
He flew it there thinking there may have been a road accident.
WTF? Was it going there to airlift the injured to hospital?
What a planet.
A Russian-speaking man from Cambridgeshire has become the first person in the UK to be convicted of illegally flying a drone beneath a police helicopter during a search operation. Sergej Miaun's antics with his DJI Phantom 4 caused a search for a missing woman to be abandoned after police helicopter pilot Lee Holmes became …
I guess it's the new rubbernecking...
Indeed. The legislation remains weak though.
Obstructing emergency vehicles on the road can be prosecuted as dangerous/reckless driving as well as a whole raft of offences. If you do that ON the road the maximum penalties can be measured in YEARS and an unlimited fine. Compared to that the applicable parts of the legislation look fairly feeble.
He flew it there thinking there may have been a road accident.
WTF? Was it going there to airlift the injured to hospital?
What a planet.
And I've long considered going through the aggravation and nuisance of purchasing a drone, launching it and reconnoitering the route to work.
Fortunately, I'm not in the UK, where doing so could turn into a felony.
"And I've long considered going through the aggravation and nuisance of purchasing a drone, launching it and reconnoitering the route to work.
Fortunately, I'm not in the UK, where doing so could turn into a felony."
Fly it over my house, and the paintball gun I have loaded with methyl mercaptan pellets (very useful for discouraging coyotes in my area) would get some more target practice.
They're essentially illegal to fly outdoors in towns and cities.
The rules say you can't have a drone within 50m of people of buildings (excluding buildings "you control", I think the wording is, which is why drone racing can be legally done), nor can you fly it within 150m of crowds or built-up areas.
There's obviously a band between 150m up and the 400m cap, but how'd you get them there? You want to play with these toys, you need to aska farmer nicely or see if the National Trust will let you fly 'em (I expect they will in some of the less sensitive reserves, but I've not checked).
I'll definitely be checking out that Defcon talk; it starts with "God this talk was fun to make" so hopefully I won't be disappointed.
By the way, "neighbours" is spelt "neighbors" in the title of this talk. You probably just typed it out from memory, so I'll forgive you. I'm British, but generally accepting of American spelling, except perhaps for "Aluminum" - I'm willing to write "sulfur" but y'all had better include that extra i in Aluminium.
No teacher icon as that's for professional Grammar Nazis, though I will think less of anyone who writes "your" when they mean "you're".
Teacher Icon is actually Jimmy Edwards (actor) starring in an old black and white TV comedy called Whack-O!, based on the shenanigans of the staff and pupils at a fictitious Public School called Chislebury (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/whacko/). Quite what it has to do with being a Grammar Nazi (guilty as charged), I have no idea. Used to be a good laugh, though.
His explanation was that he saw police lights over the A47 and flew the drone over there in first-person view (FPV) mode, controlling it from his iPad, thinking there may have been a road accident
Any sympathy I might have had for this person vanished at the above. Someone who gets cheap thrills out of the rest of us' tragedies has got off lightly, imo. Hope he's learned his less.
The actual reason for rubbernecking, is the off-chance that the accident DOES have something to do with you. He saw the lights from his home, so he had higher than average reason to believe that he or someone related may be relevant.
Also, if the police had been there for any other reason (and thus not in need of the chopper), then checking out the situation with a drone, as opposed to turning up in person, would have been lauded by most people on the scene as the right choise.
Nah, it's prurient interest and nosey-parkerism plain and simple.
Getting rid of this idiotic traffic-jamming practice is one item on a very short list of reasons I can see for virtualizing the view from car windows. No accident/police stop/bloke changing a tire (for fuck's sake), no mile-long tailback on the opposite carriageway of the Long Island Expressway.
(If you are interested, in-fog vision enhancement and heads-up navigation (that blocked lane presents as a simple chicane with no work crew to cause rubbernecking) are the other items.)
It's incredible. You change a tire on the LIE and you have half a million people who need to get a good look because they've never seen such a miraculous sight before. Get rear-ended on the same stretch of road, no-one sees anything.
@OldCrow
Nonsense. People love to look at wrecked up shit, myself included. Though whilst on the road my focus is most definitely on keeping the traffic moving. If I really want to see it I'm sure there will be a load of portrait videos shot by gawpers posted to YouTube or passed to a local news website (you know, the one with all the trashy ads).
