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Drone Crashes, Missing Champion Skier By Inches (cnn.com)
HughPickens.com writes: NBC reports that defending World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher, who won silver in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, had a lucky escape after he narrowly avoided being hit by a falling drone. Hirscher was on his second run in a World Cup slalom race at Madonna di Campiglio in Italy when a remote-controlled drone with a mounted camera slammed down on the piste inches behind him. "This is horrible," Hirscher said after the event. "This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury." The International Ski Federation (FIS) released a statement on its website apologizing for the "unfortunate accident." But some saw the lighter side announcing that the drone wars had shifted to the ski slopes. "Man, I'd watch a lot more winter sports if this was a standard part of the game," tweeted Marc Andreessen. The company responsible for the drone, sports marketing agency Infront, said its initial investigation "indicates a malfunction of the drone." "The most likely reason is a strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency, leading to limited operability," Infront said in a statement. "The pilot followed the official security procedure, purposely flying the drone as close as possible to the ground before releasing it. The aim was to destroy the drone, in order to prevent it from losing control."
That champion skier was headed downhill anyways.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Agreed, "Out of control drone narrowly misses chamion skier" would have been a much better title.
And the "inches" is just sensationalism. In the video you can see the drone missed him by at least a few feet.
Did you look at the picture? What crashed was nothing close to con/prosumer equipment. What crashed was significantly more expensive, had significantly more lift and better optics than the DJI Inspire. I'd have to call BS if there weren't as advanced flight control systems as well as GLONASS/GPS/IR guidance. In the event of no RF control, the copter usually toggles a return to home, dependent upon how it's programmed. It doesn't just stop flying!
That wasn't a controlled landing, my guess is a power failure or motor issue.
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Knowing several drone owners, I doubt a drone could hit that small of a target.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sure. That's common in most sports. Hockey fans who want more fights, skiing fans who like ski cross, American football fans who don't want the game banned, etc.
The possibility of crashes and injuries make otherwise boring or pointless games more exciting.
I pilot multi-rotor and fixed-wing UAVs (RPAS) myself. The UAV, which has crashed, weighs at least 3 - 5 kg. In my opinion, to fly such a heavy aircraft above a gathering of people is reckless.
The problem is that UAV operators are to lift in the air the cameras which are not designed for a light aircraft. A camera on a drone in the air does not need a display, as there is nobody up there to look at it.
For example, the GoPro4Session camera weighs just 74 grams. It is better already. It could be lifted into the air by a drone which weighs just 500-600 grams. But still this camera is waterproof down to 10 meters water depth. No need for it in the air. So the camera could be still lighter. It has a WiFi. Again, it is not used in the air, as WiFi may jam control radio-signal. It has a built-in battery for filming for hours. But the flights last just 15 minutes. So light replaceable batteries of different capacity could be used. The mount is from a molded solid plastic, but could be much lighter from aluminum or a composite plastic.
If such camera producers as GoPro, Panasonic, Sony, etc. started to produce cameras designed specially for UAVs, it could make flying much safer. Each gram counts for a flight, and camera producers just do not think about it at all. It is so sad.
One more point, the camera should be frangible, if it comes to a collision with the speed more than 200 km/h (manned aircraft's speed or crash).
Instead of introducing buracratic obstacles and "windmills" databses, the agencies could concentrate of making flying safer. And a good starting point could be the design of airborn cameras.
1) The dog. It will have to come out of his daily allowance of kibbles and bits. I am not sure what the current value of kibble is but as I understand it is 8 bits to the dollar.
2) The child. The smart ones will not run into spinning propellers. The strong ones may survive. Basically this will serve to weed out the weak and stupid children, leading to a golden age for mankind.
3) Such an event will cause Amazon to lose money instead of make a profit. Jeff Bezos will point out that during the dot com boom, many people were investing in companies that were losing money because that is a sign they are growing. Amazon then receives record investment money and their stock price soars.
4) I would imagine that the teenager would then high five his friends, repeatedly say "that was awesome" and eventually find some other distraction.
5) Who cares? Tesla coils are awesome!
6) Allowing Amazon to come into the low value area, buy up all the homes to build a new distribution center and begin offering "Amazon Super Prime" services to the rich people in the next county, including 1 hour delivery by person. They will use the newly homeless people in the poor county as their labor supply.
7) Hopefully he is welding a Tesla Coil because that would be awesome.
8) Now I have a drone and a Tesla Coil! How awesome is that?
1) Dog runs from bushes and attacks drone, does damage. Who pays?
Dog owner.
2) Child runs to drone, is hurt. Whose fault?
Child
3) Drone fails in flight, crashes, kills people, destroys property. Amazon pays more than all profits from drone delivery.
Not a question but amazon's fault
4) Teenager is in a field trying a BB gun, shoots at drone. Drone crashes. What then?
Teenager at fault.
5) Someone is testing a Tesla coil in his garage. The huge sparks emit electromagnetic interference, making communication with the drone impossible. Drone cannot be controlled, destroys property. Who pays?
Amazon pays. Failsafe control is part of even the cheapest drones, expect it to be standard.
6) Drone noise and danger reduces the value of houses in a neighborhood. An adjoining county has restrictions against drones; the value of the property there goes up.
No one's at fault. Property values are fungible. I highly doubt the value of land would be lower for a several second drone delivery than a delivery truck driving down the road constantly. You can never buy a house and expect stable property value, and if you do then I have a ... house to sell you. It's in a good location, I promise. *wink*
7) RFI, Radio Frequency Interference: Someone is outside on the street welding something using an electric welder. Electric welding generates interference on ALL frequencies. The drone might receive nothing except noise.
See #5
8) Drone is stolen.
Thief is at fault.
Look drones are not magical. They are not new or unique. None of what you question is even remotely a legal grey area. If you replace the word drone with person, delivery van, or any other word than the mythical "drone" you find so confusing then all cases are very clear cut. But I'm sure you know the risks better than a multi-national megacorproation which armies of R&D teams, rooms full of bored lawyers and lots of money to throw at the problem