Neighbor threatened to kill me for flying my phantom...

I have no idea how too.
"decide what's an appropriate way to handle this kind of situation"

My first thought would be to call a few people on this forum and leave them to him while I ran away.

:) (a slightly concerned smile)
 
I have no idea how too.
"decide what's an appropriate way to handle this kind of situation"

My first thought would be to call a few people on this forum and leave them to him while I ran away.

:) (a slightly concerned smile)
Grab your drone and go home. Talking with people who are pissed off at you doesn't help.
 
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I have no idea how too.
"decide what's an appropriate way to handle this kind of situation"

My first thought would be to call a few people on this forum and leave them to him while I ran away.

:) (a slightly concerned smile)

LOL... fair enough!
 
Noflyzone.org.

People who don't want there "privacy" invaded as they say can register their home address as a no fly zone at that link.
 
Noflyzone.org.

People who don't want there "privacy" invaded as they say can register their home address as a no fly zone at that link.
They can but it won't do much to stop drones overflying.
Noflyzone is a lame duck and was a stupid idea when it was conceived.
The only drone companies that participate are: PixiePath, Ehang (maker of the Ghost-Drone), HEXO+, Horizon Hobby, and RCFlyMaps.
 
I like to fly from our local grammar school which is about a block or two away. The school is up on a hill about 10 feet higher than the rest of the area. So I like to stand on the top of that hill and fly out from there. But there basketball court in front of me and then a huge field in front of that so I have a clear view. It is also a playground to my left and I always worry about that but not today. After a long flight I brought the bird back again and I start walking everything back to my car and I see one of the mother standing there. A little apprehensive but I got up to her and she said, wow that is the coolest thing I've ever seen, wow! Put a big smile on my face.
 
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I know few friends who have modest drone paranoia, but I have yet to encounter an angry bystander. Everyone I have come in contact with thinks my drones are cool. I often fly mine up and down the street (sans cars) and over my back yard. I'm careful not to cross any property line or fly in a manner that would cause anyone to feel threatened. All my neighbors show curiosity and interest in my hobby.

The day may come when I encounter someone with an unreasonable fear of UAS's. I hope that if accosted, I'm able to keep my calm and diffuse the situation. I don't carry a firearm, but am quite capable of defending myself in most circumstances. Walking away is always my first choice.

Two of my quads are a bit larger than my P3 & P1 (Walkera Scout and home-built 650mm w/ 14" props). In a bind, I think they could serve as a deterrent, distraction or even used in an defensive manner. If someone brandished a gun and pointed it in my direction, I might be tempted to fly my bird directly into their face at full throttle.
 
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I have the luxury of flying in an area that is very sparsely populated, so if anyone hears or sees my Phantom in a couple of miles radius, well, they'll probably know it is me. But putting myself in their position, if a Phantom held its position and hovered over my property for any length of time, I'd certainly wonder why.

I think it is all down to what one perceives as his or her 'comfort zone', that being different for each individual. I know people who, when they speak to me, stand what I consider to be too close. Under such circumstances I take a step backwards. But there was one guy who just kept coming, until I made it unmistakably clear that, having stepped backwards, I expected him to remain where he was.

And when it comes to our hobby that area of comfort can, for some people, not only extend horizontally, but vertically as well. I guess the one thing that would lessen the sense of invasiveness for some people, would be for the Phantom to fly almost silently. I don't suppose that's going to happen any time soon, if ever. Meantime, flying at an altitude that's least likely to attract to undesirable attention, say, at a couple of hundred feet, is probably the way to go.

The experience for the OP must have been alarming, to say the least. Not the sort of situation one would want to encounter when just out for a bit of recreational flying. Scary stuff.
 
"I think it is all down to what one perceives as his or her 'comfort zone', that being different for each individual. I know people who, when they speak to me, stand what I consider to be too close. Under such circumstances I take a step backwards. But there was one guy who just kept coming, until I made it unmistakably clear that, having stepped backwards, I expected him to remain where he was."

Ah the "close talker" from Sienfeld, I enjoy them and I'll take a 1/5th step closer, I play that game with the wife a lot.

