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Bold Eagles: Angry Birds Are Ripping $80,000 Drones Out of the Sky (cetusnews.com)
schwit1 found this story in the Wall Street Journal:
Daniel Parfitt thought he'd found the perfect drone for a two-day mapping job in a remote patch of the Australian Outback. The roughly $80,000 machine had a wingspan of 7 feet and resembled a stealth bomber. There was just one problem. His machine raised the hackles of one prominent local resident: a wedge-tailed eagle. Swooping down from above, the eagle used its talons to punch a hole in the carbon fiber and Kevlar fuselage of Mr. Parfitt's drone, which lost control and plummeted to the ground... "It ended up being a pile of splinters"...
These highly territorial raptors, which eat kangaroos, have no interest in yielding their apex-predator status to the increasing number of drones flying around the bush. They've even been known to harass the occasional human in a hang glider... Camouflage techniques, like putting fake eyes on the drones, don't appear to be fully effective, and some pilots have even considered arming drones with pepper spray or noise devices to ward off eagles.
One mining survey superintendent said he's now lost 12 different drones to eagle attacks, costing his employer $210,000. Another drone was actually attacked by nine different eagles, and its pilot estimates eagles are now attacking 20% of all drone flights in rural Australia.
These highly territorial raptors, which eat kangaroos, have no interest in yielding their apex-predator status to the increasing number of drones flying around the bush. They've even been known to harass the occasional human in a hang glider... Camouflage techniques, like putting fake eyes on the drones, don't appear to be fully effective, and some pilots have even considered arming drones with pepper spray or noise devices to ward off eagles.
One mining survey superintendent said he's now lost 12 different drones to eagle attacks, costing his employer $210,000. Another drone was actually attacked by nine different eagles, and its pilot estimates eagles are now attacking 20% of all drone flights in rural Australia.
Nature has decided. No, you can't fucking pepper spray an eagle. Give it up.
See subject line
and some pilots have even considered arming drones with pepper spray or noise devices to ward off eagles.
Or, you know, they could just leave the eagles alone and fly somewhere else...
. . ..seems like there could be a video game in that. . . .. . .Oh. Nevermind. . . (grin)
and they know it. They are defending their position as the master of the sky, deadliest flying living creature.
They are smart and cunning and strong. They use their ability to fly high to develop a ton of momentum and tear apart their prey.
Pretty hard to defend against them, they won't back down.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Do we need further reminders that everything in Australia wants to kill you?
I hope the eagles knock each and every one of these machines out of the sky. I hope it ends up costing these companies millions, and there's not a fucking thing they're going to be able to do about it. Drone operators/owners are some of the most selfish, self-entitled assholes around, and every time one of them loses one of their drones, I cheer. Good riddance.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Seems like you probably shouldn't fly expensive droves in those areas.
Aren't birds immune to pepper spray? Wouldn't simply being a drone add a lot of defense? I'd think rotors would break bird bones like twigs or at least hurt really bad.
Anybody got a good recipe for eagle?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The machine ... resembled a stealth bomber.
Tragically, though flying in broad daylight, it was not escorted by a protective formation of fighter drones, making it an easy pick for the latest Talon strike fighters of the austral Aquiline air force.
You can bet that countermeasures of almost any effective type will be discouraged if not banned. Most countermeasure systems would aid in avoidance of military or police takedowns of drones.
Would pepper spray even work on an eagle? Birds can't taste capsaicin; if anything, it's numbing to them.
It's interesting to see how territorial these birds are. You can find lots of videos on Youtube of them doing things like attacking ultralights and such. I think they're simply going to have to "eagleproof" their drones. Which unfortunately will make them need to be bigger (and more expensive) for a given-sized payload, since a greater chunk of the mass fraction will need to go into structure.
All we want to do is eat your brains.
to fool Mother Nature.
Hands up if you're old enough to remember that TV commercial!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I'm dismayed you'd think it necessary to use projectile weapons. When instead you could use nitinol rotors with retractable guards. Yes, it blends!
This is apparently _not_ a quad copter, it's a bunch of fixed wing drones.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm most dreadfully embarrassed.
Never thought that birds could be more effective than shotguns... Your move, NRA card-holding privacy conscious anti-environmentalists. Your move...
Full size gliders. Normally the eagles are friendly enough, and can mark thermals. But sometimes they attack, ignoring the size difference. The go for the leading edge of the wing which would kill another bird. But it is the strongest part of the glider and the Eagles come off second best.
The eagles generally let you know when they are not happy, first making aggressive movements. Maybe the drones need some wide angle cameras to see them.
I personally have not been attacked by an eagle, but have been by a (much smaller) magpie. I was a bit low over its nest on a ridge and it flapped its way all the way up to me and dived at the cockpit (would be the eyes of another bird). I dived after it but of course it was hopeless, and the bird effortlessly got behind me for another go.
