Heh... I just ordered a bespoke 760Li last Thursday. It will not be ready for almost three months though. I anticipate having it in time to do my foliage run which includes Vermont. ~650 HP under the hood and a backseat that is like sitting in a well furnished living room. I do not expect to spend any time in the back. I do expect to do the Kancumagus very quickly on the return trip though.
It *is* a luxury sedan, of course, but price-wise it was not as bad as I was expecting it to be. My 740 is getting a bit long in the tooth and I already have an older model that I had restored so I will be giving that to my son. Let him maintain the thing...
I have the build number but I am not sure when it expires or if it ever does. It is too late to make changes now anyhow. I guess my point is that not all BMW drivers are assholes. Just some of them are. I tend to be courteous and kind. The funny thing that I noticed when watching the preview video for the 7 series on the BMW site? Yeah... So the guy uses his directional and then moves over two lanes without stopping and only used the directional partway through the second lane. Maybe there is something to that whole asshole BMW driver after all...
Imagine the infrastructure required to power that theoretical highway... Also, I travel nearly that distance to get to a reasonable sized town and exactly zero of those miles are highway miles. I am not the only one here. Only some bare majority live in urban areas in this country and, yes, that number is growing but it is not actually as much of the driving miles as one may think - after all, they are in a city and need to drive fewer miles.
They are going to put the Cummins in a Nissan? I have not owned a Nissan truck since the straight-six days. I will certainly take a look at Nissan's offerings more carefully if they do put a decent diesel in them. I have only owned a few diesel vehicles in my life but I appreciated them all and I understand the newer diesels take less time to get running in cold weather. (I have driven lots of diesel vehicles, my second MOS was 3505 - I drove a variety of vehicles in the motor pool.)
If you have not done so then check between your cab and your bed for rust. I have noticed that it tends to start in there and then creep its way out to the cab's back corners and even corrodes the frame. I am a big fan of the F-series. I just replaced my F-150 with a 2014 F-350 as my plow truck. I can't help it, well I could but I do not want to. I like plowing my driveway and I even plow out my neighbor's driveways for them. The nearest real town had engine issues last year and I went into town and helped them keep their streets open. I used to drink, heavily, and go out plowing stuff but now I have stopped drinking but the whole plowing thing is great and driving in the snow is awesome - especially with RWD vehicles. Obviously this takes practice...
I do not recommend that people from Florida come to Maine and start driving in blizzards immediately after arrival. Start small and in a shopping mall's parking lot at night. Also keep in mind that AWD/4WD does nothing to help control a vehicle or make a vehicle stop (well, downshifting does) but, rather, it enables one to go faster at times when one probably should not.
I read a long time before I joined. The SNR has changed but the quality comments remain. I have no statistics, and the term quality is subjective after-all as many of these topics are speculative in nature, but the SNR may have actually improved as there are frequently fewer comments than there were historically. So fewer comments with quality comments remaining the same numerically would actually decrease the SNR ratio making the site slightly more valuable with less shit-dredging to get to the gems. That is, of course, making a few assumptions on my part. This is, of course, not a quality comment.
A trans-axle approach with each encompassing a half of the total cock diameter might be feasible though, if performed improperly, it could also be painful for Mr. Musk.
Averages, while nice, have no bearing on reality. The average day is likely a word day. People are going to want to use the vehicle for longer distances and needing to own an additional vehicle (and pay the appropriate fees) negates the value of the EV in the first place. No, you can make up a variety of situations in your head and they do not matter one bit. We are talking about people here, they are doing to do what is best for them and will care little about externalities. If you average it out, I probably drive about 20 miles per day. Unfortunately, that means that when I go to town I would *barely* get there and back on a 200 mile battery if I did not use the radio, AC, heat, or things like that. If I used those then I may well not make it back. I am one of many. People want to travel further than 40 miles. Five times that number is a good starting point but hardly an end point. Your lack of initiative is not the market.
I have a lot of land, an absurd amount, and I believe it is technically illegal for *most* uses of a firearm on an aircraft. However, I have seen "documentaries" (I do not like calling series of one hour episodes documentaries but I guess they are and that is not an important topic at this point) where the host is able to fly in a helicopter and fire out of the door. He got to fire a mini-chain gun at some 6000 rounds/second. Lucky bastard. The most amusing thing I have fired was a fully automatic (and three round burst) grenade launcher. An M-202 is nice but, really... Believe it or not that actually gets a little old after a while.
