I'd love to get one of these but I understand they're starting to get attention from the authorities.
It's only a matter of time before some bright spark flies one in the airspace around a major airport or one has a battery failure and the thing lands on somebody's head and the authorities will have a big crackdown on them.
In fact I think it was only last week they found somebody was using RC quad-copters to smuggle drugs into a prison in Ireland.
There's a video on Youtube where some guy in Sweden flies on straight up to over 800m altitude, which in itself is a really stupid thing to do. He loses the telemetry and eventually the batteries fail, the thing comes crashing down from quite a height and lands in a tree. Had it landed on somebody's house/car/head then he would have been in a lot of trouble.
#3977097 - 07/05/1411:41 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Arthonon]
Stupid if he did get caught doing this without permission. There will be a large fireworks explosion if a rocket catches a quadcopter and send a flaming lithium battery down into the area.
#3977104 - 07/06/1412:44 AMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Arthonon]
Joined: Aug 2007 Posts: 2,897December
Senior Member
Unless this guy had official permission to do this he is an idiot and the reason why someday I won't be able to fly my little Blade CX2 in my backyard or my foam GWS Corsair at an empty park.
If the drone had been damaged by one of the fireworks and come down near any people, it could have seriously hurt someone. And in this day and age (as much as I don't agree with it) the masses pay for the mistakes of the stupid few.
Not to mention these idiots frequently fly these things in controlled airspace at altitudes (due to the advance of technology) that aircraft operate at. Wait until a plane or helicopter runs into one...
One of the coolest vids I've seen in awhile, regardless of the legality/smartness of it.
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#3977809 - 07/07/1411:37 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Nixer]
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 2,603malibu43
Senior Member
One of the coolest vids I've seen in awhile, regardless of the legality/smartness of it.
That is very true.
But I have seen this video shared on FB a couple of times already and am concerned it will inspire a wave of idiots to do stupid things with a quadcopter. In fact, someone I know with zero RC experience said "I have to do this." I know (or hope) he is mostly joking, but there are lots of idiots out there.
I call malibu43's reply the bunnyhuggers of the RC world.
For pete's sake, you can get killed crossing the damn road, and more likely than being hit by an RC aircraft. I wish these guys would stop screaming legality everytime someone do something with his RC plane.
Guns have a point and click interface.
Gun free South Africa? Suck my Glock!
#3977988 - 07/08/1401:02 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Arthonon]
People doing stupid stuff with these quadcopters is going to end up in governments being forced to legislate which will ruin the enjoyment for everybody who do use RC aircraft responsibly.
So lets outlaw rc aircraft so we are all safe. While we are at it, we should outlaw any aircraft as they could possibly fail and also fall on our head, maybe land vehicles as well, and all guns, and then we can all sit behind our keyboards and look important without ever doing anything exciting or fun or, god forbid, dangerous.
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#3978109 - 07/08/1404:42 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Arthonon]
Either he was farther away than it looked or that camera was stabilized, because that copter seems like it should have been thrown around the sky by those explosions.
Phil
“The biggest problem people have is they don’t think they’re supposed to have problems.” - Hayes Barnard
#3978130 - 07/08/1405:26 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Warbirds]
So lets outlaw rc aircraft so we are all safe. While we are at it, we should outlaw any aircraft as they could possibly fail and also fall on our head, maybe land vehicles as well, and all guns, and then we can all sit behind our keyboards and look important without ever doing anything exciting or fun or, god forbid, dangerous.
Very poor strawman.
Any aircraft you see in the sky is piloted by somebody who has had formal training and passed tests and exams. The airspace is very often monitored and controlled. The aviation industry itself is very heavily regulated.
Ditto with cars. Everybody behind the wheel of a car has at the very least had formal training and passed some kind of test.
Anybody can buy a DJI Phantom and instantly have a small drone that can easily get a couple of thousand feet up into the air. No training or license is required. You can just go and buy one now and do whatever you please with it.