I think they're simply going to have to "eagleproof" their drones. Which unfortunately will make them need to be bigger (and more expensive) for a given-sized payload, since a greater chunk of the mass fraction will need to go into structure.
Or they could just make drones that don't look like pigs - then the angry birds would stop attacking.
#DeleteChrome
Not when you have crows in the neighborhood. They frequently mob bald eagles and chase them off. The solution might be to develop a self-organizing swarm of smaller drones that surround and defend the parent (the one carrying the camera).
Have gnu, will travel.
Mr Eagle!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Eagles around the world are fighting for our freedom to keep the sky safe from Russian drones and ISIS drones. These drones are trying to hack our elections, scramble our GPS signals, and listen in on our cell phones. The founding fathers knew of the great drone prophecy to come and selected the Eagle as the symbol of freedom, knowing this bird would one day fight in the "Drone Wars." George Lucas new about the "Drone War" prophecy but for the sake of his personal safety and that of his family and co-workers, he renamed the movie to "Clone Wars."
Meanwhile.... in a secret lab, Elon Musk and Space X are working on a secret "Drone Killer" project that is powered by a mysterious and not-fully understood power source that was found in a crashed UFO. Soon these drones will take to the sky and fight along side the Eagles in the coming drone wars.
See this banned video before it is too late and I crazy trick to lower your cholesterol.
After the double bird strike put Sully in the east river, a shocking number of birds were killed in response.
All the wildlife there is out to kill you.
Best of all, these eagles are listed as endangered and are protected by Australian law. In fact IIRC, the sections of the law that pertain to endangered species impose a "strict liability" standard on actions that injure a member of that species. That means you don't even have to intend to inure one of these eagles. Just being careless can get you serious prison time.
So pretty much those drone operators have to suck it up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Biggest eagles in the world.
They'd eat a bald eagle for lunch.
Nothing a 10 gauge goose gun can't fix.
It's a protected species. Hope you like spending time in jail.
Fly faster than eagles.
Or at night.
Don't piss off sky predators.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
When you are talking about large tracts of land there are plenty of legitimate non-dildastic uses for drones. I doubt someone flying an 80k machine is a drone enthusiast.
love is just extroverted narcissism
It's their version of first world problems!
Could be: Some people make their hobbies a job.
The problem is $80k drones. Put the sensors in a separate package and fly them under a $100 slow stick, attach parachute to sensor package and done. Who cares if the eagles destroy some styrofoam, it's cheap.
It's a classic case of "no one every got in trouble for buying CAT/Fluke/IBM etc. etc."
Lose two dozen $80,000 top-of-the-line drones? No one cares, you bought the best gear around so clearly it couldn't have been anything other than one freak accident after the other, just fire the contractor hired to pilot it and be done. Attach a $20,000 sensor package to a cheap, consumer-grade airframe? The moment that sensor package ends up damaged in any way, shape or form, even if it's flown over 5,000 successful missions with your set-up and potentially saved hundreds of thousands in the long run, you'll be chewed out for "being an idiot and attaching such expensive equipment to such unreliable trash!"
These aren't people trying to peek into your window, flying their drones on private property without permission or even harassing busy locales with dangerous flights.
They are quite literally a business using drones effectively for a legitimate purpose with purpose built aircraft: mining surveys, outback mapping etc. Are you really Glad these people are suffering setbacks because of some unforeseen consequences?
Show me on the doll where the drone touched you because that reaction isn't normal for a situation like this.
You sound like a car enthusiast describing cyclists.
Did a drone pilot kill your favourite pet, or do you feel the same way about all operators of remote-controlled equipment?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You're going to need a bigger drone.
One countermeasure to bird attacks is to demonstrate superior flight capability. Of course this requires pre-emptive training of the raptors. A drone can out climb any bird and demonstrating this ability will often serve to prevent aggressive behavior. This is certainly not a cure all but one element of an effective strategy that includes maintaining appropriate situational awareness of one's flight environment of which these birds are a part.
more power to Mother Nature.
drone ops...tossers and wankers.
The Problem: Drone flies in a manner the that the Eagles think is either prey or competitor. Solution: Find a flying creature they don't attack - Most likely a vulture(everybody thinks vultures are icky, even other birds) - and imitate it's flight
Since no flying dogs, Security services are evaluating training birds to attack drones. https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s... Back to the drawing board Wiley Coyote. Stealth drones, disposable decoys etc... escort pigeons , sky is the limit on alternative approaches. Drones have lots of potential but more to learn on optimizing use.
They're not professionals, they can't even out fly an eagle.
Are you really Glad these people are suffering setbacks because of some unforeseen consequences?
