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New Telemetry Suggests Shot-Down Drone Was Higher Than Alleged
AmiMoJo writes: The pilot of the drone shot down Sunday evening over a Kentucky property has now come forward with video seemingly showing that the drone wasn't nearly as close as the property owner made it out to be. The data also shows that it was well over 200 feet above the ground before the fatal shots fired. The shooter, meanwhile, continues to maintain that the drone flew 20 feet over a neighbour's house before ascending to "60 to 80 [feet] above me."
That really does not change my opinion. I would shoot it down too. Of course, yeah, I live miles from people so they would have to be deliberately spying on me. There is no rational reason for me to not shoot it down. I might get a civil offense for it. Meh... I can pay the fine. I will sue them in civil court for duress, not for any money but to keep them from suing me. I *have* a lawyer on retainer. I am a good shot.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Is why a long list of seemingly obvious criminal charges hasn't been brought against the drone operator.
I'd start with whatever laws relate to peeping Toms, disturbing the peace, and perhaps harassment.
Umm, no. Doesn't really change anything.
And you believe this? Even with good shotshell and a patterned gun, it's very unlikely to score a buckshot kill at more than 40-45 yards away. Hard to do for a stationary deer, impossible with a drone in the air.
The telemetry was either faked or, as an astute AC explained already, was showing the altitude at the launch point, which may be lower than the "trigger-happy" guy's backyard.
It simply doesn't pass the smell test.
I can pay the fine
Federal Law does not put drones in a special category. They are just another aircraft. The penalty is up to 20 years in federal prison, and a $250,000 fine. That's in addition to the charges this individual has already faced for discharging a fire arm in the city he lived in, as they make that illegal there.
More interestingly, there is a line here that is not well defined. What's the difference between:
I think most people would say the first is fine, and it's not legal to try and shoot down the google satellite. Similarly, I think most people would be ok with taking action against the last one to protect privacy (even if that isn't legal per the federal law I cited above). This technology is so new, we simply haven't decided as a society where the line should be drawn, and our old laws probably don't work well.
It's not just personal houses either. What about the drones used by activists to fly over industrial operations breaking the law and get footage of it? Can the industrial operations shoot them down? If they do the same thing with a Cessna at 3,000 feet everyone would say no. What makes a drone at 400 any different?
I might add that 50 meters STRAIGHT UP does not equate to a 50 meter horizontal shot. If the shot I'm shooting has a maximum effective range of 50 meters (or yards), I can expect that firing straight up into the air, my shot will only reach about 30 meters (or yards). Maybe 40. No matter how you cut it, shotguns are not long range weapons.
Duck hunters don't take those long shots into the sky for that very reason. They use decoys to bring the ducks down to landing approach height - 20 to 100 feet - then shoot them as they pass overhead. Even extra length, extra high powered "goose guns" can't reach much higher than 150 feet.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/pho...
Here, a collection of anecdotal evidence - http://www.duckhuntingchat.com...
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
If you don't understand how shotguns work, specifically when he mentioned patterned, don't try and refute him. At 200 feet the pattern of a buck shot would be such that the drone was unlikely to be hit by 1 pellet, much less the multiple it would probably take to disable it.
When trap shooting, if you have a perfect shot at too far of a distance past where your gun is patterned for you still don't hit because the pellets are so dispersed by the time they reach the clay there is far more open space than pellets. And thats if your gun was designed to shoot at a distance. This guys gun was probably not a trap/skeet shooting gun with chokes, and that would make the claim of 200 feet even less likely. So you will see tons of comments from shotgun shooters saying why its not likely and lots of comments from people who don't know what a choke or a pattern is saying its completely likely.
Why is it the property owners reponsibility to go find and talk to the drone operator? The drone operator, on the other hand, knows where his toy is going so maybe HE should actually act like a responsible person and let the property owners know what he is doing ahead of time.
Vice president Cheney shot a man in the face with birdshot. It barely broke the skin. And the victim was 78 years old. Skin gets easier to tear as we get older.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
A) No, they don't. They often use shotguns modified to be light and pointable if they are professional competitors, but most trap shooters use the same shotguns they would go hunting with. They also use chokes that are modified or less (as in, broad spread, less range) and the patterns are no different than any other commercial off the shelf shotgun (circular). All of my shotguns wear full chokes, which have much greater range, especially in a gun not designed for trap shooting (longer barrel). Also, trap shooters use reduced recoil (AKA, reduced range, reduced velocity, reduced power) loads and their shotguns typically only hold two shells. Basically, this argument boils down to, if a trap shotgun can reach, a hunting shotgun can reach MUCH MORE EASILY.
B) Trap shooters are shooting one shell at a very fast moving target. This guy just had to shoot a stationary target with one of his several shells.
As for your third point, a shotgun pellet at 5 grains and 0.05 BC (typical for a light sphere), loses half of its 1200 fps velocity within 200 yards (600 feet), and does that between a quarter and a half of a second due to aero drag. It doesn't matter which way you shoot the shot, because in that tiny time span, gravity at its very weak 9.8 m/s^2 doesn't affect that hardly at all, as it makes up less than 10% of the velocity change.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
First time this year I've read about Americans shooting something that wasn't
- Their children
- Each other
- Endangered Wildlife
Somebody shot a couple hundred dollar drone, great its good news! Progress.
The only surprise the world has, is there is no call for drones to be armed to protect against it happening again..
No fear and none of your left or right wing BS, many of us just don't like it, we don't like drones hovering around our homes engaging in actions that aren't as obvious as a human's actions. We have the ability to interact with people that trespass on our property but we don't have the ability to discern the functionality of a drone hovering around us. Furthermore, I don't feel safe with the idea of an unlicensed heavy object falling from the sky and harming children... or me for that matter.