Anyhow, there is surely a way to allow this. I believe they cull wolf packs from helicopters in Alaska. I seem to dimly recall a story of a VP-hopeful, she was borderline mentally ill and mentally handicapped, doing so and that being a considerable talking point for those who were opposed to her. Allow me to digress a moment, if you will... Seriously? Of all the things wrong with her THAT was a concern? My... I bet she could see Russia from up in that chopper.
When I was younger I built a kit 1/6 scale F-105 (Thunderchief/Thunderchicken) and had a lot of fun with that while drinking too much and being stuck on base. There were a number of us that bought a variety of these kits. Mine needed the electronics and engines to be purchased separately but, again, I digress. It was an expensive venture but not too bad as I was single at the time and my room and board was covered.
Anyhow, I suspect that two things can happen. One is that I could get a permit of some type that would enable me to fire a small round in certain circumstances or areas. Perhaps I need to label it as research but I can get away with it, surely. It would likely just cost time and money. I already have a corporation setup. I could fold it into that easily enough. That is what lawyers are for. The other is that I could possibly just do it and not have to worry about it so long as I stayed on my land. This probably would not be legal but there is little chance of being noticed or prosecuted. Land is cheap where I am, I am in old paper mill territory and they no longer do any harvesting as a business here, so I have bought a lot of re-grown and replanted land that I leave open to the public. It is a bit of an addiction. So, with this much land and living in an unincorporated town? I could probably get away with it even if I posted YouTube videos.
That said, I would not be surprised if I could get this permitted, as I mentioned above, and that it would just cost money and time. I may have to say it is research.
It sounds like it would be fun. A small.22LR has very little recoil and a craft as large as the one you linked to could probably carry it mounted to an aluminum rail that tied into the internal rigid structures.
Hmm... It seems I could be interested in this hobby after all. I will have to do some research and see what I come up with.
I am pretty sure that there was no P4 in 2000. That was around the time I discovered the joy of an AMD K6 II (350 Mhz but stable OCed to a bit over 500 Mhz) on a system that came with Windows ME installed. Oddly, it ran ME well. I owned no other system that ran ME well. It was then that I developed an affinity for AMD which I still have today. I find them stable and fast enough for anything I do but I have not done any serious number crunching since I retired about 7 years ago.
I could be convinced to play with one of those. I want to hook up servos and a small caliber pistol in the nose. Maybe something like a Ruger Mk. II. And, yes, there is plenty of room in that thing for lots of fuel and lots of electronics. Something like that could be turned into an autonomous drone. Which looks like it would be less fun, really.
Anyhow, I do not know if the FCC has an 800 number to call and check for flight restrictions. They should. I kind of assumed they did, actually.
It seems likely that you are just assuming your own traits about certain people. I am actually in a position where I feel I should probably pay more in taxes. So, instead, I donate extra and I donate my time. On the other hand, I live in the middle of nowhere and I would like them to fight a fire near my home. At the same time, I am well away from the tree-line and should be okay just by turning on the sprinklers and keeping my roof wet though I am not sure if that could even catch on fire easily.
I think it is always better to tell the truth. Your child will be grateful for it someday. Well, unless the mother turns them into a raging religious nutjob.
They would have to be locked down and sealed tight enough to prevent even me from getting inside them. That would be like a big red "do not push" button. I'd have to open it.
Dude... We are engineers. Nothing like that is impossible. We could, and would, design around it if needed. More likely we'd just make an overly complicated and impossible to work (for mere mortals) batteries that required special tools to service BUT they would be open source, open standards, and have a dozen forks by tomorrow at noon. And we would like it... We would not even patent it - we would trademark it and copyright the design.
Even still, do you think it prudent to fly your UAV over a forest fire and add the mayhem? Seemingly you do not, you seem to be bright and have a decent set of values. Adding anything, even with the smallest potential, to the already risky situation is a bad idea. I have been in the path of a fast moving forest fire, willfully, and have seen the confusion it can cause. (I took the time to type a bit of this out in response to someone post in here.) Obviously you do not stay in the path of the fire but you do need to be in its path at times.
