No, drone owners – all our base are belong to US, thunders military

After unwrapping your new drone on Christmas Day, do us a massive solid and don't fly it near our bases, the US military seems to be saying. Apparently, in the past 12 months, there have been 35 cases of personal quadcopters flying too close to government aircraft and airfields, plus about 1,000 complaints of small drones …

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

"Oddly, the FAA has questionable authority over anything below 400 feet, yet wants to draw up a list of potential troublemakers using that space." Oddly enough, I think the FAA wants to know when said troublemakers exceed 400 feet and they'll only know who they are if they tag them at ground level first.

[Charles 9]

Perhaps a bit of confusion here. While the FAA does not control the airspace below 500 feet of private property (that usually falls to the ground property owner unless they've sold an easement), they do have power over any aircraft, manned or unmanned, bigger than a foot or two in wingspan. That latter power attaches to the craft and not the airspace so they have regulatory authority no matter where the craft goes. That's why downing a drone larger than toy size can result in a federal felony charge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly, the FAA has questionable authority over anything below 400 feet

That must make landing and take off awkward :)

[Chris King]

Maybe they need to follow Dogbert's example...

http://dilbert.com/strip/1989-05-18

[Mark 85]

"our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

ROFLMAOWPMP....

a) Idiots don't know they're idiots.

b) Nothing is idiot proof.

c) We, in the States, have an over abundance of idiots.

Otherwise, great advice.

[JustWondering]

Re: "our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead; it is difficult only for others.

It is the same when you are stupid.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: "our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

Canny underwriters have foreseen the risk of drones falling into the hands of 'amateurs, fools and children'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/12068861/Home-insurers-rush-to-exclude-drones-as-Christmas-sees-popularity-soar.html

[Anonymous Coward]

@Mark 85.Re: "our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

C): We, in the UK are now also in the same position because of C)

[Johndoe888]

Re: "our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

There is no such thing as an idiot proof system since there is no such thing as a system proof idiot.

[Joe User]

Re: "our best advice is: just don't be an idiot. "

c) We, in the States, have an over abundance of self-important idiots.

FTFY.

[Chris G]

Drone control device

I recommend one of these for low flying drones; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFswvt5pM4

or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEGE7k9FD4 for higher faster targets, a bit more expensive to run though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Drone control device

I like the pellet gun idea, because it creates less risk when the pellets fall back or miss - the other one is a bit OTT, I think.

All we need now is something to automatically recognise and aim on drones, because you could also just aim a few high-candela torches at it. If you can light it up from 3 angles there is no way it'll be able to film anything (caveat - this should not be done anywhere near air traffic. It won't reach quite as far as a laser, but it's still quite a lot of light).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Drone control device

In the UK, IF you fire an air weapon in your garden or on your own property and the pellet lands in the garden of your neighbour, or ANY other property, you run the risk of a pretty large fine and possibly gaol...

[fruitoftheloon]

@Chris G: Re: Drone control device

Chris,

that is a most impressive bit of kit, I would have loved to have a go at using that for clay bird shooting (because it would be quite a bit of fun and I was always shite at clay bird).

Full-bore rifle and big pistols, I was OK, everything else, somewhat less so...

Cheers,

J

[james 68]

3,000+ feet eh?

Very few "drones" are capable of this feat, any that are, are very large, very expensive, professional quality items of the type used by TV news crews and.... police forces.

So either the TV news/police are generating their own news stories to further a shock and outrage agenda against "drones" (a theory which I subscribe to) or the perpetrator will be ridiculously easy to find, just look for the richest local chump for whom blowing several thousands of dollars on what is essentially a toy when not being used for actual work is meaningless.

These quadcopters, hexcopters etc are generally NOT "drones". A few do have proper autopilot and/or computer C&C with pathfinding etc, but the majority are nothing more than RC aircraft. It is stupid to call them drones unless you are going to apply that name to all RC aircraft equally.

[Kye Macdonald]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

DJI Phantoms will exceed that height limit easily. By default their software will restrict it to 500m above home start altitude. But there is nothing in the air frame that prevents significantly higher altitude.

[heyrick]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

"But there is nothing in the air frame that prevents significantly higher altitude."

