32 ms·

Seems he was arrested for crashing it near a pedestrian, not simply for flying it. He was charged with reckless endanderment for is inability to control the dev

Seems he was arrested for crashing it near a pedestrian, not simply for flying it. He was charged with reckless endanderment for is inability to control the device.

yeukhon 13y ago
To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Though the activity should be allowed in some rural area with permits. Especially in a dense, metropolitan city like NYC, flying a robotic copter or drone can pose dangerous. especially if everyone were to fly one.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  "Ban all the things"… How would one envision something like that to be enforced in NYC (or anywhere): Stop and frisk for drones? House to house, apartment to apartment sweeps?
  - chronic25 13y ago
    Shoot them down
  - BariumBlue 13y ago
    By checking to see whether there's any unauthorized drones in the sky?
    - danjayh 13y ago
      And if you find one, and the owner doesn't post his face in a video, how do you track it back to him? My greatest concern with this is that they'll destroy RC aircraft as a hobby. There are many experienced RC helicopter and airplane pilots out there who have been flying these safely for decades. The problem is now that prices have come down (they used to cost an order of magnitude more), every idiot thinks they can do it. That being said, the 'drone' this man was probably flying doesn't really pose a danger to anyone. They're typically made of foam or lightweight plastic and have very little kinetic energy. A full speed hit to the head with one wouldn't cause much harm (this is pretty much true for anything 100 sized and smaller - anything larger and you can start to hurt people with direct hits). For instance, something like this: http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/blade-nano-cp-x-bnf-BLH3380 http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/blade-nano-cp-x-bnf-BLH... weighs 29 grams. That's ~1/30th of a kg. This quadcopter: http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/nano-qx-bnf-with-safe-technology-BLH7680#t2 http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/nano-qx-bnf-with-safe-t... weighs 16.5 grams. Banning stuff like that would be a huge overreaction. My largest helicopter (I fly RC stuff, if you haven't already figured it out) is ~750 grams, which is definitely large enough to hurt someone, but requiring me to have a license to fly it in my back yard would be crazy - I have 12 acres, which is ample space. Besides that, I've never crashed it, because unlike that buffoon, I know what I'm doing :) (edit - never crashed this one. As stated by another poster, components do fail, even on real aircraft, so it does happen). That being said, because I know what I'm doing, I'd never try flying it off a balcony in NYC. TLDR; Responsible/skilled people should be allowed to fly, irresponsible people should be held accountable. If they can nail him for reckless endangerment, I think the current laws are strong enough.
- retrogradeorbit 13y ago
  As a RC plane flying hobbiest my greatest fear is from over reaction to fools like this one. Yes he did the wrong thing. And he's been charged. The present laws seem fine. The big danger is from over-reaction and then just a law outright banning all civilian use. This is my worst case scenario. When me and my friends fly it's a day trip. We travel to a remote location, or a large open flying field. We don't fly over people, or sporting events. We check local regulations over places banned from model flying. Where I am (Australia) there are areas where it is not allowed at all. All the inner city areas are off limits except for a few allocated fields. It's all handled at the local council level. Different councils are different. We fly under the 400ft ceiling and give way to all other aircraft (Hear a real plane? Bring yours down.) We don't need any permits. I usually don't crash but I have in the past, and I know that I might. Components fail. Radio links can have issues. And then there's the wind and the elements. So we take all the due precautions. I don't want people to ban my hobby because some fools take this new piece of tech and without much experience act recklessly with it. It's a danger with anything. There are young hoons who burn their tyres in the middle of the night on some corner. Don't ban driving. Or the car. Or all civilian uses of the car. Let's all keep our heads screwed on.