So in THIS case where there was clearly no emergency going on at the time, considering how many firefighters were standing around, what was the excuse?
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I would think that a airspace above a fire is treacherous, from an aerodynamic perspective.
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It has a wide-angle, not a zoom. Given the perspective shifts as it moved, it looks very much like it was over the property line, which would make sense given that the hoses hit it with plenty of distance to spare. If a drone is close enough to get hit by the hose, itās too close.
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āwhat was the excuseā
They donāt need an excuse, they were getting a distraction clear from an emergency work area, which they are fully entitled to do and fully justified in doing regardless of what some of the firefighters are doing. Some were working inside a burning house. The work they are doing is dangerous, important, time-critical, and needs to be done without distractions, including entitled gawking morons with drones going and buzzing them - that drone operator brought the thing in way too close to be appropriate, his whining only makes him look like an entitled asshole who thinks playing with his toys is somehow more important than firefighters doing their work.
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They do make these (for wildlife/veterinary work)ā¦
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Yeah, itās only a matter of time before someone makes a version specifically for drones given how theyāre already becoming problems infringing on peopleās private spaces and privacy. Governments are using radio-jammers to take down drones, but that doesnāt work for the rest of us.
Was noticing that too. Why is the price of the damn thing mentioned in the headline of most recent drone stories? Like Hollywood stories about celebrities usually include the persons age. Drone stories, you gotta include the price.
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Kickstarter idea: Anti-Drone Kits
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Oh manā¦ the celebrity market aloneā¦
Iām sure Clooney would train a squadron of interceptor pilots.
The pumps on fire engines are many orders of magnitude more powerful and one would assume louder than a drone powered by a few ounces of batteries.
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We need cheaper and smaller drones, lighter-weight cameras and gimbals, WAY WAY cheaper global shutter image sensors with higher sensitivity (to address the vibrations in post-processing and to allow narrower-angle lenses for higher stand-off distance), quieter rotors
Perhaps a call for lowering the cost, Iād reckon.
ā¦donāt they tend to wear face masks?
You are another reason why I wish the prices to go down fast and hard.
Better, heavier ones return home via GPS on loss of signal. Sudden death of batteries is also not too common these days, as there is usually 10-15% of energy left at the moment the voltage starts going down fast, and the controllers are now usually programmed to recognize that.
Usually it is an ISM band for the smaller toys. For control, most often 2.4 and 5.8 GHz. For video downlink, the usual frequencies are 0.9, 1.2, 2.4, and 5.8 GHz. These frequencies are commonly used for all sorts of things.
Skeet shooting with prizes!
Not only that. The different perspective of the video recording can be quite valuable for post-incident analysis and for future training.
There are $50 toys out there as well. Then there are the cheap secondhands, and even the bigger new ones are getting cheaper. Still a luxury? Whereās the āluxuryā threshold? Perhaps āa thing I secretly covet and donāt/canāt haveā?
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I have yet to see an argument about how this is any different from a news copter flying overhead. Seems like exactly the same ādistractionā to the firefighters on the ground. Like it or not, free speech includes the right to observe public employees doing their jobs provided of course it doesnāt endanger them. I donāt think there was any danger here, except to the extent that the firefighters reacted.
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Iām sure the fire commander has time to google that.
Factually correct. Real world wrong.
No need to. The absence of interference incidents between drones and rescue electronics/comm systems is an evidence of the really overwhelming magnitude of this threat.
If it is factually correct, it is likely to be real-world right; the real world itself is often wrong.
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I see absolutely no way this drone interfered with the situation on the ground. Itās not over the firefighters so if it did fall out of the sky it wouldnāt hurt anyone. Itās far enough back no firefighter will mistake itās movement for fire. This was purely malicious, the firefighter should be arrested.
Itās not in any way comparable to the gawkers that get too close and put themselves in danger or block the emergency crews. (Now, if they were using a helicopter or water bombers that would be another matterāif they are conducting air operations they should get exclusive use of the airspace.)
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Thatās what we have the FCC for, so firefighters donāt have to google what might possibly interfere with their frequencies.
@pablo9000 I would think the point of mentioning the cost of the drone is that it is a seriously expensive piece of kit. And itās worth noting that criminal penalties for vandalism often go up with the cost of the damage to property.
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Iām out in the sticks but wouldnāt fire on a drone because kind/responsible/reasoned is what Iāll portray because kids everywhere & use of firearms is similarly curtailed.
ā¦now, if I were alone in the sticks, with a firearm at handā¦ yeah, Iād fire on a drone. What? I should waste all these years of training with video games?
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There are specific reasons why news copters have to keep a certain distance away from active disaster scenes. A crowd of helicopters could easily result in a midair, killing several in the copters and likely some on the ground.
Now itās possible that five hundred drones circling over this fire could be a risk, but Iām okay with holding off on the handwringing until something like that actually comes to pass.
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Depending on what theyāre doing. If youāre well outside the structure, you might be moving equipment or giving/getting instructions. And, of course, the iconic and real practice of taking off your mask and putting it on the rescue victim while you carry them to safety.
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