Do you think people watch things like "Top 10 most epic fails" out of concern for a family member?
It's been going on for centuries...
The actual reason for rubbernecking, is the off-chance that the accident DOES have something to do with you. He saw the lights from his home, so he had higher than average reason to believe that he or someone related may be relevant.
The actual reason for rubbernecking is the exact same reason that public executions were both public and well-attended, often being the social event of the month.
Good old morbid curiosity, we just can't help ourselves.
I have friends that operate a charity that searches for missing people and dogs. They often use a drone, and the "donation" of a second one to use in searching would have been much appreciated.
It'd help me too on the times I'm called out locally to track for them. But certainly not with me flying it - I can't control them things at all!
" A bit like when cars are crushed for no tax. "
They seldom are. The owner has a chance to pay the fine & get his car back and then the car goes up for auction if he fails to do so. 90% of crushings are old bangers noone in their right mind would want and the remainder are ones the police have decided they want publicity with (or are dangerous mods that can't be allowed back on the road)
They seldom are
It happens often enough in the US for illegal imports - cars imported in violation of the "Chicken Tax" (a protectionist scheme to keep newer foreign cars out of the US market). You can find articles and videos on various car-enthusiast websites such as Jalopnik.
And it is a waste. If they have to seize the cars (regardless of how stupid the governing statute is), fine. They're nearly always vehicles of interest to enthusiasts, so auction them off to enthusiasts outside the US. They'll probably sell at very low prices (as we see with police vehicle auctions now), but as long as the buyer pays for shipping, who cares?
But the police helo following the drone home after it left the area seems to be a far lower priority that finding a missing person at night in December.
I read it as the police choppper headed for home (due to the risk from the unknown drone) and a plod followed the drone on foot to observe where it landed
I read it as the police choppper headed for home (due to the risk from the unknown drone)
this reminds me of section in a book i read once,
Mr. Prosser:
Do you know how much damage this bulldozer would sustain if I just let it roll over you?
Arthur:
How much?
Mr. Prosser:
None at all.
I am almost certain that a helicopter could suffer no damage at all if it was to make contact with a drone... the most vulnerable part of a helicopter has to be the tail rotor and i believe most police helicopters have a fenestron to limit noise, but will also protect it from bird strike or small drones...
but the thing is, its first class pricks like this, and that tit that buzzed the bears on that mountain that was all over the news last week and others that go buzzing over other peoples property that screwing the hobby up for everyone who acts responsibly.
I am almost certain that a helicopter could suffer no damage at all if it was to make contact with a drone...
That depends on a given value of "drone".
A chunky camera rig like a DJI Phantom (the offender in question here) or something carrying a DSLR-class camera with enough mass/inertia for sensibly stable flight in wind and weather could indeed make a mess of a tail rotor.
By contrast a diddly little racing drone would be batted down like a gnat (not that such a thing would be out playing "in the wild" anyway).
Sadly particle beams aren't a thing. At least not man-portable versions. Accuracy International do make a rather nice rifle in .338
Could be a way to update old phrases, like 'He can shoot a rotor off a DJI at 400m'. AFAIK the police helicopters aren't fitted with kevlar, so there'd still need to be deconfliction..
"Accuracy International do make a rather nice rifle in .338"
Uh yeah, right.
What goes up, must come down. In this case, ballisiticaly and 1-2 miles from where it was fired.
First rule of gun control: ALWAYS ensure you know where your rounds will end up even if you miss.
On this side of the Atlantic even thinking about taking that shot would cost you your license.
Perhaps the police, instead of making a public spectacle of this guy, should realize that they could be doing EXACTLY what he was doing and spending one hell of a lot less $$. If you are looking for a missing person, you don't need a a helicopter in the air at hundreds of pounds per hour when we have something now that works just as well. What I am saying is, for these types of things, DRONES ARE CHEAPER, and maybe even better. I would bet that you could dispatch a fleet of these under computer control and cover 10 times the area of the Helicopter in 1/10th the time AT THE SAME COST.