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You can't drive above certain speed and can only drive if you have a permit (if you get caught without a license you get into trouble). You can only drive in a specific designated area called roads. In essence, if you want to fly within the city like central park. Okay. But it needs to be regulated. Why? Anyone can build a monster copter flying and the next thing is either this copter cut someone's head off or a crash. It is like 3D printing a gun. Without regulation we don't really know who is responsible for what. So a permit seems reasonable. A little law enforcing the consequence, classifying the accident is crucial. Do you want me to pull out news or video showing people's head got cut off flying copter? If you do that in an open field the danger can be minimized (more space to run away), but in a dense metro area (think about 42th street) is harder. So No. Read my comment carefully before you make your comment (part of it on ban flying copter in the city).
- baddox 13y ago
  > To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Define "this activity." I hope you don't mean all flying of remote control aircraft, which is a decades-old and historically extremely safe hobby.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    "This activity" = "the flying of powerful RC aircraft (i.e., at substantial risk of major injury if it collides into a person - it's a quad carrying a GoPro, not a supermarket RC heli), by an unqualified operator (watch the feed from the quad, the guy crashes it five times into buildings before losing control permanently), in an area where there is a guaranteed swarm of people directly below the flight path". My understanding is that RC aircraft as a hobby, up until recently, has been small enough and hard enough to get into that most newbies get schooled by the old-timers, and as such learn proper safety and how to not be a complete cockup. With the advent of incredibly cheap RC aircraft, it seems more and more people are getting into the hobby who have no idea WTF they should/shouldn't be doing, have no one to teach them, and aren't aware of their own ignorance. If RC aircraft becomes much more popular than it currently is, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if hard regulations become the norm.
    - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
      > With the advent of incredibly cheap RC aircraft, it seems more and more people are getting into the hobby who have no idea WTF they should/shouldn't be doing, have no one to teach them, and aren't aware of their own ignorance. This is very much it. I see the solution as education and mentor-ship. I would recommend anyone interested to get in contact with clubs and activities that are happening in their area. Even indoor flying is an option in the big cities!
      - potatolicious 13y ago
        The problem is that these people don't know what they don't know. We have extremely powerful RC aircraft being sold without so much as a "so listen, you should really get properly trained on the operation of this potentially dangerous machine". I'm all for lack of regulation. I'd love for people to be able to fly over the skies of NYC and create beautiful works, but not if the people doing it are completely ignorant like the guy in this case. It's hard to expect people to seek out clubs and mentorship when they don't even know these organizations exist, or the importance of seeking out proper training. There is an attitude change required here I think.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dingaling 13y ago
  Imagine how dangerous it is for everyone to drive two tons of steel at 40 mph through the city streets, too. But somehow that's just fine, even though in NYC: - 27% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved driver failure to yield - 79% of crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians involve private vehicles - Traffic crashes cost the City’s economy $4.29 billion annually ( 2009 data ) Sounds like driver regulation isn't working. Let's ban cars, except under permit in remote rural areas. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/pedsafetyreport.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/pedsafetyreport...
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  In the UK I think that if you fly a remote control aircraft through a video feed rather than through line of sight then you need a pilots licence and then normal flying rules apply. Banning new classes of flying things is hardly neccessary when you have a licencing and training regime readily available with a century of experience in dealing with airbourne vehicles.
apaprocki 13y ago
Meta-comment: read this one thread replacing "flying a drone/RC" with "shooting a gun" and see similarity to current debate.