It is loud, smoky, dangerous, and communication is poor. Any increased complexity to that situation is unacceptable. Any... There is no such thing as, well they are already at risk and the additional risk is trivial... No. Any such risk is unacceptable. If you do not need the risk you do not add it to an already dangerous situation. Is there a chance that the UAV can come down on equipment or personnel? Yes. The chance of that happening is so small you can call it nearly impossible. Is there still that chance, that slim chance? Absolutely thus it is not needed and is a potential liability.
Is that UAV in the air to do something good? If it were being used to help coordinate the folks seeking to control and stop the fire then the risks are outweighed by the potential benefits. They will also be in communication (hopefully) with the various agencies involved in fighting the fire so will know when it is time to leave the airspace and make room for the retardant drops. Was this the case here? Nope. It turns out, from reading the thread, that this was likely a military UAV and not a hobbyist's craft. When I read the size and thought about the range I thought it was odd but I am not a UAV hobbyist so I felt speculation was out of order.
Anyhow, as for your operating choices, you (or any reasonably responsible person) are welcome, nay - encouraged, to come make use of my land. I have a great deal of it and share it liberally. Ask nicely and I will even let you chop trees down to make a trail to fly your craft on but I suspect the trails are already adequate but making some more challenging might be fun. If we do it close enough to the house I could rig something up to expand the wireless signal and you could stream races live to the internet. I suspect cell phone data would be enough for some transfers but may need more than one connection to cover the live video data from a race.
I do not participate in your hobby, I have but I do not find it appealing enough to bother doing it, but I would hate to see your liberties restricted due to the bad behavior of some people. In this particular case it was probably the military or a testing company that violated the airspace but that does not mean that the media cares or that the legislators will not enact draconian laws in an effort to curtail this behavior. You are certainly intelligent enough to know that the legislation is not concerned about doing the right thing and, after all, election season is opening up. It is time to get those campaign talking points in order. It will not impact me one way or the other but I still do not like draconian laws regardless of who they impact.
Thanks for the rational/sane response. I read a lot of responses and this thread is lacking in logic in many of the replies and comments. The breath of fresh air is appreciated.
I was a bit curious about that, thank you. When I read the size it made me think that it may not be what the story implies. The AC post above you indicates that it was, indeed, a military drone.
This does not negate your point nor is it an attempt to do so. This is not an attempt to argue but is an attempt to share some information.
The federal government does not do as much vehicle regulation as you think. That is the State's concern in most areas. Even in the format, there are many variations that are allowed. Maintenance is not regulated by the Feds, the State government does that - including, where applicable, inspections and emission testing. See Florida for example (and Georgia too I am told, I did not know that which is odd considering my field and considering the amount of time I have spent in Georgia, but I digress) which is one state that has counties that do not even have inspection stickers or emission testing. Go to Panama City Beach, Bay County, Florida some time, even if just to be amused, and see the vehicles on the road. I was shocked, truly stunned, when I saw a swamp buggy driving down Rt. 98 with a cop happily driving along behind him. The swamp buggy required a ladder to get into it, had no seatbelts, no doors, no window, and was basically a flat platform with a driver's seat, some railings, and some bench seats. It turns out that people go hog hunting from the raised platform and that the vehicle is perfectly legal to drive on the city streets. In this case it was not loaded with hunters but loaded with many kegs of beer as Spring Break Season was in full swing.
Some states, for another example, have a minimum headlight height of 20" and others have a minimum height of 22." Some will not allow any size tires other than the size listed on the sticker on the inside of the driver's side door and other states will allow you to have oversized tires that go out past the edge of your vehicle. Some states require emission testing, some states do not. Some require it on certain aged vehicles, others have no limits or have limits for all vehicles. Some allow you to re-register your car (and get a new 'inspection' sticker though no inspection is actually done - see Nevada for example which does so as long as you are only two years from your emissions testing) via the internet or mail and others do not allow any such thing or have no inspection at all. Some states have the license plate remain with the vehicle even when the vehicle is sold, others do not.
The federal government does safety testing which vehicles must pass. There is a maximum brightness of headlights per DOT regulations. They do a few other things but, really, not so much as you seem to think.
However, the Feds do advise states on certain things, like raising the drinking age, and then refuse to give out federal highway dollars if those states do not comply with them. This was popular during the 55 MPH movement.
Anyhow, hopefully that helps. It does nothing, at all, to alter your point and, hopefully, my tone does not imply anything other than my sharing of information.
