Drone Operator Stupidity

[Pat Eagan]

Last Friday, Jan 4th 2019 a Luke AFB F-16 or F-35, not sure which, pilot was on approach to the base when he observed a white drone flying at 500 feet. You know the drone had to be close for a fighter pilot to see and describe it. Throw in the Heathrow incident and some others here in the states and the age of our ability to fly a drone for pleasure is slowly coming to an end. I just don't understand you people who feel they can fly anywhere and any time they want, the flight "recommendations" be ( Mod Removed ). Your arrogance and stupidity is hurting every drone pilot and will soon kill someone or many people. But I guess thats OK because you don't give a crap about anyone else, just yourself. Grow up people, you know who you are and its not the responsible drone pilots.

 

[MotorCycle-Man]

YOU are Soooooooooooo right and they brag about flying way way out beyond line of site.and in fog and clouds and they cant even see the drone with binoculars LOL....they are all going to kill off us ones that "Always Fly legal as IF a FAA person was right their observing the flight" ! GREAT POST and words Pat E Thanks. Shame On them all.....FAA Drone flight law breakers !

When theirs posts like this and it makes a drone owner mad....its because they are doing illegal things !
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[Waylander]

Hi Pat
I agree with your sentiments 100% and 99% of the people who subscribe to this forum are responsible pilots, but the 1% of whom your post was the target, either don't care, are ignorant or persistent rule breakers.

You cant reach them, and it's no good saying grow up, the majority of the offenders are adults anyway, they don't believe that rules apply to them...

10's of thousands of travellers at Gatwick airport in London now have a negative view of drone flying, as well as all the media followers who whilst not affected directly, will sympathise with the inconvenienced travellers.

And that is not even touching on the safety aspect.

I agree with you, the days of free flying are nearly over, you cant get to the halfwits who do this kind of thing, not with legislation or rules of conduct, because rules don't apply to them, rules are for the other less daring and and unskilled pilots, not them.....

Ahem.. that's my 2 cents, what is the answer... sorry I don't have a clue, look at western society, we have the freedom to act but not always the responsibility that goes with it.

Waylander

 

[ScottishYorkshireMan]

You cannot legislate for those who would break the laws. The thing to remember is that despite both the events at Gatwick and Heathrow, there have been no actual photographic proof of any drone activity.

The difference between the 2 airport incidents is, the police weren't on board with the 'agenda' at Gatwick and at Heathrow they were, as they were stated as having seen the drone. Yet again no photographic evidence.

When you have a media that will jump on any drone bad news and ignore the good news, its easy to say that hobbyist drone flying is going to go away. Yet, we still have an incidence where there have been no deaths associated with drones, we cannot say the same about cars, trains or even aircraft. Also when questionable evidence is presented about the actual danger of a drone striking an aircraft is embellished like that video from Dayton, it is hardly surprising that the uninformed are tarring all drone pilots as morons.

What I don't get is this, I have 2 drones, both costing in excess of £1000 each. I have no desire to fly it at an airport or near an airport. I do not wish to see my investment go down the innards of an airbus engine.

So, it falls to those who do, are simply troublemakers, criminals or even plain old terrorists perhaps. There is no level of legislation that will stop these types and even if drones are made illegal across the board, will that stop them? Guns aren't popular in the UK, doesn't stop people being shot.

 

[dirkclod]

Last Friday, Jan 4th 2019 a Luke AFB F-16 or F-35, not sure which, pilot was on approach to the base when he observed a white drone flying at 500 feet. You know the drone had to be close for a fighter pilot to see and describe it. Throw in the Heathrow incident and some others here in the states and the age of our ability to fly a drone for pleasure is slowly coming to an end. I just don't understand you people who feel they can fly anywhere and any time they want, the flight "recommendations" be damned. Your arrogance and stupidity is hurting every drone pilot and will soon kill someone or many people. But I guess thats OK because you don't give a crap about anyone else, just yourself. Grow up people, you know who you are and its not the responsible drone pilots.

Don't happen to have a link to that do you ?

 

[eyesinthesky]

Last Friday, Jan 4th 2019 a Luke AFB F-16 or F-35, not sure which, pilot was on approach to the base when he observed a white drone flying at 500 feet. You know the drone had to be close for a fighter pilot to see and describe it. Throw in the Heathrow incident and some others here in the states and the age of our ability to fly a drone for pleasure is slowly coming to an end. I just don't understand you people who feel they can fly anywhere and any time they want, the flight "recommendations" be damned. Your arrogance and stupidity is hurting every drone pilot and will soon kill someone or many people. But I guess thats OK because you don't give a crap about anyone else, just yourself. Grow up people, you know who you are and its not the responsible drone pilots.

Plus I imagine that there is a substantial number of drone operators who do not participate in this or other related forum. So who knows how many other infractions are being committed that we don't hear about, but are being noted by the FAA or other governing bodies.

 

[Andy9]

I agree with ScottishYorshireMan completely. There will be always enough ignorant people who don't care about any law so whatever the restrictions will be, nothing will change that. Such people already fly out of law now, why law makers think that harder restrictions will do anything. It'll only prevent responsible flyers from flying while irresponsible ones will continue as they do now.

