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UK Man Gets Britain's First-Ever Conviction For Illegal Drone Use
jfruh writes: Nigel Wilson of Nottingham was quite a drone enthusiast: he flew a drone over a Champions League soccer match low enough to startle police horses, and at other times flew drones over iPro Stadium in Derby, the Emirates Stadium in north London, and near the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the HMS Belfast and the Shard tower in London. He's been convicted under the Air Navigation Order 2009 and fined £1,800.
I really wonder how it can be News that a criminal gets fined.
It is not only common sense that he may not fly drowns over other peoples private property, but it is explicitely forbidden!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Drones are used since probably more than 2,000 years without having to apply for a permit.
I would think a real drone enthusiast would know enough to not do such stupid things with them. This is why we can't have nice drones.
... I say "good". The current laws are working: you do something stupid with your machine, you get hit with a fine. Leaving a trail of all your illegal stunts on YouTube is probably not the smartest thing to do, either.
Just because you can fly one of these things doesn't mean it won't suddenly drop out of the sky. Over the weekend, I was practicing nose-in POI orbits in a big, empty field. The earlier flights were non-eventful; this one seemed no different until the battery cover popped off and a propeller hit it, with the machine dropping 20' into the ground. I believe I hadn't seated the battery connector correctly and it shifted during the flight, causing the cable to put pressure on the cover and it blew out. Fortunately, the only damage was a snapped blade, cracked landing gear and the camera was knocked off it's gimbal mounts. If I was being an idiot and flew over the crowds at Wimbledon (like this guy), it may not have had such a happy ending.
The laws are working. Heavily fine a few more idiots and let the rest of us fly responsibly.
Nigel Wilson of Nottingham sounds like quite the asshole.
GOOD
the HMS Belfast? Don't think so. Expand the "HMS" and see if it makes sense.
At the bottom of the
Why wait for the police to arrive while a crime is in progress, in this case a drone flying by.
There's another good application of guns right there!
The real story for me as a fellow risk taking asshoke is the fines are pretty low compared to the reward. I fly around woodland as it's good fun but now I'm actually considering harrassing big events. I hate televised sports too so I have an idea where to start.
Plus a bit of hype.
"Flying drones over congested areas or buildings can pose great risks to public safety and security..."
I can see risks, yes.
Great risks seem unlikely unless the drone was carrying something really bad.
Which is probably why he got off with a small fine and a 2 year timeout.
That rule set is 569 pages. It appears to be the whole set of aviation rules.
There is an unmanned section in part 22 sections 166 and 167 (page 178).
There is a line of sight rule at 22-166-3.
We're discussing Britain, not Great Britain. The former is a political entity and the latter an island. Feel free to post a story about Cameron's porcine fancies if you wish, but get the terminology right ;)
As I drone enthusiast myself I say it is a good thing this asshole was fined. You never ever fly over any congested areas because it doesn't matter if you are a good pilot or not, you can always have rotor malfunction or interferance leading to loss of control and over congested areas that is very likely to lead to injuries to bystanders.
I think it's acceptable usage to use 'Great Britain' in the same way as 'Britain', considering that 'Team GB' represented the whole of the UK in the Olympics.
Wait, there's a place called iPro Stadium? Who was the fool to think of this name and why hasn't Apple sued them yet?
meh, hazing, and at worst a dead pig head.
i was expecting more "farmyard bride", and less "dumb 20 year old puts his twig and berries on random objects to one up his idiot friends"
Just for the record, I've found that horses and cattle are startled by relatively quiet quadcopters, such as DJI Phantom, from as far away as 200 feet overhead. These animals are skittish as hell to anything out of the norm.
Meanwhile hawks and vultures seem drawn to quadcopters and will come from quite some distance to investigate the quadcopter. I have a suspicion that they might be thinking that the copter is on a thermal that they can also use.
Cranes are completely chill, barely flinching with a quadcopter only 10 feet overhead and bathed in downdraft.
Dogs vary. Some are uninterested, some are fearful and many large dogs try very hard to catch a quadcopter.
Cats, well... those assholes suck.
In principle, it shouldn't be all that hard to design drones that don't pose a risk in crowded areas, that harmlessly spin to the ground if anything goes wrong. Blanket restrictions like this strongly discourage such developments.
A second issue with these restrictions is that they often mix up criminal and civil matters and are at risk of getting abused by police and politicians for purposes other than public safety and protecting private property rights.
£1,800 would have been enough to pay the wages of Arsenal first team for 9.5 seconds. Enough to ask the players if Wenger is losing the plot ;)
People may have exaggerated confidence in their pilot ability or luck. Thats when they push the envelop. Most arent intentionally trying to hurt property or people. We wont see change until their are some significant, publicized punishments.
His some would have been shot down by the police AA gun, and the fine would have been 5-10 in the clink
actually and literally fucked a pig
So did Clinton, left his jizz on her dress to prove it. What's the big deal?
...it's crap!
Monica Lewinsky is alive. David Cameron fucked a dead pig.
No, you can't spin this. The PM of England fucked a dead pig. He fucked. a dead. pig. As in, "had carnal relations with". Dead pig...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Worth it!
Then it's hardly going to suffer. What's the problem?
Nor is it going to testify before the house of Lords.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Fucking amateur.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As with Clinton, it was only oral, so it doesn't count.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it