Even more seriously? I do not recommend attempting to use a firearm to disable the UAV. It is unsafe with normal ammunition. Use birdshot and a choke, a beanbag, or wooden blocks. However, even with those, I still do not recommend using a firearm to disable the UAV. I do not even support using a firearm against the pilot of said aircraft (unless they are armed and wielding their weapon offensively, of course). Instead, I recommend a trial with a jury of their peers (if they want a trial) and the punishment should be a responsible combination of fines, reimbursement, probation/supervised release, property seizure, prohibition from using UAVs in the future, AND/OR jail time scaling to the level of potential harm OR harm done. These penalties should also increase if there is more criminal behavior beyond the first offense. Also, the two important terms are "responsible" and "scaling." I strongly suspect that my opinions will be of no value and the first people to be convicted will be given a very unreasonable sentence to "send a clear message" and to "discourage others from following suit" because they want us to "think of the children."
Either in my attic or in my basement I have an F-105 (Thunderchief) with the same scale and a similar vintage. It was a model that came without the engines or the electronics. I put it together and flew it a few dozen times but lost interest after the fun part was over (the building). They were dreadfully expensive back then and I did not have a whole lot of money back then as I was still enlisted and earning some of that GI Bill love.
Anyhow, we played with it for a while. It had a bit of an accident which meant it had to be partially rebuilt and painted. It still has the Chiquita (spelling?) banana stickers on it the last time I checked. It was fast, dangerous, and we were asked to keep it restricted to non-operational areas of the base which we did. Several others had built various planes and we had some mock dog fights and did our best to drunkenly fly in formation and things like that. Many were crashed and never repaired. One crashed and actually caught on fire with a miniature concussive blast and everything. Well, more a decent "whoomp" than something fun like a grenade. Much fun was had by all and we managed to do this responsibly (mostly, well, not too bad for frequently drunken Marines which is good behavior when viewed with the proper goggles) and did not get into any trouble with them.
I am not sure where the trouble lies? We would, absolutely, have loved to have cameras on them. We would have loved the technology that we have today. What we would not have considered is something like, I don't know, bringing them into a forest fire and getting in the way? We would not have done things like fly it over MPs doing their duty, an EMT, the occupied parade grounds, the chow hall, or anything like that... We would have barnstormed the privy out in the field if we could have smuggled one out into the field... So we were not totally responsible.
I do not know if this is a change in tech that has caused this. I do not know if today we have more people who are selfish or feel entitled. Science says that today's youth are more intelligent (more adept at taking tests, really) and I am inclined to think that this is actually true. I am not sure if it is the immediacy of disseminated news as the key - like we had as many stupid people back then but they got less publicity? I do not know if society is just more sensitive and are outraged over small things - a lot of things that people get upset with are things I do not find even remotely concerning? I truly do not know and I find the change disturbing. Is there a lack of common sense? I suppose. We had plenty of that when I was younger too. Hell, we used to blow things up for fun. Yes, we would blow up stuff. Kids today do not get to do that nearly as much and it is a crime if they do. It was amusement for all involved (unless you did something stupid like blow up a mailbox). People still got hurt but not enough to make us stop - we were just more careful.
We used to buy a couple of bricks of.22 and a couple of bricks of 12ga and sometimes some.410 or even bring out the hunting rifles and we would be gone all day long out shooting cans, throwing things into the air to shoot them, and engage in all sorts of fun behaviors without harming anyone, without police involvement, and without being attached to negative stereotypes. We used to bring our guns to school. I used to bring two rifles, a shotgun, and a match pistol to school and they stayed in my closet in their cases. (I lived on campus. I was a member of the rifle and pistol teams.) We did not even have to lock them in the deans safe or anything. We used to compare rifles and sometimes go hunting with teachers.
I suspect that kids could still do that today, with proper instructions, and do so with the same accident or crime rate we had. I am just not sure that we would give them the chance to do so. No, I know we would not give them the chance to do so. We had an indoor and an outdoor firing range on school property! Public schools had some too. The sc
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Heh... I just ordered a bespoke 760Li last Thursday. It will not be ready for almost three months though. I anticipate having it in time to do my foliage run which includes Vermont. ~650 HP under the hood and a backseat that is like sitting in a well furnished living room. I do not expect to spend any time in the back. I do expect to do the Kancumagus very quickly on the return trip though.