It sounds like the helicopter pilot got bored with looking for the woman and thought it would be much easier to chase the drone. Sure, finding a drone in your flight path is a bother but it's really not that big a deal. Was the pilot worried - no, just got distracted.
Use to be we'd joke, “Oh look, there's a squirrel” ....
"Sure, finding a drone in your flight path is a bother but it's really not that big a deal. "
I imagine that getting a Phantom caught up in your own rotor might be fatal and anyone flying directly underneath a Police helicopter just for shits and giggles is clearly an idiot, so the risk of such an accident might seem quite high if you were the pilot.
Since the drone was below the helicopter it was no threat at all - there's no way it could have risen into the force of the helicopters downdraft. The only serious risk from the drone or any other flying object (swan sized) would be if it hit the tail rotor and damaged it but the relative masses of the two objects mean that while drones are a risk, they are not a big risk. The pilot was happy to follow the drone home ... not worried about it at all.
The police do have a terrible record for air safety. They are supposed to have the pilot concentrate on flying and the policeman concentrate on spotting. Once the pilot joins the search they're in great danger.
If the pilot really did give chase to the drone he would need fighter pilot skills. "Tank I need a fighter pilot program for an EC145 helicopter"
unbeknown to the police, all you commentards calling for this operator to be hanged, drawn and quartered wouldn't be quite so vindictive for someone else performing exactly the same actions.
It really doesn't take much to make supposedly mature adults outraged these days. No wonder the country is so angry when it takes so little to upset people.
"The person in charge of a small unmanned aircraft may only fly the aircraft if reasonably satisfied that the flight can safely be made"
You can reasonably satisfied if that's the case with an FPV drone. I'd be more comfortable at 100 miles satisfying myself through FPV that than using line of sight to satisfy myself at 400 meters. Also yes I did put it like that intentionally. There are a few absurdities in law with this stuff, which is probably why some people don't take the law seriously. I can fly actual aircraft (PPL - although my rating lapsed admittedly years ago because I wasn't getting any use out of it) and so I'm fully aware of the issues and the drone panic (albeit sometimes justified) is drowning out sensible regulation in this area.
Also that offence isn't strict liability is it? It can't be else it wouldn't rely on a person satisfying themselves - surely they should be required to prove a person isn't reasonably satisfied that it's safe to fly.
Bit of a leap. The helicopter's altitude would have been significantly higher than this drone. The reason he wouldn't have known it was there is they weren't in conflict which is precisely the point isn't it? The downwash from a heli would have destroyed it basically instantly if he was within hundreds of feet of it.
I'd be interested to see the video from the heli which should have been saved as evidence to see what actually happened.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying the guy isn't an utter clown, but I'm interested in how much real risk there is/was.
Whilst it may be arguable whether the pilot believed the flight could be made safely or not, what is not in dispute is that he flew it beyond Line-Of-Sight - a clear breach of the Air Navigation Order.
I fly RC models - which cannot maintain stable flight beyond LOS - and unfortunately I and my fellow RC pilots have been caught up in the drone legislation through no fault of our own. This leaves me very unsympathetic to idiots who fly these things in inappropriate areas.
I live in a semi-rural area, near the coast and with a steam railway running nearby. Twice in one week, I had idiots taking off from the pavement outside my house, flying at low level over the (busy-ish) road and my neighbours' houses to get photos of the train! One at least had the decency to look sheepish and disappear when challenged. The other claimed to be a licensed professional at first, but then scarpered pretty quickly when I quoted the relevant sections of the Air Navigation Order to him.
From my perspective, this guy got off lightly.
--
Pete
"I fly RC models - which cannot maintain stable flight beyond LOS - and unfortunately I and my fellow RC pilots have been caught up in the drone legislation through no fault of our own."
I would HOPE that you did finally come under such laws and regulations considering the much more dangerous activity you are involved in.
Your so called "RC" (read unmanned) aircraft are inherently more dangerous than the typical drone today (above the lowest toy grade) as they, by your own admission, can not maintain stable safe flight beyond line of sight or even loss of signal.
