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Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
- runnerup 5y agoWith 70+ minutes of flight time, maybe it wasn't battery powered but rather powered with liquid fuel.
- chucklenorris 5y agoIt would have been visible with thermal cameras
- serf 5y agowe don't know it wasn't; it's only mentioned that night vision didn't illuminate it. night vision systems are , most typically, very low-light sensitive cameras that occasionally have specific-wavelength illuminators -- they aren't generally thermal cameras. I tend to think something with a run-time like that is liquid fuel based, too.
- Jtsummers 5y agoRight. A lot of night vision goggles used by pilots like this will be more along the lines of an image intensifier [0], an NVD [1]. Not thermal imaging, though some models also let you see near-infrared they're not, strictly, infrared goggles. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_intensifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_intensifier [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-vision_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-vision_device
- postalrat 5y agohttps://youtu.be/YawBzT1sE6E?t=2790 https://youtu.be/YawBzT1sE6E?t=2790 It's likely they had thermal cameras available. There is a lot of video of police helicopters using thermal imaging to track people they are chasing. The audio I linked to makes me think they tried to use it but couldn't see the object.
- mgarfias 5y agoI assure You from racing r/c cars for years that an electric motor will also generate lots of heat.
- phire 5y agoEven 70+ minutes is dubious for a small liquid fuelled quad-copter. It's more likely there were multiple drones swapping in and out.
- dreamcompiler 5y agoThey specifically said it was not a quadcopter. It was probably a fixed wing craft.
- phire 5y agoThey said it was "no standard quadcopter" due to it's capabilities. In the report[1] they explicitly list it has as a rotocraft with an unknown (-1) number of rotors. They also list the UAS type as "quadcopter". At one point in the article they describe it as "hovering" [1] https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/the-drive-cms-content-staging/message-editor%2F1629213934924-UAS+MOR_Redacted.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/the-drive-cms-content-sta...
- awnird 5y agoThe most likely explanation is that the chase never actually happened, and the police are making it up. We should be long past the point of uncritically believing everything police claim.
- holler 5y agoThere were two helicopters involved, border patrol and tucson police. They also phoned into the FAA as it was going down. They also made visual contact with the light on the underside of the drone: "From what I can tell just from its position light, you know, I would have to imagine it was larger than a quadcopter"
- SEJeff 5y agoConfirmed by a tower? The tower's tracked it with radar. That's how they called out the height. There would be logs.
- phire 5y agoMost radar can't tell the height of an object unless it has a transponder reporting it's altitude.
- himinlomax 5y agoIt's not necessarily that they can't, it's that the precision in altitude is very poor unless the target is close to the radar. This happened with MH370, the data released in the investigation shows altitude values varying wildly by 10000 feet in a short time. Of course conspiracy theorists picked up on that as proof of lizard people involvement.
- EverywhereTrip 5y ago...and what would they do if they caught up with it?
- aodin 5y agoWait until it runs out of fuel and then retrieve it?
- LinuxBender 5y agoSomewhat off topic, what I find curious is that gangs have not yet started really making use of drones. I've heard of them being used to drop drugs and phones into prisons, but not much else. Some of the higher end hobby drones can fly just as high as general aviation aircraft and really fast and carry a lot of weight. Or perhaps I have missed the stories?
- CamperBob2 5y agoLikewise, autonomous drug subs. Seems like it'd be impossible to interdict something like that between the Mexican coast and any arbitrary spot along the US west coast. If the cartels aren't already using autonomous subs, it seems surprising.
- hoppyhoppy2 5y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine >The number of narcosubs—boats modified to minimize their profile while shuttling drugs, has exploded nearly tenfold in the past decade. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-223400474.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-2...
- CamperBob2 5y agoThose are crewed, or occasionally towed behind a normal boat. It should be relatively straightforward at this point to build a sub that can navigate entirely by itself.
- sokoloff 5y agoGPS doesn’t work underwater. Almost all the drone tech navigates by GPS; converting over to an inertial nav system and making that reliable for autonomous underwater operation is a good bit more than “relatively straightforward” I think.