Nobody is saying ban RC aircraft. The point here is these quadcopters like the DJI Phantom are ridiculously easy to operate and require nothing like the investment in time and training that a traditional RC aircraft does. That means you don't have to join a club and learn good and responsible practice from experienced flyers. You can just buy one of these online and away you go.
Now please check out the video I linked above. This guy didn't go out in the countryside or away from anything or anyone that might get damaged or hurt if his stunt went wrong - he flew it at 3,000ft over a town. Does that strike you as a terribly clever or sensible thing to do?
Now given how stupid a significant percentage of the population can be, how long do you think it might be before some rich kid in West London is given one of these toys and decides to see how high it can go when he's sitting right underneath the approach path into one of the busiest international airports in the world?
Sooner or later one of these quadcopters will be involved in an incident somewhere because someone was being stupid, and the kneejerk reaction from the governments will be to ban all RC aircraft, meaning all the responsible RC flyers will be punished because of the idiocy of a few.
#3978154 - 07/08/1406:21 PMRe: Fireworks as seen from a RC quadcopter
[Re: Pielstick]
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 2,603malibu43
Senior Member
RogueRunner and Warbirds - you guys clearly didn't read my first post clearly. I am not in favor of taking fun things away from the general population whenever there is the slightest chance something will go wrong. In fact, I am strongly against it. But, whether I like it or not, that is how things happen these days. And I don't want to lose the right to fly an RC aircraft in a safe manner because some idiot, well..., acted like an idiot.
Originally Posted By: Pielstick
Originally Posted By: Warbirds
So lets outlaw rc aircraft so we are all safe. While we are at it, we should outlaw any aircraft as they could possibly fail and also fall on our head, maybe land vehicles as well, and all guns, and then we can all sit behind our keyboards and look important without ever doing anything exciting or fun or, god forbid, dangerous.
Very poor strawman.
Any aircraft you see in the sky is piloted by somebody who has had formal training and passed tests and exams. The airspace is very often monitored and controlled. The aviation industry itself is very heavily regulated.
Ditto with cars. Everybody behind the wheel of a car has at the very least had formal training and passed some kind of test.
Anybody can buy a DJI Phantom and instantly have a small drone that can easily get a couple of thousand feet up into the air. No training or license is required. You can just go and buy one now and do whatever you please with it.
Nobody is saying ban RC aircraft. The point here is these quadcopters like the DJI Phantom are ridiculously easy to operate and require nothing like the investment in time and training that a traditional RC aircraft does. That means you don't have to join a club and learn good and responsible practice from experienced flyers. You can just buy one of these online and away you go.
Now please check out the video I linked above. This guy didn't go out in the countryside or away from anything or anyone that might get damaged or hurt if his stunt went wrong - he flew it at 3,000ft over a town. Does that strike you as a terribly clever or sensible thing to do?
Now given how stupid a significant percentage of the population can be, how long do you think it might be before some rich kid in West London is given one of these toys and decides to see how high it can go when he's sitting right underneath the approach path into one of the busiest international airports in the world?
Sooner or later one of these quadcopters will be involved in an incident somewhere because someone was being stupid, and the kneejerk reaction from the governments will be to ban all RC aircraft, meaning all the responsible RC flyers will be punished because of the idiocy of a few.
I live within the class D airspace of KSQL and we frequently have (real) helicopters transitioning over our neighborhood. One night a couple weeks ago around sunset I saw this couple out for a walk stop in front of our house and point at the sky. I walked outside and finally saw a very small, stationary object with a red and green light hovering between 500 and 1000ft a couple hundred yards away. After a few moments I picked up a buzzing noise as well. I realized it was a small quadcopter of some sort. It then headed in the general direction of the airport, passing right over my head. The entire time I watched it, it was most likely in controlled airpace, and pretty much right in the path where the Coast Guard's Dauphin frequently passes through, low and at a high speed.
It's not a matter of if, but when. And there will be consequences for the rest of us that operate RC aircraft in a safe and legal matter.