While I'm no physicist, there is nothing obvious in the airframe of my drone that prevents it from doing hundreds or thousands of metres. It can just go up and up and up...

...until it would reach around 90 metres, at which point it can no longer receive signals from the controller. I presume that, with no control signals, it will begin performing an unguided crash landing. Well, there are more smarts onboard than the older RC helicopter toys, so I'd hope it would use the accelerometer to take itself down fairly gently, but it could just as easily free-fall.

What limits my range is not the capability of the drone itself, it's the capability of the controller.

Surely anything that can do big distances/heights would need a licensed transmitter?

[Kye Macdonald]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

The DJI Phantom allows you to pre-program your flight path and it will use GPS to follow it. They also take a gps position lock so that should you lose signal in guided mode it will return to start point.

So in their case the limits to height are the airframe and batteries.

[Vic]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

I'm no physicist

Clearly.

there is nothing obvious in the airframe of my drone that prevents it from doing hundreds or thousands of metres

Yes there is. Air is not of uniform density all the way to the stratosphere.

Vic.

[The First Dave]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

@Vic

According to https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/climate/pressure.html you would have to go past 5,500 metres (that's over 18,000 feet) to get air pressure down to half what it is at sea-level, so no aircraft is going to notice any difference in pressure going past a mere 3,000 feet.

[Vic]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

no aircraft is going to notice any difference in pressure going past a mere 3,000 feet.

And you've just proved that you don't fly.

But besides that, the post I was responding to said "there is nothing obvious in the airframe of my drone that prevents it from doing hundreds or thousands of metres". And that is very different from 3000ft.

Vic.

[The First Dave]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

@Vic

3,000 feet is in the title of this post?

Perhaps I should be slightly more accurate, and say that nothing I've ever flown had a ceiling below 3,000 feet (which is def. 'hundreds of metres' and just on the edge of 'thousands')

Maybe there are such beasts, but even the cheapest of toys are capable of flying off the top Ben Nevis, never mind Scafell.

[Vic]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

3,000 feet is in the title of this post?

And have you never seen thread drift without a change of title? It's quite common here. It's why I always quote what I'm replying to, in the rather forlorn hope that respondents will read the words and not just make up a conversation that isn't there...

nothing I've ever flown had a ceiling below 3,000 feet

Nor I. but there is a difference between that ceiling height and a statement that "no aircraft is going to notice any difference in pressure going past a mere 3,000 feet". If you refer to the PA-28 POH, for example, you can see the effect of pressure altitude on engine performance in Fig. 5-9 (p 5-17) and on climb performance in Fig. 5-11 (p 5-5-19). There are additional graphs there to show other effects; I'm not going to mention every single one. But the point to take away from all this is that altitude has a marked effect on aircraft performance.

which is def. 'hundreds of metres' and just on the edge of 'thousands'

3000ft is less than 1000m; describing it as "thousands" would be misleading.

Maybe there are such beasts, but even the cheapest of toys are capable of flying off the top Ben Nevis, never mind Scafell.

I'm quite suire that is the case. I'm also absolutely certain that you're going to notice the change in performance at that altiutude. And thus to say that "no aircraft is going to notice any difference in pressure going past a mere 3,000 feet" would be entirely incorrect. Like I said.

Vic.

[The First Dave]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

Where do you get a 90 metre limit from? Even the most basic radio transmitter is going to manage a lot better than that, given a clear line of sight, which is of course pretty much guaranteed if you go straight up...

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

errr bullshit

DGI phantom will do that easy and costs less than grand

[Haku]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

Several thousands of dollars?

Obviously you haven't looked into the world of multirotors enough.

A basic quadcopter with GPS assisted control that has waypoint capability to make it fly a predetermined route starts at around $240 (£165).

[Dan Wilkie]

Re: 3,000+ feet eh?

Target Drones have been around a long time before autonomous aircraft - and whilst a lot of them are now computer controlled they always used to be RC from a drone controller aircraft.

Dictionary Definition of a drone is a Remote Controlled Aircraft or Missile.

Autonomous Aerial Vehicles are what you are thinking of ;)

[Tim Roberts 1]

this one looks good - silent as well

http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/14/anti-drone-rifle-shoots-down-uavs-with-radio-waves/

[Charles 9]

Re: this one looks good - silent as well

1) Doesn't work if the drone is working on a program as it's not receiving input. Even if you jam its GPS it can maintain bearing if it has a tri-axial accelerometer.

