation is grab my expensive hobby aircraft and use it to show all my friends on vine how much better I am than they are because I have an expensive hobby.
How about making it like ham radio: you get a license, mark your drone with your number. You get in the way, get government knows who to bring the remains back to.
Aircraft have been taken out by geese. Drones are a lot harder than goose.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Drones don't take birdshot well and it's safe downrange. Beanbag rounds and similar crowd control should be fine and something cops would already have.
No sir I dont like it.
i see what you're doing wrong. you're reading the "by Anonymous Coward on.." line and thinking that is the post. that simply tells you if someone has logged in to a slashdot account before they made the post, which is actually below. you gotta be pretty stupid not to see that. of course, you could be even dumber and think people not logging in to post or having an account at all is a negative. that would be pretty fucking dumb though. if you were that dumb you probably would have issues with many daily things in life.
Maybe 30 years ago. I can drive to Stockton with the car windows open on I-5 without ever smelling a freshly made cow pie.
Behold the advent of the hunter-killer drone!
Ridicules. Those who don't know would fly without registering and those who do know won't fly registered drones in such scenarios. This is silly.
Like stay parked on a freeway with a wildfire raging nearby?
If you're caught on a freeway between off-ramps, there's not much you can do except sit tight and wait. I know, because I was stuck that way one night for over an hour while the remains of a nasty crash were cleaned up enough to get at least one lane open. I was on the up side of a grade and the wreck was on the down-slope so I couldn't even see what was going on. Naturally, we all turned our engines and lights off to save gas. It was slightly foggy, so the first sign I had that things would be moving soon was when the fog suddenly turned tail-light red. Maybe the CHP should have had the drivers evacuate sooner, but I wasn't there and I'm not in the position to have an informed opinion.
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It was an undocumented drone flying over a sanctuary city.
I for one think it's about time that human-drone relationships comes out of the closet, and that we do not scorn those drones or humans with such orientations.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Make an account just to claim that? Silly is as silly does.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Clearly, cow-ception. :)
Radio jamming. Send a strong downward signal to drones until they land in the fire.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Kill a squad of firefighters? Are you insane?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
When authorities do get legal ability to shoot down drones, it seems in practice very difficult to do. Small moving target like back in the days of multiple rapid fire machine guns and flak artillery. Maybe CalFire can get a few of these to add to their fleet of vehicles, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
mfwright@batnet.com
They aren't worried about hurting the drones. They are worried about the danger to the aircraft fighting the fire. Yes, a drone can seriously damage an airplane/helicopter.
Uhh, Just fly over it with a helicopter. Instant loss of lift.
Should we also bill the person who started the fire?
If so, wouldn't it be double billing to bill that person and also the drone operators?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Seems to me a bigger problem is damage or injury caused by a falling drone after being disabled.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, small aircraft are fragile and drones can hurt them - especially when you fly into one at 100+ knots. Here do an experiment: have a buddy hover a drone 3 or so feet off the ground, and you drive your car into it at only 50mph and see what happens.
It's not like they wait till the sky is clear of birds before they begin operations.
Birds fly away from fires and LOUD aircraft. Drones do not.
Frankly, if asshats like these keep doing shit like this, we're going to see publicly owned drones banned.
In legal terms this is known as "joint and several liability." In English it means "everyone in sight is on the hook until the amount of the judgment is satisfied."
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.
Were you? Were you really wondering?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...
After the fire-fighting aircraft were grounded because of drone activity, the wildfire went from 750 acres to 3500 acres.
Do you really think - are you such a goofball - that you think the people in charge of fighting a wildfire in California are going to call a halt to firefighting activities because they simply had an opposition to private drones?
I hope you never have need of any first responders.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It can't be that hard if it is in range. These things move much slower than a goose or duck and one high energy lead pellet to a propeller will probably put it out of service. These things are an awfully big target compared to the dove and quail people hunt.
And they suck as Thanksgiving dinner.
20 minutes flight time is pretty good for a 'drone'
So flying above and being hit by the rotor and having bits of steel and carbon fibre ingested in to the turbine engine isn't going to end badly for the single engine helicopter flying above a burning forest?
Considering the militarization of the American police and how they are getting surplus military hardware, I suspect this is just the Fire Departments getting jealous.