It *is* a luxury sedan, of course, but price-wise it was not as bad as I was expecting it to be. My 740 is getting a bit long in the tooth and I already have an older model that I had restored so I will be giving that to my son. Let him maintain the thing...
I have the build number but I am not sure when it expires or if it ever does. It is too late to make changes now anyhow. I guess my point is that not all BMW drivers are assholes. Just some of them are. I tend to be courteous and kind. The funny thing that I noticed when watching the preview video for the 7 series on the BMW site? Yeah... So the guy uses his directional and then moves over two lanes without stopping and only used the directional partway through the second lane. Maybe there is something to that whole asshole BMW driver after all...
Imagine the infrastructure required to power that theoretical highway... Also, I travel nearly that distance to get to a reasonable sized town and exactly zero of those miles are highway miles. I am not the only one here. Only some bare majority live in urban areas in this country and, yes, that number is growing but it is not actually as much of the driving miles as one may think - after all, they are in a city and need to drive fewer miles.
They are going to put the Cummins in a Nissan? I have not owned a Nissan truck since the straight-six days. I will certainly take a look at Nissan's offerings more carefully if they do put a decent diesel in them. I have only owned a few diesel vehicles in my life but I appreciated them all and I understand the newer diesels take less time to get running in cold weather. (I have driven lots of diesel vehicles, my second MOS was 3505 - I drove a variety of vehicles in the motor pool.)
If you have not done so then check between your cab and your bed for rust. I have noticed that it tends to start in there and then creep its way out to the cab's back corners and even corrodes the frame. I am a big fan of the F-series. I just replaced my F-150 with a 2014 F-350 as my plow truck. I can't help it, well I could but I do not want to. I like plowing my driveway and I even plow out my neighbor's driveways for them. The nearest real town had engine issues last year and I went into town and helped them keep their streets open. I used to drink, heavily, and go out plowing stuff but now I have stopped drinking but the whole plowing thing is great and driving in the snow is awesome - especially with RWD vehicles. Obviously this takes practice...
I do not recommend that people from Florida come to Maine and start driving in blizzards immediately after arrival. Start small and in a shopping mall's parking lot at night. Also keep in mind that AWD/4WD does nothing to help control a vehicle or make a vehicle stop (well, downshifting does) but, rather, it enables one to go faster at times when one probably should not.
I read a long time before I joined. The SNR has changed but the quality comments remain. I have no statistics, and the term quality is subjective after-all as many of these topics are speculative in nature, but the SNR may have actually improved as there are frequently fewer comments than there were historically. So fewer comments with quality comments remaining the same numerically would actually decrease the SNR ratio making the site slightly more valuable with less shit-dredging to get to the gems. That is, of course, making a few assumptions on my part. This is, of course, not a quality comment.
A trans-axle approach with each encompassing a half of the total cock diameter might be feasible though, if performed improperly, it could also be painful for Mr. Musk.
Averages, while nice, have no bearing on reality. The average day is likely a word day. People are going to want to use the vehicle for longer distances and needing to own an additional vehicle (and pay the appropriate fees) negates the value of the EV in the first place. No, you can make up a variety of situations in your head and they do not matter one bit. We are talking about people here, they are doing to do what is best for them and will care little about externalities. If you average it out, I probably drive about 20 miles per day. Unfortunately, that means that when I go to town I would *barely* get there and back on a 200 mile battery if I did not use the radio, AC, heat, or things like that. If I used those then I may well not make it back. I am one of many. People want to travel further than 40 miles. Five times that number is a good starting point but hardly an end point. Your lack of initiative is not the market.
I have a lot of land, an absurd amount, and I believe it is technically illegal for *most* uses of a firearm on an aircraft. However, I have seen "documentaries" (I do not like calling series of one hour episodes documentaries but I guess they are and that is not an important topic at this point) where the host is able to fly in a helicopter and fire out of the door. He got to fire a mini-chain gun at some 6000 rounds/second. Lucky bastard. The most amusing thing I have fired was a fully automatic (and three round burst) grenade launcher. An M-202 is nice but, really... Believe it or not that actually gets a little old after a while.