- 5y ago
- shusaku 5y agoIf this was reported as a “police chase UFO” story, would a super advanced drone really be the best explanation? I wonder if they were being fooled into thinking they were chasing something that wasn’t really there.
- hughes 5y agoUntil they identify it, it is a UFO.
- 238475235243 5y agoUAP
- darepublic 5y agoArticle says it had to be satellite driven but why not AI powered?
- Barrin92 5y agoit apparently behaved more erratically as it got away from its original position. Of course doesn't exclude that it's autonomous but makes it more likely that it was remote controlled
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nradov 5y agoThe War Zone has some better reporting on this incident. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42021/radio-transmissions-from-police-helicopters-chase-of-bizarre-craft-over-tucson-add-to-mystery https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42021/radio-transmissi...
- dang 5y agoOk, we've changed the URL to that from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9912999/FAA-audio-reveals-police-helicopters-100mph-chase-sophisticated-drone.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9912999/FAA-audio-r... above. Thanks!
- iaw 5y agoMy guess would be a semi-autonomous military vehicle was being tested in the most real-world scenario possible. As others have said it likely had liquid fuel rather than battery reserves which would allow such operation.
- Taniwha 5y agoNah, probably just Jupiter and a a confused pilot
- ALittleLight 5y agoJupiter is a flashing green light that can change elevation and circle?
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI imagine they’re referencing the re-occurring stories where sleep or oxygen deprived infantry can’t tell the difference between planets and incoming aircraft https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23455128 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23455128
- giantrobot 5y agoYes, and please keep that little tidbit under your hat. You don't want Big Planet to know we're wise to them quite yet.
- pengaru 5y agoTIL a police helicopter is expected to deal with an unidentified drone flying over an Air Force base. /s
- ben-gy 5y agoLikely to be a hydrogen fuel source (record flight time so far is ~12 hours) - https://cryogenicsociety.org/36975/news/hydrogen_fuel_cell-powered_drone_sets_new_flight_time_record/ https://cryogenicsociety.org/36975/news/hydrogen_fuel_cell-p...
- booleandilemma 5y agoReporting something like this without providing photographs is just a waste of time tbh.
- temp8964 5y agoMilitary airbase doesn’t have its own defense mechanism? Relying on police helicopter sounds … too unsophisticated…
- hoppyhoppy2 5y agoPerhaps the military airbase knew exactly what it was and did not consider one of their own drones as posing any threat...
- ajna91 5y agoThe real world is often far more low-key than Hollywood would have you think.
- goldenkey 5y agoCan I offer you a nice egg in these trying times?
- nradov 5y agoMost military bases in the US don't have air defense systems active.
- floatingatoll 5y agoI'd like to call out the problem with these things. From the transcript: > ATTEMPTED TO CAPTURE CAMERA FOOTAGE BUT UNABLE I assume it's slightly harder than duct-taping a smartphone to a helicopter, but I'm still confused at how the military does not, by now, have high-fidelity panoramic video recordings figured out. They've had fifty years of UFOs nonsense and they still can't film the airspace around them in panoramic HD on command? (Also, to whoever was torturing helicopter pilots by hovering above their rotors, that's just mean. Be nice. Yes, you're superior, but don't put their lives at risk to show it.) EDIT: I read the article and somehow took away military, which is wrong. They're not military, so I can be a little more forgiving. But not much. Hit button to start recording video 60 seconds ago should be standard aviation equipment in the time of drones.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hoppyhoppy2 5y agoThese were CBP and Tucson PD helicopters, not military ones. For all we know the military might have their own separate footage, or perhaps it was even a US military drone.
- floatingatoll 5y agoAh. Thanks, I'll read the article again.
