From what I've read he doesn't even have a pilot's license. I bet this won't improve his chances of getting one.
Just slightly illegal.
They're lucky they didn't "find" some power lines or a tower.
For certain offenses, the Singapore model seems most appropriate -- public flogging.
Bwahahahahahaha....they should just be glad it wasn't turkeys.
Water weighs 8.2 lbs per gallon and could be very dangerous from those heights. The weight and velocity when they hit the ground could have easily killed someone or done lots of damage to a car. Were the car moving it could then have killed others. Anyone that dumb should not be allowed to control a plane.
It's unlawful to drop anything from an aircraft in populated areas or that could result in harm to life or property.....paraphrased FCC code.....learned in pilots basic 101....
NeverGore :^)
And water balloons are fun at 20 to 30 feet, but a couple of hundred feet? They might as well have been dropping cinder blocks.
got velocity?
Can't anyone take a joke, these days?
Dumb, doo-bee dumb, dumb, dumb.
Ya think?
In flying, the only thing worse than incompetence is immaturity.
They got the tense right; had a student license, LOL.
My Flight instructor for my CFI told me once:
"I can teach even a monkey to fly, but I can't teach judgement!"
At 21, these kids need to grow up fast!
Did I miss the pilot's name in the story? I don't suppose either of them is named Mohammed.
First, let me agree that these guys had a long list of stupid things they did. I would rank flying the plane as their worst. That said, let's not overrate the water balloon danger.
From 200 feet, they could be going 75 mi/h max, but air resistance would cut that down a bit, maybe 60 mi/h. Water has a pretty low density compared to a rock. The air would also flatten the bottom of the balloon and increase its area. I doubt they would kill anyone. I bet they weighed about a pound, which would be a pint. If they were a quart (quite a hefty water balloon) that would be 2 pounds. Water is a heck of a lot softer than a rock or a baseball, unless your freeze it, but then it's not a water balloon. Don't tell me that "at that speed, water is hard as rock." Not true at all, especially when it is not tightly bound. (A 2-liter bottle could kill someone since the carbonation pressure makes the bottle very hard, but I doubt the water balloon would.) Think of being hit by a major league pitcher throwing a water balloon . Then cut the speed almost in half, which cuts the energy to roughly 1/3 if we go with 60 mi/h.
Now, I'm not volunteering to try it out because it would likely hurt a bit if it hit me in the schnozz and I'm not allowed to get wet.
Repeat, it WAS a very stupid set of events these guys pulled off.
"As God is my witness, I thought the water balloons would bounce!"
This reminds me of a couple of Einsteins some years back who pulled the same prank. The difference was they were commercial pilots for a small branch airline and they waterbombed the tower at the San Luis Obispo (CA) airport. Needless to say they're no longer employed as pilots and we're all the safer for it.
Not allowed to fly withing 500' of any person, place, or thing.
Dropping things from an aircraft IS perfectly leagal - unless it hits something, in which case it is a crime.
I doubt he gets his ticket.
We do flour bombing contests - which are a hoot. Where you try to get five pound bag of flour into a target.
And toilet paper cutting races - where you drop a roll of TP from the plane and cut it with your wing as it unravels.
What these boys did was typical adolescent pranks gone bad. The Darwin People should keep an eye on both of these gents - they will certainly do something spectacular again soon. If it wasn't a plane - it would have been something else.