Personal space is an interesting conversation, the quad shows no respect for it.
 
[Moderator edit: off topic content about guns removed, yet again.]
 
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I am currently in the process of filing a restraining order and the city is pursuing a felony/misdemeanor against one of my neighbors that I have never met before, before they approached me, brandished a weapon, and threatened to kill me for flying my phantom too close to their house. You would think I live in a dangerous neighborhood, but it is quite the opposite in one of the most expensive zip codes (socal).

I am posting this here as a warning. When the incident happened, I was with a few friends. Had I been alone, who knows what could have transpired.

I am not advocating carrying weapons, but I would suggest that you think about protecting yourself every time you fly.

I hesitated in posting this because I didn't want to worry anyone, but I convinced myself that I would want to know, so I am sharing.

Here are a few details of the incident for those that are curious:

Taking off from directly in front of my condo. It is a crowded neighborhood, housing with hardly any yards, in a small-hills area. I am flying looking at brush and open land, some of the only open land near my condo, at about the middle of a hill, on top of which is a house. I am at approximately 60-80 feet in the air (AGL), much lower than the height of the house. I then start to go straight up at about 3-5mph to a height of about 300 feet. During this I pass by the house on the hill at about 30-50 yards from the closest side of the house (the house was at about 100-120ft). Once at that height, I hit the RTH function to show my friends how it can, well, RTH. As it gets above us and starts to descend, a pickup truck pulls up with a man and a woman getting out. They start approaching us spouting nonsense about taking video through their windows. Privacy this, illegal that, "you cannot fly over residential!", etc. After a few minutes of back and forth, they say they are going to call the police. I invited them to and welcomed them to stay and wait. This was mostly a discussion with the wife. They were an older couple, late 50's early 60's. While this was happening the husband had pulled out a steak knife and had it in his hands. He was a safe distance away at this point, but it was borderline time to run in the other direction. Shortly later, they started walking back to their truck and the husband pulled the truck closer to my condo attempting to run over the drone with his car. He aggressively sped up and nearly ran over my girlfriend who picked up the drone because she saw what he was going to be doing. He then veered at her, and she had to duck between cars. I was too far away to do anything about the drone sitting on the ground at the time, but I am thankful she had enough foresight and courage to do all of this without really being in much danger. It was more a show of aggression from the husband driving the truck.

And as the grand finale, as they are backing out of my condo complex, I am at the entrance to the condo complex standing next to the drivers side door, and he reaches in the glove box, pulls out a gun, and says to his wife, "why don't we just kill him?". At this point she was erratic trying to get her husband to leave, covering the gun with her jacket and pulling his arm down. I could tell she was horrified that he was doing it, and at that point, they left and we immediately called the police.

As you can imagine, their story of what happened didn't match mine at all. Luckily I had half a dozen witnesses to the entire thing, otherwise I might be just someone pissed off at the justice system stuck in a he said she said situation. Instead, he is facing a possible felony/misdimeanor and restraining order.

The scariest thing about this is, I wasn't even aware that I had done anything even remotely wrong. When it all started to go down, I was in complete shock that someone was even remotely upset, let alone wanting to kill me. I felt as if I was a safe distance away from all houses when I was flying. With over 10 years of flying under my belt, I have a good idea of what a safe distance is.

So the lesson is, take special care, try to diffuse the situation, and always protect yourself. I hope I am the only person this ever happens to.



You did everything right
 
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I wonder what he was doing in his back yard that has him so concerned. Any pretty leafy green plants back there?
 
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I wonder what he was doing in his back yard that has him so concerned. Any pretty leafy green plants back there?

I'll admit I haven't read this entire thread. So perhaps there's more info here than what I'm replying to.

Overall, it's just good practice to remain as far away from any domicile as possible. If I were so limited in my flight right outside of my home, personally, I wouldn't fly there. Also, I believe every word the OP posted in his initial post. There are MANY people out there who wear tinfoil hats and think the world is spying on them. They could easily become convinced the OP is a government agent posing as a civilian in an effort to gain information about their lifestyles. I've met my fair share of these types in the years I've been flying R/C aircraft. Even more so since mounting cameras on a couple of my aircraft. They simply cannot believe that you aren't capable of reading the serial number on a dollar bill from 50 meters away. I have a very simple way of dealing with such people. I take my laptop with me every time I fly and here's why.