- jcrawfordor 5y agoThe capabilities of cameras are remarkably poor compared to human vision. Building a camera that covers a large area with the ability to resolve a small object at a mile distance is an expensive proposition, and I don't think the military has tried it. And, in general, aviation is averse to new technology and the military is averse to new technology. Combine the two and you get the present situation where most military aircraft have only limited imaging. The police helicopters have very nice stabilized cameras but they're on the bottom (can't look upward more than a small amount) and hard to aim at things moving in the air. It seems like the drone was intentionally maneuvering to be difficult to track with a camera... the pilots both report it hovering around 1k feet directly above them, which is pretty much the place that it's least likely the helicopter would be able to image it.
- GlassOwAter 5y agoPlasma lasers https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/05/11/us-navy-laser-creates-plasma-ufos/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/05/11/us-nav...
- plutonorm 5y agoThanks - you've just solved UFOs for me. Reading around this there also seems to be the possibility of naturally produced plasmoids.
- nyolfen 5y agoi am betting that the UFO stuff in the media ends up being preemptive cover sowed by the military for whatever this ends up being
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- spoonjim 5y agoIt is not hard to make a drone that can evade a manned helicopter. The power to weight ratio can be a lot better.
- postalrat 5y agoFor an hour or so? And fly higher than the helicopter? Give it a shot if it's easy. You could sell a ton of them.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago"There's no line of sight...it must be satellite controlled." Oh FFS. There's a lot of real estate on the ground where an operator could have been sitting and flying the thing with a high-powered FPV rig. FPV systems don't require satellites, and you can put a basic one together for less than $1000.
- radley 5y ago> the drone... proceeded northwest at high speed and climbing, with the helo and another LE helo in trail. The copter began to climb and flew out of the TUS area about 50 miles to the northwest of town into the middle of nowhere desert out by the mine west of KAVQ. It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared. > the mystery craft was essentially playing with them by repeatedly positioning itself directly above their helicopters’ rotors, some 1,000 feet above them > the drone maintained a speed of 75 knots in a 30-knot headwind Can they do all of this for under $1k?
- snypher 5y agoProbably not but that's not what the post above you said. Do you think it's reasonable to say this drone was controlled by a -satellite-?
- s5300 5y agoFPV just means that the drone has a camera with a first person view and doesn't rely on the user being able to see the drone to fly it. Yes, it can be easily done for under $1k. This is not $1k for the drone, just for making whatever drone FPV capable, if that's what you were misunderstanding.
- dreamcompiler 5y agoIf you build a basic quadcopter yourself you can even include everything for $1000. This would buy you a fun hobbyist FPV rig, although it wouldn't have the range, speed, or endurance of the drone in the article. For that you'd have to pay more, but even then we're talking "serious hobbyist" money, not "nation-state" money.
- fisherjeff 5y agoGuess I hadn’t considered that if I were a foreign entity that wanted to surveil an AFB, it could be as easy as just, like, hauling a UAS and tracking antenna out into the desert.
- themodelplumber 5y agoIt seems like modern day BRIXMIS equivalents would definitely be trying this...
- aaron695 5y ago> stating that its high speed and impressive maneuver ability made it difficult to get a decent visual identification. The orbital velocity of Venus is 35.0 km/s so pretty quick, but no real manoeuvrability. The solar system it's within is 200 kilometers per second. But it's all relative so that's being silly. I guess this is it, a relatively slow looking planet looking like it's going fast from the observer who's moving and missing a frame of reference. The way we move through space is pretty interesting, Earth doesn't go in circles, controversially called a Vortex, a frames of reference thing again - http://rhysy.net/solar-system-vortex.html http://rhysy.net/solar-system-vortex.html But if you are into real life drones ISIS have been working on pulse jet ones based on US hobbyists, but no success so far, dam real life bit, but still pretty interesting - https://www.conflictarm.com/reports/procurement-networks-behind-islamic-state-improvised-weapon-programmes/ https://www.conflictarm.com/reports/procurement-networks-beh...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI really enjoyed that totally tangential solar system link, thanks for that But no way am I downloading that pdf
- CamperBob2 5y agoThe .pdf is actually sort of interesting. Not something that will get you put on a list, but rather, it's by the people who make the lists, describing how some of the people on their lists got there.