Anyhow, there is surely a way to allow this. I believe they cull wolf packs from helicopters in Alaska. I seem to dimly recall a story of a VP-hopeful, she was borderline mentally ill and mentally handicapped, doing so and that being a considerable talking point for those who were opposed to her. Allow me to digress a moment, if you will... Seriously? Of all the things wrong with her THAT was a concern? My... I bet she could see Russia from up in that chopper.
When I was younger I built a kit 1/6 scale F-105 (Thunderchief/Thunderchicken) and had a lot of fun with that while drinking too much and being stuck on base. There were a number of us that bought a variety of these kits. Mine needed the electronics and engines to be purchased separately but, again, I digress. It was an expensive venture but not too bad as I was single at the time and my room and board was covered.
Anyhow, I suspect that two things can happen. One is that I could get a permit of some type that would enable me to fire a small round in certain circumstances or areas. Perhaps I need to label it as research but I can get away with it, surely. It would likely just cost time and money. I already have a corporation setup. I could fold it into that easily enough. That is what lawyers are for. The other is that I could possibly just do it and not have to worry about it so long as I stayed on my land. This probably would not be legal but there is little chance of being noticed or prosecuted. Land is cheap where I am, I am in old paper mill territory and they no longer do any harvesting as a business here, so I have bought a lot of re-grown and replanted land that I leave open to the public. It is a bit of an addiction. So, with this much land and living in an unincorporated town? I could probably get away with it even if I posted YouTube videos.
That said, I would not be surprised if I could get this permitted, as I mentioned above, and that it would just cost money and time. I may have to say it is research.
It sounds like it would be fun. A small .22LR has very little recoil and a craft as large as the one you linked to could probably carry it mounted to an aluminum rail that tied into the internal rigid structures.
Hmm... It seems I could be interested in this hobby after all. I will have to do some research and see what I come up with.
Wow. No, make that almost 9 years ago.
I am pretty sure that there was no P4 in 2000. That was around the time I discovered the joy of an AMD K6 II (350 Mhz but stable OCed to a bit over 500 Mhz) on a system that came with Windows ME installed. Oddly, it ran ME well. I owned no other system that ran ME well. It was then that I developed an affinity for AMD which I still have today. I find them stable and fast enough for anything I do but I have not done any serious number crunching since I retired about 7 years ago.
I could be convinced to play with one of those. I want to hook up servos and a small caliber pistol in the nose. Maybe something like a Ruger Mk. II. And, yes, there is plenty of room in that thing for lots of fuel and lots of electronics. Something like that could be turned into an autonomous drone. Which looks like it would be less fun, really.
Anyhow, I do not know if the FCC has an 800 number to call and check for flight restrictions. They should. I kind of assumed they did, actually.
We can just blame it on my poor communication skills. I have broad shoulders. ;)
It seems likely that you are just assuming your own traits about certain people. I am actually in a position where I feel I should probably pay more in taxes. So, instead, I donate extra and I donate my time. On the other hand, I live in the middle of nowhere and I would like them to fight a fire near my home. At the same time, I am well away from the tree-line and should be okay just by turning on the sprinklers and keeping my roof wet though I am not sure if that could even catch on fire easily.
I think it is always better to tell the truth. Your child will be grateful for it someday. Well, unless the mother turns them into a raging religious nutjob.
They would have to be locked down and sealed tight enough to prevent even me from getting inside them. That would be like a big red "do not push" button. I'd have to open it.
I knew I should have used the /s tag. Ah well.
And so don't those woods dwellers. Imagine that!
That is fine. How about the many other circumstances that you mentioned? In fact this started with fire as I recall...
Dude... We are engineers. Nothing like that is impossible. We could, and would, design around it if needed. More likely we'd just make an overly complicated and impossible to work (for mere mortals) batteries that required special tools to service BUT they would be open source, open standards, and have a dozen forks by tomorrow at noon. And we would like it... We would not even patent it - we would trademark it and copyright the design.
Even still, do you think it prudent to fly your UAV over a forest fire and add the mayhem? Seemingly you do not, you seem to be bright and have a decent set of values. Adding anything, even with the smallest potential, to the already risky situation is a bad idea. I have been in the path of a fast moving forest fire, willfully, and have seen the confusion it can cause. (I took the time to type a bit of this out in response to someone post in here.) Obviously you do not stay in the path of the fire but you do need to be in its path at times.