Bird Shot? The argument will be that the range is too limited.
The first step will be to try and retrofit missiles to fire helicopters. However, I'm sure after you load enough on there, it will start to limit how much water you can carry.... Then they will buy separate Apache attack helicopters to escort the water bombers. However eventually there will be cutbacks, and they will have to eliminate the water bombers, and just shoot missiles at the fires.
Or you could probably rig a localized focused jamming device that will screw with RF long enough for the drone to simply crash, while at the same time not interfering with radio communications or at least not for an extended period of time. That even sounds like kind of an interesting problem to solve...
But how do you actually enforce a registration requirement when it's so simple to build a multi-rotor platform from scratch? You may be able to get all the DJI Phantoms registered, but many hobbyist UAVs are assembled from components.
Trolls gonna troll
Printed on a 3D printer none the less..... Totally untraceable...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Maybe with a water spray
http://www.bing.com/videos/sea...
To use a shot gun you are going to need to be REALLY close to the thing you are shooting. If you get over 20 yards or so, you can forget about doing any kind of reliable damage.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Shouldn't it already be legal? In an emergency you are allowed to break laws necessary to save human lives, or stop an emergency from spreading. Particular destruction of property during fire-fights are textbook examples of that.
Far too limited range.
Now a fly over with a helicopter (especially a fire fighting class helo) with the subsequent downwash would certainly clear the air quickly.
I figured "taking out drones" would fall in the same category as a fireman breaking a car's windows or pushing it out of the way if it's parked in front of a hydrant when the fireman needs access to that hydrant to fight a fire, then asking a cop to ticket the owner for parking in front of the hydrant.
In case you are wondering, the break-the-windows-and-give-the-owner-a-ticket scenario is covered by the law in at least one state if not most/all of them. And no, the car owner isn't allowed to sue the fire dept. for damage to the windows or the water damage when they disconnect and water gets all over the inside of his car.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The proposed rulemaking will do no such thing. It explicitly leaves hobbyists alone, as mandated by congress. It only applies to commercial users. People using their 3-pound quadcopter to get some YouTube video of the fire near their house aren't the people that the FAA's new rules will impact.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
In this case, they could have always dropped a big bucket of water on it.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I do think many of them are peeping Toms who need to have their remote control aircraft shot out of the sky on a regular basis.
Based on? Specifically.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This is actually a good point. I was wondering how much the drones were actually interfering.
Having a drone get sucked into an engine or collide with the cockpit canopy while they're flying through the smoke and turbulence over a raging forest fire is guaranteed to give a pilot a very bad day.
(No need to thank me for the effort of pointing out the blindingly obvious to you, son; I live only to serve those who are so desperately in need of such services.)
Impossible. The parts are too easy to acquire to make a registry meaningful. You probably think people should use their real name on the internet and all computers be registered too, right? You go after the ones breaking the law, not blanket ban everyone.
Good-bye
They can smash stuff legally already; however, a flying drone is something they are not equipped to smash out of their way, unlike your car parked in front of a fire hydrant... (I've seen a firetruck smash a car that was in the way.)
The law is not needed, what is needed is a way to take out drones quickly. They may not have the right to operate the kind of guns needed to shoot down drones.... plus the falling drone is a new kind of problem -- it is not like cutting holes into burning houses or ripping apart a car.
I would propose a gun which shoots a net on a rope. the net should have some loose strings on it just in case it's one of those drones which have a lot of protection around their propellers. The other benefit is that if you can "bag" a few drones instead of letting them fall, you might be able to track down the owner later on.
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posting to undo incorrect moderation
You should turn signatures off.
You play too many video games. Birdshot reliably downs birds at well over 100 yards with an appropriate choke. They would do the same with drones.
What you can't see you can't avoid and what you aren't in control of can avoid you. So drone is above flight path gets sucked down. See how that's a problem. I thought this site was for people who knew shit like math and physics. Pilot should 100% not be having to watch out for drones while navigating a helicopter in a fire zone.
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So, a link to an article about Tom Selleck, coupled with TFA, which talks about the firefighters being delayed TWENTY MINUTES by the drones.
So, the fire grew from ~1 square mile to ~5 square miles in 20 minutes? Really?
