Oh go ahead. I am sure we all now a knucklehead or two (like this heli pilot).
Hey who you calling a knucklehead!
LOL
Rant: Helicopter attacks drone
- Thread starter Droning About
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Hey who you calling a knucklehead!
LOL
I agree if they both broke the rules or the "the protocols of flying" then they BOTH should be held accountable, not just the drone pilot. . .just my 2 cents Peace
JSG
It "could be" that the UAS operator didn't have it in visual line of sight. But that's a guess, right?
Illegally if flying under Part 107. But what if he was flying for enjoyment? Then it would be inadvisable but not illegal, (right?), because it would not be in keeping with the FAA Hobbyist Guidelines as posted in this thread earlier by a moderator. FAR rules are mandatory, and violation can bring legal action, fines and loss of permit. FAA guidelines for hobbyists are advisory and not punishable by law.
What the UAS pilot did was minor compared to the very major rule and safety violations by the helicopter pilot by deliberately attacking and downing the UAV, possibly endangering people below.
By the way, how is "over people" defined? Does it mean precisely vertically over a person so that a dead drop would hit the person? If so, how high does that extend? Does it mean hovering over a person, or is passing over a person included. The devil is in the details.
The FAA has given us enough rope to hang ourselves with this. Basically they have it worded so that if an "incident happens" and the sUAS strikes someone then you were not flying in a manner to avoid "flying over people". Keep in mind that the forward progress of a sUAS could mean it could impact someone without you actually being directly over them during a system failure.
If hovering then directly over people would mean directly above their heads. If the aircraft is moving then we need to understand that and allow for a margin of safety should a total failure take place.
Even supposing that a piece of the ocean is somebody's private property, which I'm quite confident it is not, drones can legally fly over private property. Personally I would not go flying my drone around somebody else's event without their permission and I would do that out of etiquette. But from my understanding of the law, capturing video of Surfers in the ocean is completely within the bounds of what is legal so long as the Drone was not flying directly over anyone in the water.
Using a helicopter to knock it out of the air is what I would call a [Removed by Moderator] move.
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These are some of the comments below in the link that sar104 provided .
Its interesting .There are s lot of people who hate drones out there and incidents like this only add fuel to the fire .
I changed my mind after reading the comments. This guy deserved to loose his Mavic
If there are manned aircraft in the vicinity you shouldn't be flying at all.
Its interesting .There are s lot of people who hate drones out there and incidents like this only add fuel to the fire .
I changed my mind after reading the comments. This guy deserved to loose his Mavic
If there are manned aircraft in the vicinity you shouldn't be flying at all.
Attachments
Surely this is a fake? Probably not a Mavic, just a cheap phantom off eBay being used for a publicity stunt.
Apart from anything else the helicopter pilot needed to know the drone pilot was just going to wait rather than take avoiding action (which could have easily been towards the helicopter)
Apart from anything else the helicopter pilot needed to know the drone pilot was just going to wait rather than take avoiding action (which could have easily been towards the helicopter)
Either you don't know the difference between a Phantom and a Mavic or you didn't watch the video.
All legitimate points for sure, I guess I should of specified my point to my reply my bad. . .I was just referring to one aircraft endangering another that is if "Drones" are still considered "Aircraft", so legally someone mentioned it is unlawful for one aircraft to endanger the other while flying in the same space ?? So weather or not the Drone was being problematic or in a private area his removal could of been handled a little differently. Also in defense of Drone enthusiasts, If I had come upon that situation and people were trying to knock me out of the sky by throwing objects personally I would have taking that as a hint and been respectful and left, Drone Pilots like that make a bad name for all of us. Peace
Since this topic won't die, I might as well throw some gasoline on the smolding coals (ok, not that bad).
Security from the event came racing (no pun intended) over when I landed to scold me. Yer in trouble Mister, what's your name and lemme see your drivers license, we're calling the FAA blah blah blah.
I was on a boat at the marina watching the Hydrofest trials, during a break, I sent my phantom 4 into the middle of the race area and waited. A couple boats went out to do some test runs before official racing began. Shot some video. AT NO TIME did I fly over people or boats, not even over empty "track area" during the runs, altitude approx 100 feet, no helicopters in the area. No TFRs or any other flight restrictions. Just me and my drone and sunshine.
Told them to pack sand - but to calm my nervous boat captain I stayed down for the rest of the day. I did not violate any FAA rules. I didn't ask for permission from the race committee but ... did I have to?
Security from the event came racing (no pun intended) over when I landed to scold me. Yer in trouble Mister, what's your name and lemme see your drivers license, we're calling the FAA blah blah blah.
I was on a boat at the marina watching the Hydrofest trials, during a break, I sent my phantom 4 into the middle of the race area and waited. A couple boats went out to do some test runs before official racing began. Shot some video. AT NO TIME did I fly over people or boats, not even over empty "track area" during the runs, altitude approx 100 feet, no helicopters in the area. No TFRs or any other flight restrictions. Just me and my drone and sunshine.
Told them to pack sand - but to calm my nervous boat captain I stayed down for the rest of the day. I did not violate any FAA rules. I didn't ask for permission from the race committee but ... did I have to?
Maybe give them a heads up as a courtesy, but there's no requirement to get their permission - it's not theirs to give.
My issue with this is that most sUAS'es (that looks weird to type) can continue to stay at their level and just drift for potentially thousands of feet if loss of control and GPS happens. That makes it hard to set a specific area that is safe/unsafe to be in relation to people. I'm not saying I have a solution, just pointing out the flaw in the current rules logic.
N017RW
Premium Pilot
Flaw?
It is similar to an automobile rear-end collision...
If you, the 'crash-ee', are struck from behind it is almost never your fault.
Yes, there are exceptions of course but this is the standard unless the crash-ee was in some way negligent to contribute to the collision.
Since you are aware of the possibility of drift, which fixed-wing sUAS's are also capable of btw, you must then be operating accordingly.
Once the skids leave the ground the PIC is responsible for all aspects of the flight.
While it's possible for multiple systems to fail at the same time it's not common to have loss of control and loss GPS at the same time. Just like in an automobile we rarely see a genuine loss of steering and loss of braking at the same time.
As @N017RW pointed out the RPIC is responsible regardless. As an Aviator it is our responsibility to do everything we can to eliminate or at least reduce the risks in our actions as much as we can. While there will always be possible situations etc that we can't fully eliminate etc we have to do whatever we can to make our flights as safe as is possible even if it creates restrictions, problems or even cancels the flight.
That's definitely a good point. I do sometimes wonder; of the crashes that are not pilot error, what percentage of those drop out of the sky versus drift?
And as far as my original post goes, I do agree with your response. I was just trying to say that the rules/system isn't perfect and sometimes (or rather all the time) you should use your best judgment along with the rules.
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