Seems he was arrested for crashing it near a pedestrian, not simply for flying it. He was charged with reckless endanderment for is inability to control the device.

yeukhon 13y ago

To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Though the activity should be allowed in some rural area with permits. Especially in a dense, metropolitan city like NYC, flying a robotic copter or drone can pose dangerous. especially if everyone were to fly one.

cinquemb 13y ago
"Ban all the things"… How would one envision something like that to be enforced in NYC (or anywhere): Stop and frisk for drones? House to house, apartment to apartment sweeps?
- chronic25 13y ago
  Shoot them down
- BariumBlue 13y ago
  By checking to see whether there's any unauthorized drones in the sky?
  - danjayh 13y ago
    And if you find one, and the owner doesn't post his face in a video, how do you track it back to him? My greatest concern with this is that they'll destroy RC aircraft as a hobby. There are many experienced RC helicopter and airplane pilots out there who have been flying these safely for decades. The problem is now that prices have come down (they used to cost an order of magnitude more), every idiot thinks they can do it. That being said, the 'drone' this man was probably flying doesn't really pose a danger to anyone. They're typically made of foam or lightweight plastic and have very little kinetic energy. A full speed hit to the head with one wouldn't cause much harm (this is pretty much true for anything 100 sized and smaller - anything larger and you can start to hurt people with direct hits). For instance, something like this: http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/blade-nano-cp-x-bnf-BLH3380 http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/blade-nano-cp-x-bnf-BLH... weighs 29 grams. That's ~1/30th of a kg. This quadcopter: http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/nano-qx-bnf-with-safe-technology-BLH7680#t2 http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/nano-qx-bnf-with-safe-t... weighs 16.5 grams. Banning stuff like that would be a huge overreaction. My largest helicopter (I fly RC stuff, if you haven't already figured it out) is ~750 grams, which is definitely large enough to hurt someone, but requiring me to have a license to fly it in my back yard would be crazy - I have 12 acres, which is ample space. Besides that, I've never crashed it, because unlike that buffoon, I know what I'm doing :) (edit - never crashed this one. As stated by another poster, components do fail, even on real aircraft, so it does happen). That being said, because I know what I'm doing, I'd never try flying it off a balcony in NYC. TLDR; Responsible/skilled people should be allowed to fly, irresponsible people should be held accountable. If they can nail him for reckless endangerment, I think the current laws are strong enough.
retrogradeorbit 13y ago
As a RC plane flying hobbiest my greatest fear is from over reaction to fools like this one. Yes he did the wrong thing. And he's been charged. The present laws seem fine. The big danger is from over-reaction and then just a law outright banning all civilian use. This is my worst case scenario. When me and my friends fly it's a day trip. We travel to a remote location, or a large open flying field. We don't fly over people, or sporting events. We check local regulations over places banned from model flying. Where I am (Australia) there are areas where it is not allowed at all. All the inner city areas are off limits except for a few allocated fields. It's all handled at the local council level. Different councils are different. We fly under the 400ft ceiling and give way to all other aircraft (Hear a real plane? Bring yours down.) We don't need any permits. I usually don't crash but I have in the past, and I know that I might. Components fail. Radio links can have issues. And then there's the wind and the elements. So we take all the due precautions. I don't want people to ban my hobby because some fools take this new piece of tech and without much experience act recklessly with it. It's a danger with anything. There are young hoons who burn their tyres in the middle of the night on some corner. Don't ban driving. Or the car. Or all civilian uses of the car. Let's all keep our heads screwed on.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You can't drive above certain speed and can only drive if you have a permit (if you get caught without a license you get into trouble). You can only drive in a specific designated area called roads. In essence, if you want to fly within the city like central park. Okay. But it needs to be regulated. Why? Anyone can build a monster copter flying and the next thing is either this copter cut someone's head off or a crash. It is like 3D printing a gun. Without regulation we don't really know who is responsible for what. So a permit seems reasonable. A little law enforcing the consequence, classifying the accident is crucial. Do you want me to pull out news or video showing people's head got cut off flying copter? If you do that in an open field the danger can be minimized (more space to run away), but in a dense metro area (think about 42th street) is harder. So No. Read my comment carefully before you make your comment (part of it on ban flying copter in the city).
baddox 13y ago
> To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Define "this activity." I hope you don't mean all flying of remote control aircraft, which is a decades-old and historically extremely safe hobby.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  "This activity" = "the flying of powerful RC aircraft (i.e., at substantial risk of major injury if it collides into a person - it's a quad carrying a GoPro, not a supermarket RC heli), by an unqualified operator (watch the feed from the quad, the guy crashes it five times into buildings before losing control permanently), in an area where there is a guaranteed swarm of people directly below the flight path". My understanding is that RC aircraft as a hobby, up until recently, has been small enough and hard enough to get into that most newbies get schooled by the old-timers, and as such learn proper safety and how to not be a complete cockup. With the advent of incredibly cheap RC aircraft, it seems more and more people are getting into the hobby who have no idea WTF they should/shouldn't be doing, have no one to teach them, and aren't aware of their own ignorance. If RC aircraft becomes much more popular than it currently is, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if hard regulations become the norm.
  - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
    > With the advent of incredibly cheap RC aircraft, it seems more and more people are getting into the hobby who have no idea WTF they should/shouldn't be doing, have no one to teach them, and aren't aware of their own ignorance. This is very much it. I see the solution as education and mentor-ship. I would recommend anyone interested to get in contact with clubs and activities that are happening in their area. Even indoor flying is an option in the big cities!
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      The problem is that these people don't know what they don't know. We have extremely powerful RC aircraft being sold without so much as a "so listen, you should really get properly trained on the operation of this potentially dangerous machine". I'm all for lack of regulation. I'd love for people to be able to fly over the skies of NYC and create beautiful works, but not if the people doing it are completely ignorant like the guy in this case. It's hard to expect people to seek out clubs and mentorship when they don't even know these organizations exist, or the importance of seeking out proper training. There is an attitude change required here I think.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dingaling 13y ago
Imagine how dangerous it is for everyone to drive two tons of steel at 40 mph through the city streets, too. But somehow that's just fine, even though in NYC: - 27% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved driver failure to yield - 79% of crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians involve private vehicles - Traffic crashes cost the City’s economy $4.29 billion annually ( 2009 data ) Sounds like driver regulation isn't working. Let's ban cars, except under permit in remote rural areas. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/pedsafetyreport.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/pedsafetyreport...
moocowduckquack 13y ago
In the UK I think that if you fly a remote control aircraft through a video feed rather than through line of sight then you need a pilots licence and then normal flying rules apply. Banning new classes of flying things is hardly neccessary when you have a licencing and training regime readily available with a century of experience in dealing with airbourne vehicles.

apaprocki 13y ago

Meta-comment: read this one thread replacing "flying a drone/RC" with "shooting a gun" and see similarity to current debate.