Or perhaps it took longer than 20 minutes, and you have some proof that it wouldn't have grown that much if those 20 minutes had been used properly?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Most consumer drones are pretty small and lightweight. It's a good bet that the stream from the fire hose would be effective for the purpose. I suspect that they're also not waterproof.
Imagine all the people...
Should we also bill the person who started the fire?
Sure. Why not? Undoubtedly it was someone throwing a cigarette out of their car in violation of state law.
If so, wouldn't it be double billing to bill that person and also the drone operators?
Well, it would be double billing unless it was a fine, then we can bill to infinity, and nobody gets to complain about double billing.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The FAA can take jurisdiction on this and work with the FCC to set some pretty reasonable rules that would solve this problem. Pretty much all modern R/C hobby aircraft operate on the same 2.4 Ghz spread-spectrum protocol. These aren't just passive AM/FM systems, they have microprocessors in them. The gubmint could designate an emergency 2.4 Ghz radio transmission, and require commercially-made drones sold in the US to respond to it by beginning a controlled descent. General-purpose R/C systems used for build-your-own aircraft would respond by lowering the throttle servo to near-idle.
So the fire department pushes a button, and all the drones slowly descend to the ground. If yours lands in a lake, well, serves you right for operating a drone in an emergency area. Of course, the emergency transmission can't be secret, so you pass a little law making unauthorized sale or operation of an emergency drone-crash beacon a crime.
It's basically the same idea as the traffic signal pre-emption devices that let fire trucks get a green light whenever they need it. There's even a law covering unauthorized sale of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
The typical shotgun bird-shot or bean bag loads aren't totally well suited. It's time for law enforcement to do some basic research on a suitable solution for mid-range drone mitigation using readily available tools. Possibly workable would be 12 gauge with 32" barrel chambered for 3 1/2 inch magnum shells and having a tight choke and shot cup designed for maximum range without exceeding #6 shot size for safety. This configuration would probably double the effective range compared to a cylinder choked defensive shotgun with target load bird-shot. Defining the best load for the defensive shotguns issued to police would take some trial and error and with some needed compromise could probably be workable out to about 40 yards max. I'd rather see a purpose built weapon for issue to helicopters in flight as they would no doubt have unique challenges and concerns. Assuming the pilot is in range it also might be effective to simply announce on the load-speaker that the pilot will be arrested if the drone is not grounded immediately.
You mean fire shots into the air which they can't be certain where they will land...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
I thought about the loudspeaker option, too. However, I'm worried that anyone stupid enough to fly a drone that interferes with firefighters would also be too self-centered to cooperate. Maybe they authorities would need to include the threat "or we will destroy your drone now".
"Sacramento International Airport has had more bird strikes (1,300 collisions between birds and jets between 1990 and 2007, causing an estimated $1.6 million in damage) than any other California airport. Sacramento International Airport has the most bird strikes of any airport in the west and sixth among airports in the US, according to the FAA, as it is located along the Pacific Flyway, a major bird migration path.[13][14]"
They are granting limited commercial use now, generallylightly populated areas: farming, pipelines, disaster surveys, etc.
A serious photography or farmers isnt using a coupule hundred dollar toy drone.
Remember double the speed, quadruple the force.
That works if you are bouncing off a brick wall, not smashing a small object into a larger one. Force is change in momentum with respect to time, not momentum squared.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
If the windspeed is right and the there's enough fuel, wildfires spreading that rapidly is not out of the question. Stray embers get caught up in the wind and are pushed far downwind before landing and ignite a whole new area. It's not always possible to isolate the two burn areas and the two fires become one. Repeat multiple times and yes it's possible for fire to spread that rapidly. Source: conversations with a US Forest Service Ranger who handles wildland firefighting coordination and response every year during wildfire season in Arizona.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Unless they miss.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
“Just because you have access to an expensive toy that can fly in a dangerous area doesn’t mean you should do it.”
We've had RC aircraft for almost as long as we've had aircraft. The reason drones are causing this particular problem is precisely because they are no longer expensive.
It reeked of cow shit during my trip to San Francisco last year. Give me a break.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Begun the Drone War has
" So drone is above flight path gets sucked down."