Roughly 18 months ago, while flying one of my heli's with a cheap, 2mp camera on it that was recording video, I had the cops called on me and a lady accused me of taking video of her laying out nude in her back yard. A yard that at my closest approach, was over 25 meters away although I was in a soccer field within 25m of her fenced in back yard. My flight path was directly away from her house as I was doing some video of the local YMCA for a friend who worked there as a maintenance guy and he was wanting to know what shape the roof was in after a bad storm.

She approached me from behind, wrapped in a robe and wearing some slip on shoes, while the heli was still in the air. Being used to people walking up to me to ask about my aircraft, I quickly looked at her and realized her body language was of the ill tempered type. Still, that realization couldn't help my heli because as soon as it landed, she kicked it.

Her foot was cut and when the cops showed up, she accused me of having "flown the thing into her". The cops had showed up within a couple of minutes after she kicked it and I went toe to toe with her calling her a liar. Longish story shorter, I got out my laptop, I was using it to transfer video from the 512mb Micro SD card to the laptop to make room for more video on the SD card, and plugged the SD card into the adapter and then showed the cops exactly what had happened. Before ever removing the SD card, I established with the woman, in front of the cops, that the aircraft had been airborne the whole time until she kicked it upon landing and that I had not approached the heli until that moment. Since I always land nose in when wind allows, the heli picked up her approach and kick. It also showed that at no time had it recorded her laying out nude in her backyard. She also said on more than one occasion that I wasn't just an Army guy, I lived about six houses down from her so she had seen me outside in my uniform, but a SPY for the government who thought she was anti-government and a threat to the POTUS.

I pressed charges for making false claims of a criminal nature and she was prosecuted, and convicted, of filing a false police report, damage to private property and issuing false claims of criminal conduct. She received one year probation and was ordered to pay for my $500 heli investment.

This happened in LA. Lower Alabama. ;)

Fortunately, and I do not advocate the growing of illegal substances in ones home or yard...just for the record, but that is none of our business nor that of the police if a person hasn't given the authorities any reason to search their home and/or property. At this point, with the information given in the initial post, there is no avenue that would lead to the cops being granted a search warrant.

The gun and knife were in the mans hand/truck. That is ALL the authorities have the right to search. If the OP was the only one who could give an eyewitness account of the gun, then there isn't a gun in the equation unless there is some type of video footage, other witness or, the idiot implicates himself. The cops cannot just search the mans truck on his property with a warrant or otherwise based solely on the word of one person saying he pulled a gun. Especially if said idiot has the mental capability to know his own rights.

Even if said idiot were to admit to pulling out a gun, if the gun isn't in his truck then the cops will need a search warrant for the home. If this idiot has any common sense at all and IS doing something illegal in his home, he will offer the weapons up to the cops upon initial contact which will, in all likelihood, prevent such search. If the idiot has a criminal history of displaying weapons in a threatening manner, then a judge would be much more likely to issue a search warrant.
 
I wonder what he was doing in his back yard that has him so concerned. Any pretty leafy green plants back there?

Fair question. It would make sense. People who get all up in arms tend to be the ones with something to hide.
 
Fair question. It would make sense. People who get all up in arms tend to be the ones with something to hide.


Luckily, in America, the suspicion that someone has something to hide isn't enough to invade someones privacy. There are those of us who insist the Constitution be followed to prevent a police state and a loss of Rights.

I'm NOT defending the idiot who displayed a gun and knife. What I do defend is the ability for each person in America to be secure in their homes and on their property with their possessions.

Edit: I should add that I do not believe you're advocating a loss of Rights to see what people are doing in their own lives. Open ended comments tend to make me cringe, though. :)
 
Flying over someone's property isn't necessarily invading their privacy. If I simply go past or even over someone's property at 250ft and keep going on my merry way, there would have to be intent to invade privacy for that to be a privacy issue. Otherwise it is no different than a Cessna at 500ft or a Boeing at 35,000 feet.
 

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