3 ms·

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.

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.