Except the original idea poster said fly ABOVE the drone.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Want to know how I know you've never fired a real gun before?
Magnum slugs alone on an unchoked barrel can be accurate up to 150 yards.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This is California. One idiot misbehaves and the legislature will pass laws to require licensing of operators, registration of drones, mandatory gps based logging during all flights with such logs preserved and inspectable on demand by a government representative. Failure to provide such logs resulting in a loss of an operating license, fines, etc.
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
Water cannon? I'm sure they could outfit the water drop helicopters with a high pressure, low volume hose for just this purpose.
Nothing posted to
I don't know about this particular fire but the growth is plausible in the right conditions, the big fires here in Oz that are driven by strong desert winds are capable of igniting spot fires up to 20 km downwind from the main front. Not much you can do to tame a fire that spreads that quickly and ignores firebreaks, except get out of it's way. 20 minutes in the early stages of such a fire is a very long time and can make a huge difference to the outcome.
Not sure that shooting drones is the most practical solution, I think pointing a firehose at the thoughtless pricks using them would be much more effective.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
North Fire Drone Truther.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So, you think firefighters grounded the firefighting aircraft in order to pass legislation?
Are you really ready to go full Alex Jones and trash guys fighting a wild fire in a populated area? What is your malfunction?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah brain surgeon did you read that the pilots last job should be trying to see an 18in square thing while trying to line up a run on a fire? The elevation of that run is whatever it HAS to be. So what pilot should have to waste time re align path take out drone then circle back to make its run? You don't understand the process do you?
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I live in a rural area more than half a mile from a small road. Try suing me for shooting down your toy helicopter if you fly it over my property under legal altitude in this county. Snooping isn't a right.
no no no thats not what i am saying.
im simply making the argument that while it happened as said, maybe it wasnt as big of a deal as it was, maybe they were overly cautious (not a bad thing) and maybe they are now using the issue to pass legislation
as an example in 07 i believe it was in my state of NY they were in the middle of a debate trying to raise taxes on cigarettes in my county. it was a tough battle and they were losing. then all of a sudden there is a wild fire (minnewaska st park) that they blamed on a discarded cigarette.
the problem with that assessment is I was working there at the time and we were informed of a controlled burn to take place that coincided with the discarded cigarette.
the day after they announced it was a smoke, they passed the bill raising taxes
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Radio jamming could interfere with responders using radio signals.
A friend of mine floated the theory that there were no actual drones, but that the story of "4 drones" was made up as an excuse for letting the road full of cars burn.
I don't think I would have arrived at that same conclusion myself, but come to think of it, the whole story doesn't really make much sense. If drones were in the area, wouldn't they have just dumped water/flame retardant on them? Wouldn't there be some photographs or other evidence of drone presence?
This on the heels of the "drone with a gun" video making the rounds of the Internet. Seems like a convenient excuse to quickly pass drone legislation.
Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number...and make that a little louder?
Minimum of $5000, collectable by individuals
no more drones and a few darwin awards in every fire
yep. that's clearly exactly why I created the account. your deductive reasoning skills are fucking amazing. Using your logic, You clearly created your slashdot account so you can test whether your newly created gmail account works, by having slashdot send you a confirmation email. Why the fuck would you do something as convoluted as that? seriously, you have to be some kind of a freaking idiot to complicate things so much. you know you can test out a new email account w/o creating a slashdot account - right? you can for example have a friend send an email to your newly created account.
Also, I gotta ask - "Coren22"?? You're trying to tell people REN from ren and stimpy being a COmmunists would be a catch 22? I'm sorry, I may be too dumb, but you need to provide a reason for this derailed train of thought. If Ren from ren and stimpy was indeed a communist, why in the fucking world would that be a catch22? you know what a catch22 is - right? I don't think you do.
"Yeah brain surgeon did you read that the pilots last job should be trying to see an 18in square thing while trying to line up a run on a fire?"
