Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

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32wildbilly
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 32wildbilly » Tue Jan 22, 2019 4:59 pm

5chn3ll wrote: Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:28 am Me? No, no... *pant pant* Why do you ask? *hides drone under floorboards*

Weird, I'd read that they had caught the perpetrators who had been foolishly and recklessly operating an unmanned aerial system so close to a major airport.
Are you now in New Jersey?? This simply has to stop... :lol:
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 32wildbilly » Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:30 am

I think I pondered this before...Why don't they just shoot these things down or I'm sure there is technology available to make the drone think it is actually a Tickle Me Elmo do a giggle and shut itself off. I don't understand why steps aren't taken to defend against this possible catastrophic problem. They have anti-bird things why not anti-drone things?

Wait a minute maybe the Federal Dept of Anti-drone Defense is furloughed because of Stupid's government shut-down.
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by gnat » Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:56 am

32wildbilly wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:30 am I think I pondered this before...Why don't they just shoot these things down or I'm sure there is technology available to make the drone think it is actually a Tickle Me Elmo do a giggle and shut itself off. I don't understand why steps aren't taken to defend against this possible catastrophic problem. They have anti-bird things why not anti-drone things?

Wait a minute maybe the Federal Dept of Anti-drone Defense is furloughed because of Stupid's government shut-down.
When you have a high number of law enforcement forming a complete circle around the Boston Bombers fire 200 rounds and the only injury is caused by one brother running the other over, do you really think they could hit a drone?

Also consider that what goes up must also come down and that many airports are in populated areas. So if a projectile strong enough to take a drone down (which may be 220' up) misses, it's going to have a chance of coming down and hitting someone or something.

There are anti-drone weapons out there and some airports are starting to deploy them. My understanding is that they essentially jam or hijack the control frequency being used. Success is a mixed bag though from what I've seen.

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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 5chn3ll » Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:40 am

Law enforcement needs to partner up with the enthusiast community. A $200 racing drone in the twitchy hands of a yout will take down anything except maybe one of the monster agricultural multirotors.

Longer-term, I think the drone manufacturers will come out with hunter-killer drones for law enforcement. Unlike military aircraft, most drones are blasting RF indiscriminately in all directions; I see a scenario with a controller that overlays RF feed over a video feed, allowing the operator to visually designate an RF emission source. The drone goes autonomous, homing in on and colliding with the RF source. The direction, angle, and speed of the collision would even provide a rudimentary measure for controlling the debris field.

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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 32wildbilly » Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:46 am

gnat wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:56 am
32wildbilly wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:30 am I think I pondered this before...Why don't they just shoot these things down or I'm sure there is technology available to make the drone think it is actually a Tickle Me Elmo do a giggle and shut itself off. I don't understand why steps aren't taken to defend against this possible catastrophic problem. They have anti-bird things why not anti-drone things?

Wait a minute maybe the Federal Dept of Anti-drone Defense is furloughed because of Stupid's government shut-down.
When you have a high number of law enforcement forming a complete circle around the Boston Bombers fire 200 rounds and the only injury is caused by one brother running the other over, do you really think they could hit a drone?

Also consider that what goes up must also come down and that many airports are in populated areas. So if a projectile strong enough to take a drone down (which may be 220' up) misses, it's going to have a chance of coming down and hitting someone or something.

There are anti-drone weapons out there and some airports are starting to deploy them. My understanding is that they essentially jam or hijack the control frequency being used. Success is a mixed bag though from what I've seen.
I heard these two drones were over by Teterboro airport at an altitude of 3500 feet! 3500 feet for craps sake! I could see where hijacking the frequency would be difficult these days with the current RC stuff. Back in the day we had like ten frequencies available for RC cars, although some ran boat frequencies so you wouldn't have to change crystals to due conflicts. I have no knowledge of anyone who really did that... :roll:
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 5chn3ll » Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:24 am

I don't know what the UAS laws in the UK are like, but here, anything over 400 feet (unless you're flying from a structure or building that is over 400 feet tall, in which case you are TYPICALLY permitted to fly 400 feet above that structure) is prohibited unless you are properly documented and you have an honest-to-god licensed pilot at the controls. Enthusiast pilots are pretty much forbidden from flying in civil aviation airspace.