- aaron695 5y ago> But no way am I downloading that pdf You should learn Tor And a sand box program like Sandboxie If you are worried about tracking (like the PDF pinging back with a zero day) you'll have to look at Sandboxie's internet restrictions. Or use something like Tails which does everything. I won't link these because you need to do your own research to find what you want.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago> I would have to imagine it was larger than a quadcopter, and I guarantee you it was nothing like a quadcopter from how long it was up - it has to be satellite-driven because there’s no line-of-sight, there’s no cell phone coverage that could have dealt with that, so it has to be satellite-driven, which is pretty freakin’ sophisticated.” So, setting aside this claim that there’s no line of sight, my bet is these guys have not kept up with what quadcopters and hexacopters can do: here’s one video from 6 days ago showing really unnatural acceleration, changing direction in ways that make you say “UFO” [0] - check out the other videos on the channel, there’s another one six months ago hitting 234mph [1] - granted these are LiPo with short dwell times but other larger heavier models can go 90 minutes… so somebody out there has something custom and is having fun freaking out cops and militaries. I’d say next time instead of trying to chase it they start sweeping for radio transmissions… if they’re not already programmed to autonomously play cat and mouse with police helicopters XD [0] https://youtu.be/f4kJud-ZS4s https://youtu.be/f4kJud-ZS4s [1] https://youtu.be/Sgum0ipwFa0 https://youtu.be/Sgum0ipwFa0
- 1-6 5y ago“Are you afraid?” “Yes”
- spoonjim 5y agoExactly. A high school bully in a Bell 206 is not a good authority on the capabilities of even amateur UAV hardware
- craftinator 5y agoI doubt they are good authorities in anything. I wish they'd leave the knowledge speak to those who spend their time gathering knowledge.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThe person you dismiss as a "high school bully" is also a helicopter pilot. That may not make them an authority, but they have fair odds of being more knowledgeable than the average person...
- Animats 5y agoThere are R/C model aircraft with more than enough performance to fly circles around a helicopter. Here's one going over 400MPH.[1] It's powered by a small jet engine that costs around US$6000. That's from 2017. Here's one hovering, standing on its own jet.[2] That's from 2010. These things are quite impressive. So is the piloting, by the way. The one in [1] is just being hand-flown with an ordinary Futaba R/C joystick controller. Put a modern drone camera and nav system in one of these, and it's not hard to make longer range flights and do what someone did in Tucson. You can stay up longer if you're not trying for the R/C aircraft speed record. Also note the resemblance to the "flying pyramids" sighted near a U.S. Navy ship in 2019. [1] https://youtu.be/DPGDAZyQ44k https://youtu.be/DPGDAZyQ44k [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsfHzIYYhVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsfHzIYYhVQ
- chrisco255 5y agoPretty sure those would show up on night vision easily. Also, how much fuel would you need to keep that sort of action up in the air for an hour?
- 05 5y ago> CBP pilots say that it is hard to see on night vision goggles and has a low heat signature. Yeah definitely not a jet powered one.
- postalrat 5y agoIt's easy to build something specialized that does one of the things the object the helicopters chased. But really hard to build something that does all of the things. If you can find an example of that then please show me. And while you are at it also find me a car that: can go 300 mph, 3 seconds 0-60, 1000 mile range, has all the safety features of a Volvo, costs $5000 to build.