Well, as I sit here and look at my pilot's license (which I started working on 17 years ago) I'm just going to go with you're absolutely fucking clueless on the subject at hand and should not be talking.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It's easy macgyver, just stick these wires coming out of the joystick into this car radio that I have attached to a solar panel and press down on the joystick. I think it sends a unicode down arrow or something.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
All commercially built helicopters are designed for large bird strikes, a Phantom impacting the rotor or tail rotor is unlikely to cause very much damage. You're imagining a full on direct impact with the main mass of the phantom, which would never happen, its just going to hit one or two of the arms the motors are attached to and that impact will send the rest of the phantom away from the rotor at significant speed and certainly leave the phantom in no flyable shape so its not going to happen again.
LiPo batteries that you're talking about, are far from dense, thats why they are used in aircraft, low mass == low weight == better flight performance
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
There is at least one case where a drone was taken out by a fire hose at a house fire. The troubling thing in that case, though, is that a firefighter took his hose off of the fire to take out a drone that was far enough away as not to be causing any real problem. The fire department ended up replacing the drone.
www.wavefront-av.com
Want to know how I know you've never fired a real gun before?
Magnum slugs alone on an unchoked barrel can be accurate up to 150 yards.
You are wrong, I grew up hunting. I even did a bit of competitive shotgun shooting for a time, though I'm not that good.
You are not going to hit a small moving airborne target with slugs at 150 yards using a shot gun without making an extremely lucky shot. Shooting a stationary target with a shotgun slug at 150 yards is difficult in its own right, unless the target is the broad side of a barn.
I'm not so sure you know what you are talking about, but I wouldn't want to take bets on how much experience you have with firearms....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Try 30 years ago when all you could see from the side of the road was a sea of cattle. The smell was suffocating and the summer heat was oppressive, especially with the windows rolled up, the AC in the car not working and 55MPH was the speed limit. Today we have more techies than cattle to drop cow pies.
"You are not going to hit a small moving airborne target with slugs at 150 yards using a shot gun without making an extremely lucky shot."
Wanna know how I know you've never been skeet shooting or actual duck hunting?
Protip: Lead your target.
"I'm not so sure you know what you are talking about, but I wouldn't want to take bets on how much experience you have with firearms.... "
My grandfather is a retired Lt. Col. USMC. I spent my summers on Parris Island (He lived on Datau.) I obviously know how to effectively and accurately operate a weapon. You, on the other hand...
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Ever flown a helicopter low over a large fire? I haven't either, so I'll take the word of people who do. In areas with unpredictable updrafts and vision-obscuring smoke, where any landing is fatal, I think I'd be real unhappy about uncontrolled objects in my flight area.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Oh if I am being an ass so what. We are talking about fire and people lives. 1% reduction in safety is to much for people already risking their lives.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Sure. Now bear in mind that we have conservation of energy, not just momentum, and that kinetic energy does vary as the square of the speed. That energy does have to go somewhere, such as deforming materials involved. Bullets don't have that much momentum. The old .45 pistol round has less momentum than you can get swinging a 10-lb sack of potatoes (I found a source saying 5.4 lb-f/s, and I'm assuming pound is a unit of mass here, because the dimensions don't work if it's a unit of force). While I'd rather not be hit by the potatoes, it isn't likely to hurt me much. It's the concentrated energy you have to worry about.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So your grandpa was a Lt Col and a Marine and that makes you an expert in Shotguns... Well excuse me Mr. Expert, obviously I'm not as well educated in firearms as you must be having grown up hunting with an Eagle scout raised by a career Army Sarget for a father... (sarcasm off)
You don't shoot airborne targets with slugs, you use shot, which is NOT very effective at even 100 yards... If you are hitting ducks with slugs at 150 yards (heck if you can hit them with SHOT at that distance), you need to drop this Slashdot gig and do some professional shooting. The pros generally shoot at under 60 yards in competition, you should find the experience easy given you are good enough to shoot out at 150 yards so well, just lead the target a bit more...
Come on, I'm not claiming to be an expert marksman, or even a good shooter, but I do know the physical limitations of the shotgun, what it was designed to do, what it can do, and what it cannot. Shooting an airborne target at 150 yards is clearly something that a shotgun cannot do effectively. Even at half that distance shotguns would be only somewhat effective in the hands of your average shooter, there is no way 150 yards is going to work.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Source: Me. I trained to be a volunteer "fire jumper" (though we usually go in with choppers and fast rope down instead of bailing out of an airplane). I only was on scene a half dozen times and none of them required jumping or even fast roping.