Yes I am. Stop fucking with the eagles since they clearly don’t like drones in their territory.
...but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Many years ago a friend I was flying with was attacked by a wedge-tailed eagle ("wedgie"). Came from above and behind, first he knew of it was when its talon ripped the top of his wing. Scared shit out of him, fortunately the rip stop nylon lived up to its name and he landed safely. Three neat parallel rips in the sail about 20cm long. Another time we were setting our gliders up on a hilltop, a couple of wedgies lazily thermalling 750 to 1000 feet above us. Suddenly one of them folded its wings up completely and basically dive bombed us head first. At what seemed an impossibly low altitude it opened its wings and executed an incredibly tight (and extremely loud) vertical u-turn, then slowly spiralled back up to its mate. I took this as a pretty unambiguous piece of inter-species communication: "Get the fuck out of my territory you pathetic amateurs, this is what a real pilot can do". Generally they left us alone though, unless they were nesting, apart from one or two individuals known to be cranky/territorial. I suspect that smaller, noisier, more maneuverable drones are seen by them as more of a threat.
Is this the answer to the security services' prayers: trained eagles to down weaponised drones?
I am reminded of the (UK) Great Exhibition of 1851: it was set up in Crystal Palace - a huge glass & iron building. Sparrows got in, nested out of reach high in the structure, & dumped on visitors. What to do? With the building made of glass, guns were a non-starter. Queen Victoria asked the Duke of Wellington (victor of Waterloo) for an idea. His answer: "sparrowhawks, Ma'am."
when you do it for money you are a professional
love is just extroverted narcissism
Go shooting protected birds in Australia, and you'll be lucky if the cops get you before the locals do. Most australians consider poaching somewhere between pedophilia and keeping dead hookers in the basement. When I worked at the department of parks, we'd have to think very hard over what info we'd release on animal abuse prosecutions, becuase people would react so angily that vigilantism was a real possibility.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The key word is "protected". Injuring or killing protected specieis is what gets you in for a bad time with an angry judge, regardless of whether its endangered, or not. Although its largely an academic distinction. Most non endangered protected species are only a bad summer away from endangered anyway.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Wedge tails beg to differ.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Yep. I remember once installing a video conferencing system worth all up close to a quarter of a million dollars in the early 2000s. I asked the CEO "How do you guys financially justify spending all this money?" to which he replied "kid we got more money than we know what to do with, this is nothing", and he was right, the mining company in particular had ridiculous amounts of capital just lying around in bank accounts or investments a few million to stick crazy expensive video conferencing machines into all their regional HQs was barely pocket change for these people
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
..no lets fit drones with car horns and pepper spray so the people they were hovering over and endangering can be even more upset about it.
... should be the headline.
It's kinda like when a bull kills a matador, all I can think is "Fuck Yeah!"
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
You can just burn the drone after you've shot it down, can't you? It's a big hassle digging a hole.
Go shooting protected birds in Australia, and you'll be lucky if the cops get you before the locals do.
What about "mining company" did you not understand? If there was something like "protected birds" for them, they would not be in business. They own the cops, and the locals have bones that can break under unfortunate circumstances.
You mean as some kind of payback? Let others feel what it's like if we fuck up their ecosystem by bringing in animals it's not prepared to handle?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There's a species that meddles with what we want to do? Why is it allowed to continue existing? Remove it from the ecosystem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Except that Wedge-tailed eagles are protected.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Worried about the eagles? Mining companies generally do surveys not to enhance a species' habitat but to destroy it. Oh, we're not allowed to harm eagles? NP, we'll just mine the shit out of their territory, and they can sustain themselves by preying on the leftover boulders. Yummy!
When an Eagle's talon strikes a Lithium Polymer battery it may not end well for the attacking Eagle. Although the impact of the bird alone is not healthy for such batteries, drones are designed with impacts in mind. Puncture wounds not much.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Nature has decided. No, you can't fucking pepper spray an eagle. Give it up.
Nah but you could probably rig up a sweet net launcher.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I'm thinking more spikes.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Reminded me of a story my dad wrote back in the 60s: The Wedge-Tailed Eagle.
This applies not just to people, but to their machines and to any given person-machine combination.
Stop flying drones around the Australian outback!
Nature has decided. No, you can't fucking pepper spray an eagle. Give it up.
You could use this......a machine gun armed quad-rotor drone. Problem solved... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
If we could only teach them to recognize spy drones and target them primarily and frequently....
My chickens eat habanero peppers like my grand kids eat chocolate candy. If you hit them in the eye it might bother them, otherwise I think nothing.
The birds are more important to most people than your drone is. To the majority of people, there is no problem.
Bald eagles have gotten so numerous and are so aggressive that they are considering taking it off the protected list in the USA. Homer, Alaska is over run with them.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story...