It is loud, smoky, dangerous, and communication is poor. Any increased complexity to that situation is unacceptable. Any... There is no such thing as, well they are already at risk and the additional risk is trivial... No. Any such risk is unacceptable. If you do not need the risk you do not add it to an already dangerous situation. Is there a chance that the UAV can come down on equipment or personnel? Yes. The chance of that happening is so small you can call it nearly impossible. Is there still that chance, that slim chance? Absolutely thus it is not needed and is a potential liability.
Is that UAV in the air to do something good? If it were being used to help coordinate the folks seeking to control and stop the fire then the risks are outweighed by the potential benefits. They will also be in communication (hopefully) with the various agencies involved in fighting the fire so will know when it is time to leave the airspace and make room for the retardant drops. Was this the case here? Nope. It turns out, from reading the thread, that this was likely a military UAV and not a hobbyist's craft. When I read the size and thought about the range I thought it was odd but I am not a UAV hobbyist so I felt speculation was out of order.
Anyhow, as for your operating choices, you (or any reasonably responsible person) are welcome, nay - encouraged, to come make use of my land. I have a great deal of it and share it liberally. Ask nicely and I will even let you chop trees down to make a trail to fly your craft on but I suspect the trails are already adequate but making some more challenging might be fun. If we do it close enough to the house I could rig something up to expand the wireless signal and you could stream races live to the internet. I suspect cell phone data would be enough for some transfers but may need more than one connection to cover the live video data from a race.
I do not participate in your hobby, I have but I do not find it appealing enough to bother doing it, but I would hate to see your liberties restricted due to the bad behavior of some people. In this particular case it was probably the military or a testing company that violated the airspace but that does not mean that the media cares or that the legislators will not enact draconian laws in an effort to curtail this behavior. You are certainly intelligent enough to know that the legislation is not concerned about doing the right thing and, after all, election season is opening up. It is time to get those campaign talking points in order. It will not impact me one way or the other but I still do not like draconian laws regardless of who they impact.
Thanks for the rational/sane response. I read a lot of responses and this thread is lacking in logic in many of the replies and comments. The breath of fresh air is appreciated.
I was a bit curious about that, thank you. When I read the size it made me think that it may not be what the story implies. The AC post above you indicates that it was, indeed, a military drone.
This does not negate your point nor is it an attempt to do so. This is not an attempt to argue but is an attempt to share some information.
The federal government does not do as much vehicle regulation as you think. That is the State's concern in most areas. Even in the format, there are many variations that are allowed. Maintenance is not regulated by the Feds, the State government does that - including, where applicable, inspections and emission testing. See Florida for example (and Georgia too I am told, I did not know that which is odd considering my field and considering the amount of time I have spent in Georgia, but I digress) which is one state that has counties that do not even have inspection stickers or emission testing. Go to Panama City Beach, Bay County, Florida some time, even if just to be amused, and see the vehicles on the road. I was shocked, truly stunned, when I saw a swamp buggy driving down Rt. 98 with a cop happily driving along behind him. The swamp buggy required a ladder to get into it, had no seatbelts, no doors, no window, and was basically a flat platform with a driver's seat, some railings, and some bench seats. It turns out that people go hog hunting from the raised platform and that the vehicle is perfectly legal to drive on the city streets. In this case it was not loaded with hunters but loaded with many kegs of beer as Spring Break Season was in full swing.
Some states, for another example, have a minimum headlight height of 20" and others have a minimum height of 22." Some will not allow any size tires other than the size listed on the sticker on the inside of the driver's side door and other states will allow you to have oversized tires that go out past the edge of your vehicle. Some states require emission testing, some states do not. Some require it on certain aged vehicles, others have no limits or have limits for all vehicles. Some allow you to re-register your car (and get a new 'inspection' sticker though no inspection is actually done - see Nevada for example which does so as long as you are only two years from your emissions testing) via the internet or mail and others do not allow any such thing or have no inspection at all. Some states have the license plate remain with the vehicle even when the vehicle is sold, others do not.
The federal government does safety testing which vehicles must pass. There is a maximum brightness of headlights per DOT regulations. They do a few other things but, really, not so much as you seem to think.
However, the Feds do advise states on certain things, like raising the drinking age, and then refuse to give out federal highway dollars if those states do not comply with them. This was popular during the 55 MPH movement.