2) It's a radio transmitter over a certain power range, meaning it falls under the purview of the FCC.

[Anonymous Coward]

"do us a massive solid"

*snigger* <drops drawers>

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, drone owners – all our base are belong to US, thunders military"

Is Yoda writing the headlines now?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sense, it made. For fucking up, $27.5K the penalty is.

[Anonymous Coward]

@therebel - Do you know, it didn't occur to me until now that you might not have heard the phrase before, so answering in the style of Yoda seemed like the logical thing to do. Because beer. The headline is a riff on an ancient meme as explained here:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Taito are writing them.

[Charles 9]

For the record, what was the company that make that meme-worthy botch of a translation? I recall it being an early Neo-Geo game (as time passed, the companies hired better translators) so the two prime candidates are SNK and Alpha Denshi (who made the bulk of early Neo-Geo games).

[Barbarian At the Gates]

This is not going well

There's a lot of US citizens that are pretty sure they're experts about their "rights" and their "freedoms". And it's very likely that over one million "drones" have already been sold in the USA to date. Probably crossed that number months ago. Just playing the averages here, it's a pretty safe bet there are a lot of these things in the hands of unskilled operators. Don't even have to have malicious intent for accidents to happen here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This is not going well

Not a lot of those million can fly at 3800 feet, however.

What it is going to take are a few high profile arrests along with big fines and/or stints in prison for drone operators who are doing clearly stupid things and flying them in the vicinity of major airports or military bases. I suspect some drone owners are trying to think of interesting things to have them watch and thinking "airports are interesting, military bases even more so" and flying them over for a peek. They figure they won't get caught or if they do at worst will get a small fine and lose their toy. When they learn otherwise the count of incidents will drop way down, since even most stupid people prefer to avoid jail time where possible.

I'm sure a lot of the drone owners will complain loudly about the registration and claim they have the "right" to fly their drones wherever they want, and whine about "big government" for trying to make them register and mark their drones. Making the fines/sentences triple for an unregistered drone will sort that out. It is too bad we need the heavy hand of government here, but even libertarians agree that government has a role - people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't negatively affect others. Well, having a drone ingested in the engine of a passenger jet during landing would most assuredly have a negative effect on its passengers and crew. Hopefully it won't take a crash that kills 200 people before people accept that.

[The First Dave]

@Orv

That is not El Reg's fault - it is your browser doing auto-compete for you...

[chivo243]

Re: This is not going well

This is not going to end well... Just sayin' now it's fixed.

[Steven Roper]

Re: This is not going well

Well, if you're going to rubbish rights and freedoms in the name of safety, let's make one small modification to your nanny rant:

"There's a lot of US citizens that are pretty sure they're experts about their "rights" and their "freedoms". And it's very likely that over one million "cars" have already been sold in the USA to date. Probably crossed that number months ago. Just playing the averages here, it's a pretty safe bet there are a lot of these things in the hands of unskilled operators. Don't even have to have malicious intent for accidents to happen here."

That one small change does put a different slant on things, doesn't it? So I hope you don't drive, because my safety is more important than your "rights" and "freedoms."

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: horse? sheep?? no bullshit!

Cars are regulated,

drive without demonstrating proficiency, fines and gaol (look it up) follow.

drive drunk; fines and gaol

drive without insurance...

drive while distracted using a phone...

drive too fast...

drive erratically...

drive in a way that causes someone to lose their life....

now if you had inserted the word 'guns' in there you night have a point...

or not

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: horse? sheep?? no bullshit!

"Cars are regulated,"

And don't forget...

cars have a registration number displayed on them so they can be traced back to the owner.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: horse? sheep?? no bullshit!

Not that you understand anything but your own propaganda, but guns are highly regulated here, far more so than drones or cars. But lets not let a few facts get in the way of some nanny country BS.

The trouble is that we can't keep the riffraff who grew up using them against people out of this country

[fruitoftheloon]

@Stephen Roper: Re: This is not going well

Stephen,

the 'slant' it adds is prettin frickin' minimal matey...

Nice try, enjoy the rest of your crimbo.