 

[Canyon Mike]

Last Friday, Jan 4th 2019 a Luke AFB F-16 or F-35, not sure which, pilot was on approach to the base when he observed a white drone flying at 500 feet. You know the drone had to be close for a fighter pilot to see and describe it. Throw in the Heathrow incident and some others here in the states and the age of our ability to fly a drone for pleasure is slowly coming to an end. I just don't understand you people who feel they can fly anywhere and any time they want, the flight "recommendations" be damned. Your arrogance and stupidity is hurting every drone pilot and will soon kill someone or many people. But I guess thats OK because you don't give a crap about anyone else, just yourself. Grow up people, you know who you are and its not the responsible drone pilots.

There are already rules and laws forbidding this kind of activity. So more rules and laws is not the answer. Nor is outlawing drones altogether. DJI has done a lot to limit its products to permissible locales, and I'm guessing it and others will do more. It should make it less possible to "hack" it's firmware, as well. But it should not be help responsible for misuse of its products. Finally, I believe we will see defense devices deployed to protect airspaces from drone incursion. hat will be the real deterrent.

 

[MotorCycle-Man]

Don't happen to have a link to that do you ?

dirkclod : I have googled it and all i found was this : Drone regulations tight around Luke AFB

Just maybe The member that posted the 1st post will hopefully respond....and we can see the news link !

 

[tayl0r]

> It should make it less possible to "hack" it's firmware

Very very difficult. Look at the iPhone, Playstation, and Xbox. You can still find jailbreaks / rootkits for those devices and you can bet that those companies are trying as hard as they can to prevent it. It's almost impossible.

Plus, DJI is not the only manufacturer. And, it's pretty easy to build your own drone and use open source software that you can compile yourself. Zero checks there.

 

[tayl0r]

I think there needs to be some very high profile cases where irresponsible drone pilots are caught and made an example of out. That would be the strongest deterrent.
For people like that, they only think about the repercussions. And right now they see basically nothing.

 

[Timus]

Did the air Force pilot report this?

 

[MPG]

As I read these replies it amazes me that you could replace the word “drone” with the word “gun” everywhere. The same comments are valid. Law breakers are going to break the law, you can’t fix the problem by leveying more rules, regulations, and restrictions on those who are already law abiding citizens.

 

[dirkclod]

Well, to be honest I bet a friend of a friend that knows one told him . Is why I asked for a link .
Look as many of these threads popping up and everyone starting all over with all the same stuff
it does not surprise me anymore when someone starts a thread just to get members hot or to
see how far it will go. Have seen it happen to many times .
I'm sorry OP but if you have no link to this it never happened as far as I am concerned .
We have an AirForce base near me in Columbus and see them in those practice jets training all the time
and it could happen with the right bird ,not mine as they won't fly anywhere near the place and
even if I did I sure wouldn't want to be flying one here and get caught.USAF don't play.
Maybe MoterCycle--Man was right but till I see a link like I said it never happened.
But if it did I will eat crow and have many times before and is getting to where it's not so bad if served just right.
This is all JMO

Sorry we posted at the same time MPG and welcome to the forum.

 

[MotorCycle-Man]

However in the Ops very first post.....he might have done what you said dirkclod (stir the members UP) then runn.. five posts and five likes.....strange eh.....he has some truth in the post though..I have to agree on careless and reckless flying by many that must be able to crash a drone to teeny time pieces and run out and buy another to do it again !

Main Thing is : Always fly like a FAA person is standing right next to you...Fly responsible OR sell your drone to somebody that will....Thank you for reading this.

 

[Timus]

No

 

[dirkclod]

No

No what ?

 

[planedr]

When drones are outlawed, only outlaws will have drones.

 

[asulliv54]

Pat being a AFB was it a soldier or someone else in the area?I know those bases are miles in size so could it only of been a soldier and there is no way of finding him or her out?

 

[The Roach]

You cannot legislate for those who would break the laws. The thing to remember is that despite both the events at Gatwick and Heathrow, there have been no actual photographic proof of any drone activity.

The difference between the 2 airport incidents is, the police weren't on board with the 'agenda' at Gatwick and at Heathrow they were, as they were stated as having seen the drone. Yet again no photographic evidence.

When you have a media that will jump on any drone bad news and ignore the good news, its easy to say that hobbyist drone flying is going to go away. Yet, we still have an incidence where there have been no deaths associated with drones, we cannot say the same about cars, trains or even aircraft. Also when questionable evidence is presented about the actual danger of a drone striking an aircraft is embellished like that video from Dayton, it is hardly surprising that the uninformed are tarring all drone pilots as morons.

What I don't get is this, I have 2 drones, both costing in excess of £1000 each. I have no desire to fly it at an airport or near an airport. I do not wish to see my investment go down the innards of an airbus engine.

So, it falls to those who do, are simply troublemakers, criminals or even plain old terrorists perhaps. There is no level of legislation that will stop these types and even if drones are made illegal across the board, will that stop them? Guns aren't popular in the UK, doesn't stop people being shot.

The Gatwick incident has all but dropped from the news since the police admitted it was most likely their own surveillance drones which caused the incident. I'm betting the Heathrow incident may be the same. We're fighting a loosing battle because the media is quick to blame without facts and doesn't follow-up with the true events when revealed. Not many real news sites left. Seems that sensationalism and propaganda are much better money makers than the truth.