Anyhow, hopefully that helps. It does nothing, at all, to alter your point and, hopefully, my tone does not imply anything other than my sharing of information.
But I have plenty of ammo.
No, seriously, I do.
Even more seriously? I do not recommend attempting to use a firearm to disable the UAV. It is unsafe with normal ammunition. Use birdshot and a choke, a beanbag, or wooden blocks. However, even with those, I still do not recommend using a firearm to disable the UAV. I do not even support using a firearm against the pilot of said aircraft (unless they are armed and wielding their weapon offensively, of course). Instead, I recommend a trial with a jury of their peers (if they want a trial) and the punishment should be a responsible combination of fines, reimbursement, probation/supervised release, property seizure, prohibition from using UAVs in the future, AND/OR jail time scaling to the level of potential harm OR harm done. These penalties should also increase if there is more criminal behavior beyond the first offense. Also, the two important terms are "responsible" and "scaling." I strongly suspect that my opinions will be of no value and the first people to be convicted will be given a very unreasonable sentence to "send a clear message" and to "discourage others from following suit" because they want us to "think of the children."
Wait a minute... It is the aircraft that is referred to as a drone? No wonder I got punched.
I kid. I do. 'Snot that funny, really. But, damn it, I tried.
Either in my attic or in my basement I have an F-105 (Thunderchief) with the same scale and a similar vintage. It was a model that came without the engines or the electronics. I put it together and flew it a few dozen times but lost interest after the fun part was over (the building). They were dreadfully expensive back then and I did not have a whole lot of money back then as I was still enlisted and earning some of that GI Bill love.
Anyhow, we played with it for a while. It had a bit of an accident which meant it had to be partially rebuilt and painted. It still has the Chiquita (spelling?) banana stickers on it the last time I checked. It was fast, dangerous, and we were asked to keep it restricted to non-operational areas of the base which we did. Several others had built various planes and we had some mock dog fights and did our best to drunkenly fly in formation and things like that. Many were crashed and never repaired. One crashed and actually caught on fire with a miniature concussive blast and everything. Well, more a decent "whoomp" than something fun like a grenade. Much fun was had by all and we managed to do this responsibly (mostly, well, not too bad for frequently drunken Marines which is good behavior when viewed with the proper goggles) and did not get into any trouble with them.
I am not sure where the trouble lies? We would, absolutely, have loved to have cameras on them. We would have loved the technology that we have today. What we would not have considered is something like, I don't know, bringing them into a forest fire and getting in the way? We would not have done things like fly it over MPs doing their duty, an EMT, the occupied parade grounds, the chow hall, or anything like that... We would have barnstormed the privy out in the field if we could have smuggled one out into the field... So we were not totally responsible.
I do not know if this is a change in tech that has caused this. I do not know if today we have more people who are selfish or feel entitled. Science says that today's youth are more intelligent (more adept at taking tests, really) and I am inclined to think that this is actually true. I am not sure if it is the immediacy of disseminated news as the key - like we had as many stupid people back then but they got less publicity? I do not know if society is just more sensitive and are outraged over small things - a lot of things that people get upset with are things I do not find even remotely concerning? I truly do not know and I find the change disturbing. Is there a lack of common sense? I suppose. We had plenty of that when I was younger too. Hell, we used to blow things up for fun. Yes, we would blow up stuff. Kids today do not get to do that nearly as much and it is a crime if they do. It was amusement for all involved (unless you did something stupid like blow up a mailbox). People still got hurt but not enough to make us stop - we were just more careful.
We used to buy a couple of bricks of .22 and a couple of bricks of 12ga and sometimes some .410 or even bring out the hunting rifles and we would be gone all day long out shooting cans, throwing things into the air to shoot them, and engage in all sorts of fun behaviors without harming anyone, without police involvement, and without being attached to negative stereotypes. We used to bring our guns to school. I used to bring two rifles, a shotgun, and a match pistol to school and they stayed in my closet in their cases. (I lived on campus. I was a member of the rifle and pistol teams.) We did not even have to lock them in the deans safe or anything. We used to compare rifles and sometimes go hunting with teachers.
I suspect that kids could still do that today, with proper instructions, and do so with the same accident or crime rate we had. I am just not sure that we would give them the chance to do so. No, I know we would not give them the chance to do so. We had an indoor and an outdoor firing range on school property! Public schools had some too. The sc