Typically a drone would have GPS onboard as well as other sophisticated devices that enable it to be aware of its position relative to launch point / waypoint, altitude and 3D accelerometers letting it know where it is headed, how far and how fast. Upon loss of signal it will attempt to navigate back to its take off point and land. It will also do this if commanded by the owner and if its batteries are getting too low. Loss of sight is an issue for the operator that can be mitigated by the inclusion of FPV on the drone that can allow the operator to reacquire sight or attempt to land it safely should a return home command be iffy due to a low battery. Also if there is loss of sight the drone can simply hover, not bothering anyone, not simply falling out of the sky or plowing into a family picnic like with your "models".
Your so called "RC models", which is an archaic term for an unmanned aircraft these days, do none of this. They wont return home when commanded, when running low on power or when they lose comms to the controller but will happily fly about in an uncontrolled manner (as you pointed out) till they hit something or someone.
Your "models" are highly dangerous should you lose control. What happens if you have a heart attack? What happens if you get distracted by someone who is in danger or get distracted by your kids who really need an adult. Are you going to always be able to say "hang on, try to stop bleeding while I land the thing, not long now"
If any of those things were to happen to me I can quite simply press the RTH button. The drone, not needing my assistance, while I deal with the emergency will climb to a decent height and slowly make its way back to the launch point where it will then slowly descend till it touches the ground and shuts off its motors.
I'd much rather be near a drone than a flying missile any day. Yep, things can happen to cause the drone to fall out of the sky like a rock but at least its designed to not do that by default.
Exactly, it should be the consequences that the punishment are based on. I suspect that if they had time to chase the drone then the more important job of finding the missing person had been successful. However if they abandoned the search in order to make £460 they have their priorities wrong.
Yep, the sky belongs to the paranoid elite. Nobody else can enjoy the sky.
SH*T whats that! A bird? Kill them all. Air supremacy!
I'd rather you lot stop flying anything other than large commercial jets and go back to walking across the earth while society leave the skies to the birds and small aircraft running deliveries for amazon.
I can imagine this attitude being applied to users of smartphones with cameras that have decent resolution. How dare these kids / snapshotting amateurs take photos that could rival my shots from my expensive DSLR that I spent many coins on together with some professional qualifications in photography. The light that comes off your bodies BELONGS TO ME! I'm the photographer, with the kit.
This country is wrapped up in a stigma of 'drones are bad'. Yes, the internet is full of drone muppets, its also full of idiots who climb buildings they shouldn't be climbing. Cars being driving at speeds they shouldn't be driven at. etc etc. This is the first case, there will be many more. Yet, the overall dislike of drones on this thread is I am sorry to say, pretty typical of todays news reporting. When was the last time you saw good being done by dronws
There are idiots who drive cars, should those be banned? There are idiots who use power tools. ban those too? Muppets who climb these tall buildings? should we ban tall buildings too?
Legislate all you like, this will only affect the lawful. The muppets amongst us, will do their own thing. Unfortunately, they will spoil it for all concerned.
In this case, clear violation of ANO, fine levied was insufficient. However, new drone registration rules will help here. Also, the work being done by Vodafone for identification of drones in use will help too.
Seems funny that downing a helicopter is discussed but the debris from a disabled drone be it from contact or wash, is assumed to vapourise before landing somewhere.
Possibly a person, possibly a vehicle where the driver is distracted enough to cause a serious accident.
A friend neighbours drone crashed into my friends roof killing tiles.
As a quadcopter flyer, it is upon me to follow the rules. I check where I'm allowed to fly, I follow the drone code as set out by the CAA rules and yes I upload footage to youtube of various things.
I dislike how these things are sold as toys (and more and more at toy prices). The manufacturers should be held jointly responsible.
In this case, the owner of the quadcopter flew it well beyond his line of sight thus contravening the rules. The video, featured on another site, shows that he was well below and not that close to the helicopter but had it of been in the line of sight he couldn't fail to notice the helicopter close by. It's about time we started fining people, making these fines more public and removing such vehicles as has happened in this case.
I thought the Police Air Operations Manual stated a minimum altitude of 800 ft above the highest obstruction within 5 km of the aircraft when flying at night? The data overlay on the video suggests that the police may of been way below that limit.
I'm not defending the drone operator IMHO he's a pillock but if the police pilot is at fault should they not be reprimanded as well?