Posted on 07/10/2014 1:11:05 PM PDT by Seizethecarp
Transcript: Shep Smith: Police in NY arrested two people for flying a drone over the George Washington Bridge not far from a police helicopter. The cops say the drone came within 800 feet of one of the police choppers before the pilot of the drone turned it away to avoid. Jonathan Hunt: One of the cops in this NYPD helicopter noticed some lights approaching just after midnight on Monday...on closer inspection he noticed those lights were actually a drone. Apparently the chopper pilot thought he needed to take evasive action to avoid being struck by that drone. He then followed it. It landed on top of a van. Cops on the ground went to look at that van, found two guys they said these are our drones they said "We're just having fun." Cops didn't quite see it that way. Shep: Any word from these men or a lawyer? Hunt: We've just spoke to their lawyer in fact. They've been released on bail. The lawyer says this is a publicity stunt by the DA to have a chilling effect on people flying these drones for fun. This, by the way, was a dji Phantom II, you see it right there. The lawyer says that thing can't fly at 2000 feet where the cops said it was, it can only go up to 400 feet. This is the pilot training program from the dji company that clearly says don't fly these thing above 400 feet. It doesn't actually say whether they CAN go higher than that.
(Excerpt) Read more at video.foxnews.com ...
Multi-rotor models have been flown off peaks in the Rockies (out of ground effect), but they won't be carrying much of a load at that altitude. My full-size light plane would top out around 12,500 msl on a summer day with nearly full fuel and the quad copters are probably similar with a camera. Radio range enters in when flying from a lower elevation (~two miles; variable).
I think that the cops, feds and press are purposely using the term “drone” for anything we used to call a RC airplane to make them sound more sinister. I’m tempted to put a dog-shaped hull on my RC ‘copter - then the cops could get a twofer.
Too bad, officers, get over it. You fly over houses in the middle of the night below legal altitude and then you arrest kids flying a drone? Hypocrites
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Same here ,, I have police below 500’ regularly here..
“Exactly where is the line between an RC plane and a drone?”
RC was always line of sight and thus very short range in my limited understanding as a non-user just reading AMA materials.
When autonomous GPS navigation was introduced and available to the hobby buyer, that was the big differentiator for me, anyway.
Autonomous GPS means that a drone is limited only by fuel, geographic obstacles or bad weather, etc.
Back in the mid-2000’s some guy flew his little model plane from Ireland to the US using GPS!
That sure was fun, but it also opened up a Pandora’s box for bad actors whether simply malicious or terrorist.
In the Obama Nation, a/k/a, the United States of America before November 4, 2008. Only a certain class of people have to obey the laws.
“No, they were actually buzzing the copter and thought it would be funny.”
Well, this was the excuse their defense attorney put up for them. This is the same excuse that would be expected if they had actually been Muzzie terrorists deliberately trying to crash the chopper!
Wow that’s impressive. Way back in 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3145577.stm
The other new factor is First Person View (FPV -- permitting the pilot to see what the model "sees", even if out of sight visually).
Airborne FPV is a type of remote-control (RC) flying that has grown in popularity in recent years. It involves mounting a small video camera and an analogue video transmitter to an RC aircraft and flying by means of a live video down-link, commonly displayed on video goggles or a portable LCD screen. When flying FPV, the pilot's view is that of a would be real pilot on board the aircraft and as such does not need to maintain visual line of sight (LOS) of the aircraft compared with regular RC flying. As a result, FPV aircraft can be flown well beyond visual range, limited only by the range of the remote control and video equipment in use. FPV became increasingly common throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Agree.
“The range on the transmitter/controller is only 980 feet, and if it wanders out of range it will ‘return to home’ for you (I haven’t tested that feature yet).”
Hmmm...Cops say they were at 2000 feet and needed to take evasive action. I suppose Youtube will quickly reveal what folks are able to do with the DJI Phantom II outside the “official” specs! (as usual).
“Too bad, officers, get over it. You fly over houses in the middle of the night below legal altitude and then you arrest kids flying a drone? Hypocrites”
IMO, your comment is off-base.
The GW Bridge is a crucial piece of national infrastructure and a high-value target of Islamist and other terrorists who want to humiliate the USA.
The NYPD uses helicopter patrols to defend the GWB and was at 2000 feet and not buzzing some residential area when it encountered an intruding UAV and properly tracked it back its base and working with the NYPD team was able to ID the operators.
If an attack were to be made on the GWB by terrorists, taking out the NYPD chopper defense pickets could well be a preliminary step, I would think.
I heard that B&H in Manhattan is selling 200 of these things a day. That’s a lot of drones.
I said:
“Back in the mid-2000’s some guy flew his little model plane from Ireland to the US using GPS!”
nascarnation reports:
“Wow that’s impressive. Way back in 2003.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3145577.stm
Apparently my memory is not so impressive. Ireland was involved and I got the right decade and the right ocean, but not the right direction of flight and the model was pretty big as models go, not little!
From the BBC article at the link:
An international team of model aeroplane enthusiasts say they have managed the first successful flight by a lightweight remote-controlled plane across the Atlantic.
US, Canadian and Irish engineers worked together to ensure “The Spirit of Butts Farm” - named after its testing site - landed safely in County Galway, Ireland on Monday 11 August, some 38 hours after it took off from Canada.
The balsa wood and mylar plane flew 3,039 kilometres (1,888 miles) using satellite navigation and an autopilot system overseen by engineers and radio operators using laptop computers.
If the flight is certified by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, it will break world records for distance travelled by a model aeroplane as well as duration of flight.
In order for the records to be broken, the plane had to weigh less than five kilograms, including its “camping lantern” fuel.
Dave Brown, president of the American Academy of Model Aeronautics, told BBC News Online it had been “pins and needles” waiting for the plane to come into view over the Irish coast.
This is a DJI Phantom 2. Check out this Youtube showing some major altitude! I would say it is easily 2000 feet at this mountain top and then some.
There is some way you can toggle the Youtube controls to see the actual DJI live control screen during this flight but I am not that Youtube proficient.
“DJI Phantom 2 flying on a mountain - HeliPal.com”
There are a LOT of cautionary tales in the Amazon product reviews for the DJI Phantom drone Quadcopter products, it seems...
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