- jcrawfordor 5y agoThere's a lot of interesting material in the ATC recording. - Helo pilots felt that it was intentionally staying nearby as it came very close on multiple occasions and did not seem to be trying to evade. They had visual contact most of the time but sometimes had a hard time tracking it against the city lights. - Pilots initially describe it as a quadcopter but become skeptical of that due to the performance. No one ever gets a very good look at it to confirm. - It's described early on as having a dim green light. A green light on the drone would be odd for a position light (they did seem to see it from multiple angles) but it seems like a lot of drones have nonstandard lighting. - CBP pilots say that it is hard to see on night vision goggles and has a low heat signature. NVGs are not necessarily any better than human vision for discriminating dim lights in the city due to dynamic range, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The fact that they couldn't seem to pick it out on the thermal camera might mean something interesting if you looked at different drone types. - The drone was first described as being at about 4k feet and climbing, to around 12k. That's pretty damn high for anything small. - I don't hear the controller indicating that they had it on radar at any point, the altitudes are all estimates by the helo pilots. - Pilots felt that it was not being controlled from the ground due to the large distance it covered, beyond line of sight from any one point. By my estimations it covered over 20 miles during the course of the recording. Given the terrain, that it passed over decently high ridges, I don't think it's a sure thing that it was not being controlled from the ground but it would be surprising. - The CBP helicopter had a hard time getting it on their camera due to its rapid climbing (the cameras on these helicopters are usually under the nose and can't point up very much) and maneuvering that they seemed to feel was intentionally evasive of tracking. But it sounds like they may have successfully captured it on camera at times. - The speed bit is confusing as no one ever tries to estimate it directly, I think because the drone was seldom flying straight. The article's suggestion that it did 105 knots in airspeed is not unjustified but also not a sure thing. It was definitely somewhere in the 100kts range though, I'd say, based on the difficulty the helicopters had in pursuing it. - Both helicopters hit their endurance limit as the drone disappeared into clouds. One helicopter was able to stay airborne later and dwelled for a time hoping to see an operator or recovery team on the ground. - The TPD pilot, speaking after the fact, seemed confident it was not the size of a light aircraft but appreciably smaller. My analysis: - Perhaps the most extraordinary thing, I think to the pilots as well, was the way it was maneuvering in such close range to the two helicopters. It suggested not just recklessness but also excellent situational awareness, the kind of thing I have a hard time believing an operator on the ground or by FPV could achieve. It suggests that the operator had help from a targeting system of some kind, whether based on open-source radar/TIS-B/ADS-B or radar on the drone. Visually tracking aircraft over a city at night is already notoriously difficult, even more so by camera, and this thing was coming within 100 feet abeam the helicopters and often flying between them. - The altitude and speed demonstrated by the drone make me think it's fixed-wing rather than rotor, and fairly powerful. The endurance suggests fuel, not electric. Probably turbine powered. - It's not at all surprising that a CBP and TPD aircraft were tracking it despite the proximity to the AFB. Most HN users seem to really overestimate the level of security at most military installations, there probably weren't any Air Force acft up at the time or even pilots readily available. Most of the time stuff like this happens at AF bases the response you get is force protection standing in their truck beds with binoculars, not some elaborate air defense operation. Law enforcement conducts far more patrol activity over cities than the military does, and getting an Air Force aircraft in the air would have taken long enough it probably wouldn't have mattered. These kinds of drone incidents are considered more of a civilian matter than a military one anyway as it's almost always just idiots messing around. - The CBP aircraft at least and probably the TPD helicopter as well will have fairly sophisticated camera packages including thermal. I'm not totally clear on whether or not either of them got useful footage but you hear in the after-action call that the FAA is requesting all the video TPD has. The cameras on these helicopters are designed for tracking things on the ground, not moving fast in the air, so it's unsurprising that they had a hard time capturing it. - It doesn't mean much that it doesn't seem to have been tracked on radar. Primary radar doesn't consistently detect light aircraft at those altitudes, and this thing was much smaller. In general the US does not have a capability to reliably detect non-cooperative small aircraft, it's just way too expensive to build that out.
- unnouinceput 5y agoQuote: "... it has to be satellite-driven because there’s no line-of-sight, there’s no cell phone coverage that could have dealt with that, so it has to be satellite-driven, which is pretty freakin’ sophisticated." It baffles me how narrow minded people can become once the mainstream technology is ubiquitous on every corner, it's like thinking of other possibilities is a hard wall. If I would do that with a drone I would use analog transmission using a Yagi antenna with a good reflector and I could definitely steer the drone more than 30 Km away from it: https://www.amateur-radio-wiki.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Yagi-antenna1-1000x600.jpg https://www.amateur-radio-wiki.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...