An Angry Birds article worth reading.
Oh god! Too bad you can only get five points!!! Had I been drinking something...
I think robots and eagles should be allowed to fight each other to their hearts' content, but seriously: "Bold Eagles: Angry Birds..." is the worst title I've ever read. I don't know why, it just infuriates me.
Keep your drone away from my airspace, or I'll unleash my imported wedge-tailed eagles on it!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Still, as an aside; that is one gorgeous bird.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Yeah, it's a good thing that Australia isn't full of livestock ranches that are thousands of square kilometers.
Oh wait, it is. And I bet those people will stop caring about eagles if the price of their beef goes up.
People like ranchers and miners use drones to survey large areas of land. They can map their property in a couple days and locate every herd. I guess one solution is to get rid of the big open ranches and just cram all the animals into warehouses, that would be better right? That way everyone always knows where their animals are. Or maybe there's a solution that allows the managers to use drones for photography without a bunch of idiots shouting at them for doing so. There's nothing wrong with flying a drone to survey your land. Maybe just a parachute/GPS pinger that would deploy and activate if a gyroscope detects it's in a spin or something like that. I'm sure that the vast majority of the damage comes from impact with the ground.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Actually, that's exactly what I'd be saying about these cheap drones that can't survive a bird-strike.
MQ-1's don't get taken down by eagles.
Haha, I don't think they would, right. But now you've gone from an $80,000 drone to a $4 million drone. You can buy 50 of the cheaper ones for that price. And I imagine that the piloting hardware and operating costs for a Predator are just a bit higher than for the professional photography drones. Not to mention anything about the grand facilities, you can't exactly get in your pickup truck, drive out to wherever you're needed, and launch a Predator.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I don't think at that height that a shotgun will do you much good. What we really need to do is release an animal that can prey on these problematic eagles. We have DNA for the Haast's eagle they had a 10' wing span and could make short work of these. A grant for a few hundred thousand from the mining company could get things started.
I doubt anyone cares about them flying drones over their own land. Except for the eagles anyway. Yes, some kind of recovery system makes sense but really, they managed to raise cattle and mine before anyone invented drones.
they managed to raise cattle and mine before anyone invented drones.
And people managed to travel before they invented the horseless carriage, and travel across country in the US before the interstate highway system was developed. They managed to talk to other people before cell phones were invented, and they even managed to write and publish books prior to the computer text editor or Gutenberg. People survived bleeding as a cure for bacterial infections, many times, and TV really did pre-date cable and satellite.
What was your point again, Mr. Ludd?
I want some bald eagles in my area! :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
People like ranchers and miners use drones to survey large areas of land. They can map their property in a couple days and locate every herd. I guess one solution is to get rid of the big open ranches and just cram all the animals into warehouses, that would be better right?
Or:
Not use a drone as farmers (we call them farms, not ranches) have done for millenia, or:
Come up with a way to use the drone that prevents the Eagles attacking them (most likely)
I find it odd that the first option you jumped to was remove all the 'ranches' and put all the cows in a warehouse. That is a very peculiar thought process...
Drone operators/owners are some of the most selfish, self-entitled assholes around,
All of them. Like all the Jews, or all the Blacks or all the Muslims. I got you brother, it's us vs them, whoever 'them' happens to be today...
The cost of the sat link alone would bankrupt most people.
Just another day in Paradise
There's plenty of historical evidence pointing to unintended consequences of importing predators to deal with pests. Be careful what you wish for.
Just another day in Paradise
If an eagle is destroying your drones, protections do not apply. Any law that claims otherwise is unjust and corrupt.
If your drone is invading or disturbing a protected species, then your drone and you both deserve corrective action. It's completely just and to say otherwise is idiotic.
Just another day in Paradise
Any company that has money just "lying around" is run by morons who will eventually be replaced by people who actually know how to run a business. Money is applied to projects or investments in order to provide a ROI. Possibly, these companies are privately owned, or have some kind of government protection against competition, otherwise they're simply being inefficient.
Just another day in Paradise
Had I been drinking something...
If you weren't drinking something, then I timed it wrong.
#DeleteChrome
I find it odd that the first option you jumped to was remove all the 'ranches' and put all the cows in a warehouse. That is a very peculiar thought process...
You didn't notice the sarcastic tone? Obviously large open land ranches are better for raising big livestock than the kind of factory farming that goes on in the US, that's the point. The point is that we can use technology to help manage those things rather than just cramming all the animals into a building like people decide to do in the US.
I doubt you can prevent the eagles from attacking, changing the behavior that the eagles have learned over millions of years probably isn't going to work. Hopefully the attacks could either be made ineffective, or at least non-fatal to the drone.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black