Drone pilots are also legally required by the FAA to keep the UAS in visual control range - i.e. line-of-sight; flying at nearly a mile in elevation suggests that this rule was also ignored.

Every new drone owner gets this stupid urge to fly as high as possible and do other things that are really bad ideas...but this stuff happening around airports sounds a little more insidious to me. I can't really think of any good reason to fly a drone anywhere near an airport, especially while it's not in visual control range - no amount of fun is worth inadvertently killing a bunch of people.

Understeer: You will hit the wall with the front end.
Oversteer: You will hit the wall with the rear end.
Horsepower: How hard you will hit the wall.
Torque: How far you will move the wall.

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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by FRUNKenstein » Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:27 am

5chn3ll wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:40 am . . . most drones are blasting RF indiscriminately in all directions; I see a scenario with a controller that overlays RF feed over a video feed, allowing the operator to visually designate an RF emission source. The drone goes autonomous, homing in on and colliding with the RF source. The direction, angle, and speed of the collision would even provide a rudimentary measure for controlling the debris field.
Wow, spooky - this is exactly what I was going to say.
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 32wildbilly » Thu Jan 24, 2019 2:38 pm

5chn3ll wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:24 am I don't know what the UAS laws in the UK are like, but here, anything over 400 feet (unless you're flying from a structure or building that is over 400 feet tall, in which case you are TYPICALLY permitted to fly 400 feet above that structure) is prohibited unless you are properly documented and you have an honest-to-god licensed pilot at the controls. Enthusiast pilots are pretty much forbidden from flying in civil aviation airspace.

Drone pilots are also legally required by the FAA to keep the UAS in visual control range - i.e. line-of-sight; flying at nearly a mile in elevation suggests that this rule was also ignored.

Every new drone owner gets this stupid urge to fly as high as possible and do other things that are really bad ideas...but this stuff happening around airports sounds a little more insidious to me. I can't really think of any good reason to fly a drone anywhere near an airport, especially while it's not in visual control range - no amount of fun is worth inadvertently killing a bunch of people.
It only takes one idiot. Hope it never comes to that.
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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by FRUNKenstein » Thu Jan 24, 2019 6:31 pm

I doubt a small drone is going to take out a commercial jetliner engine, though. They are designed to ingest some pretty big birds without a hiccup.

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Re: Drones, quadcopters, and FPV flight

Post by 5chn3ll » Fri Jan 25, 2019 1:34 pm

True - but even my crappy Phantom was pretty happy flying Gnat's IMS bearing around; it's small but might provide more of a problem to a fan assembly than a hunk of dead goose. The drones that were disrupting air operations during the fires in 2017 and 2018 here in CA were MUCH bigger - estimated to be 4 feet across; octocopters that size that can lift 100-200 pounds.

A DJI Matrice 600, which is a prosumer multi-rotor drone, has a max takeoff weight of about 22 pounds. Just parking a 22-pound mostly metal object in front of an airliner going 400MPH would probably be sufficient to at least force an emergency landing and a full ground stop while things are investigated.

Frankly, as an enthusiast, I can't believe drones aren't more heavily regulated. The number of drones that could be used to fly a kilo of cocaine across the border from a mile away is ridiculous; at some point, 200 people with 200 drones flying semi-simultaneous missions becomes nearly impossible to track. Further, you don't have to be waiting on the other end - all you need is a GPS waypoint for wherever the cargo winds up.

Drones would also be suitable for spreading biological agents in small areas - a drone over a sporting event or a music festival at 50 feet could dust hundreds of people; an agricultural drone set up for spraying pesticides or fertilizer could just as easily spread any agent over crowds or crops (municipal water supplies, it turns out, would require such an enormous amount of toxin/poison that it doesn't actually make a good target).

It really does surprise me that police departments don't have standardized anti-drone/anti-UAS tactics...if you follow the news from less peaceful parts of the world, it sure seems like drones have replaced or are replacing IEDs, confidential informants, smugglers, and assassins. There's a reason our military likes flying drones and missiles remotely instead of using meat pilots.

Understeer: You will hit the wall with the front end.
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Horsepower: How hard you will hit the wall.
Torque: How far you will move the wall.

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