- chucklenorris 5y agonot really, the most advanced comercially available digital fpv video system can do at most 10km range (these systems are latency limited, sure there are 4g systems that can do more but you end up with hundreds of ms latency) also to maintain the high power draw these drones require you end up using lipo batteries that can give you at most 15 minutes of fight time, more typically somewere around 2-6 minutes. you can go with liion to get around 30 minutes but then you lose a lot of manouverability. this ofcourse assuming it was some sort of quadcopter. a plane can do more but is not as agile as the article suggests.
- manquer 5y agoIf latency is a big challenge , isnt it even worse for satellite driven ones ? Unless it is a state actor it i LEO is very tough ( until starlink anyway), GEO latency can't handle video calls latencies, not sure if they can handle like you describe.
- unnouinceput 5y ago4g? battery? My friend, I would rock a drone that has a gasoline motor, not battery, so I would be up with it hours at a time. And I would use an analog transmission in 100 MHz range, like PAL system in the 60's - 800x600 resolution is enough to be able to view/control it. Do you think before digital era the analog was not good and fast enough?
- RobertoG 5y agoIf you are interested in this kind of thing, you could like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qiZ_L8wX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qiZ_L8wX4 with some context: https://www.openminds.tv/leaked-ufo-video-captured-by-homeland-security-analyzed/34616 https://www.openminds.tv/leaked-ufo-video-captured-by-homela... https://www.ufo-timeline.com/aguadilla-puerto-rico-uap/ https://www.ufo-timeline.com/aguadilla-puerto-rico-uap/ Probably a bird, but interesting anyway.
- tailius 5y agoSo how do they know it was a drone? Sounds like textbook, literal UFO if they're unsure. In previous discussions about terrestrial origins, either it's a hobbyist, an industry professional, a criminal, a terrorist, black ops domestic military, or a foreign state actor. I don't see 70+ minute flights without the resources of a state actor, foreign or domestic. Another possibility is such stories are concocted to throw shade on drones to legitimize FAA's overreach and/or police-industrial complex wants to sell new toys to counter whatever this supposedly was.
- 74d-fe6-2c6 5y agoI'd just have turned the tables by shooting it down claiming it threatened the safety of the helicopter and its crew. Now who's laughing.
- SevenSigs 5y agoThis video shows how agile a drone can be even when it is out of sight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvkot4jGLWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvkot4jGLWU (using FPV).
- parsimo2010 5y agoMy bet is something like a large scale RC plane with no real time video link. The tech is already here: 1. Gas engine would allow for >1 hour flight times 2. Flight management systems like Ardupilot means it could have been flying a pre-planned mission with little/no real time control. The helicopter pilots may have been mistaken thinking that it was reacting to them at all. 3. Or maybe it was reacting: two way radio links are nearly trivial with low enough bandwidths. The controllers could have been monitoring the ATC picture and had the RC plane also reporting telemetry. When the police helicopter got close they may have inserted waypoints into the flight path of the RC plane to make it fly away. There are thousands of serious RC hobbyists in the USA alone that could make something like this. Most of them follow the rules, but I wouldn't put it past a drug cartel to pay/coerce someone to make one for them. Maybe foreign spies, but I think that's unlikely considering Davis-Monthan AFB doesn't have any interesting research or test units. The Chinese wouldn't smuggle in a RC plane to watch A-10s or F-16s training in a MOA.
- antattack 5y agoI doubt this story is true. There's no drone that can fly so fast for 70 minutes that does not have heat signature (i.e. is not using jet engines). 70 minute flight time excludes electric drones automatically.
- Jeff_Brown 5y agoIt's weird that the pilots had to estimate the object's size by eyeballing it. I would expect those helicopters -- let alone the military base below them -- to include all kinds of imaging devices that would beat a human eyeball.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]