Anyhow, fires grow quickly. Very quickly. Once they build up enough energy they expand even more rapidly. Stopping them from building that much energy is a concern and is a very time-sensitive matter. Anything interfering with the containment process, any delays, are cause for future damages. Your house is destroyed in an average of something like five minutes from the start of a fire. Twenty minutes is a very long time in a crisis. It is generally not just twenty minutes, it is twenty *additional* minutes.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You don't have a pilot's license. It is the internet, the one place you do not have to lie.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
How do you feel about drunk driving, distracted driving, criminal threatening, driving to endanger, or similar laws?
For the record, I tend to agree with you in theory. Practicality has shown that theory does not hold up to reality.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I've already promised the wife (to her eye-rolling disgust) that if I ever see a drone operator near an emergency scene, I shall:
1 - Punch him in the gut, hard.
2 - Take his controller away and jump up and down on it, repeatedly.
She feels I would be overreacting. I disagree. I haven't even gotten CLOSE to the "And then put the boots to the bastard" phase!
I do have mine. Started with the (now gone) "You Can Fly" program from the Huntsville, AL Aviation Challenge adult camp. My first 20 instructed hours were there.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"You don't shoot airborne targets with slugs, you use shot"
Only if you're a shit shot that can't lead a target (or in your case, likely using the wrong type of metal slug - you use bismuth for distance shooting, not steel or lead.)
" If you are hitting ducks with slugs at 150 yards (heck if you can hit them with SHOT at that distance), you need to drop this Slashdot gig and do some professional shooting."
The pros have been doing 200+ yard competitions for years. My last try at one was 2010 in the southern Mojave.
"The pros generally shoot at under 60 yards in competition"
Using buckshot, or buckshot in a wax slug, maybe, yes. MINIMUM safe fault distance from a metal target being engaged in an officially-constructed range, using metal slugs, is 61 yards (60 yard minimum target distance, one yard fault line allocation minimum.) My 1984 Mossberg M500 is scary accurate with a 26" barrel and just the pip on the end of the barrel, no rear dovetail. Men do distance competition all the time. We've got 12-gauge sabot rounds that are ungodly accurate 200 yards out with proper construction.
Also, with a typical Remington Express ELR shotgun shell, 1300 FPS muzzle velocity, you won't be losing any real accuracy until about the half second mark, when gravity starts making itself profoundly known to the projectile and it begins to drop like a rock. 750 feet, 250 yards maximum safe bet for better than 50% hit rate. I don't see 300 yards just yet, though. Just a tip up of the barrel to compensate, or use a longer barrel that's rifled. I've seen smooth-bore hits at ~225 before.
There's the Hornady SST rounds that get 2,000 FPS muzzle velocity with only a 6.75" drop at 200 yards. That's dead-easy to compensate for.
I've been shooting rifles and handguns of all sorts since I was 6 years old. Spring-piston dart pistols to single-pump breech-load Benjamin .22 pellet rifles (that were just as good as firing an actual .22LR) to 9mm to .40cal to AR-15 to M-16 to .308 crew-served to shotguns (20, 16, 12, and 10 gauge, and the ever-loved venerable .410 as I had a fairly rural life growing up in Texas, Tennessee, and South Carolina with an occasional Louisiana stint.)
http://firearmspedia.com/scatt... Yes, that is a sniper shotgun.
BTW, current shotgun record on a 100 yard grouping is 0.787 inch for 5 shots - zero magnification, red dot sight only. 200's a breeze, you just need to think about your ammunition, and possible crosswinds.
You do not believe, because you cannot conceive. Go spend some time on youtube. This guy nailed a slightly larger-than-human target with a 9mm at 1,000 yards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Here's a guy (not the one mentioned above) doing slugs 200+ with decent accuracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Totally right, as a drone flyer myself I asked a friend who is a helicopter pilot currently working for the government here and his professional opinion is that drones are so lightweight they would be instantly destroyed in a collision with the tail rotor. Collision with the main rotor he says would be almost impossible from the wind turbulence pushing down, the drone would have to be very large and powerfull to sustain itself on that kind of wind, unless it came from the top on which case the tail rotor rule applies.
LOL I was just screwing with you. In hindsight it was not so obvious. My bad.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."