Jay (former Risk Consultant)...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This is not going well

There's a lot of US citizens that are pretty sure they're experts about their "rights" and their "freedoms".

Do you mean the people that are happy to hand over the right to privacy but not the right of idiots to own guns with which they can massacre school kids or mall visitors? Just curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

any drone flying over a Military base

should be confiscated and the pilot/operator given 10 years in Leavenworth. Given frequency of words like the 'The FBI has declared that this incident is not terrorist related' that seems to come out of just about any incident in the US at the moment(even a traffic accident where someone dies), it can't be long before flying one these things in protected airspace is considered an act of Terrorism by the Feds.

These things are a pest and sooner or later a big accident will happen. People will die. Perhaps then the idiots that fly them will take note.

[Naughtyhorse]

just don't be an idiot...

You do know that the venn diagram for drone owners and idiots is as close to 1 circle in a box as makes no difference right?

RC aircraft are expensive and hard to fly, natural idiot filters.

drones... not so much.

[Anonymous Coward]

The part I don't get...

Okay, one needs to register, and one is issued a Patently Official Registration Number, which one is required to display on the RC toy/drone/whatever. Isn't that pretty trivially easy to defeat, by, say, not Registering, and putting a Number (ideally someone else's with a few digits changed) on the drone?

Anon, though I suppose NSA and GCHQ already know who I am...

[Charles 9]

Re: The part I don't get...

That's like stealing someone else's tags that don't match your car. Sure, it can cover your tracks for a time, but if they do catch you, they take your attempt at concealment into consideration as an aggravating circumstances. Meaning, it makes it harder for you to get caught, but if they catch you anyway, expect a harder punishment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The part I don't get...

That's like stealing someone else's tags that don't match your car. Sure, it can cover your tracks for a time, but if they do catch you, they take your attempt at concealment into consideration as an aggravating circumstances. Meaning, it makes it harder for you to get caught, but if they catch you anyway, expect a harder punishment.

The conditional matters, though: IF they catch you. The military locations I worked at were pretty hot at finding a transmission, but they also had the means to put a more permanent end to the device. Buzzing a residential area has a close to zero chance of catching the offender because most residents have no resources to identify the operator as they cost money.

[Naughtyhorse]

Having the registry publicly searchable is proving to be a bit of a barrier.

that's right, anyone can go to he website, bang in a license number and get a name and address!

where do I sign up for that please

[Graham Marsden]

Accidents happen...

Ask Skier Marcel Hirscher who was nearly decked by a falling drone during a slalom race.

I'm sure the drone pilot was experienced and there was no malice or stupidity involved, but none the less, one of these things dropping from the sky is bloody dangerous!

[heyrick]

Re: Accidents happen...

I don't know about the US, but the drones on sale "for Christmas" over here are way smaller than that. Here's a screenshot I grabbed from a recording of the ski drone failure on YouTube http://i.imgur.com/jB8OfGg.jpg. That thing is massive. What kind of nutcase would put something like that in the hands of a child? Shouldn't we be drawing a distinction between serious drones and mere toys?

[Certainly, anything that flies can be dangerous, but this is like the difference between driving a moped...and an eighteen wheel truck.]

[Graham Marsden]

Re: Accidents happen...

> What kind of nutcase would put something like that in the hands of a child?

The point is, even in the hands of an experienced pilot, things can go wrong. If some idiot decides to fly a drone near an airport or over a busy road or off the top of a block of flats and there's a problem, there is a risk to anyone below. And even a moped in the wrong place can cause an accident...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Accidents happen...

And even a moped in the wrong place can cause an accident...

Only in a tunnel with no witnesses..

[Charles 9]

Re: Accidents happen...

You forget the possible blowout swerve, which can occur spontaneous and immediately in front of another so there's no time to react, in the middle of rush hour which causes a chain reaction. massive pileups have been triggered with less.

[John Brown (no body)]

If you believe the many UFO "documantories"

Whenever UFO "researchers" are doing a bit on Area 51, they always point out that even getting within visual range of the border immediately attracts unmarked humvees and helicopters and people with guns. Maybe the military need to up their game in terms of security around their bases. Maybe they could hire in the TSA?

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: If you believe the many UFO "documantories"

I don't get it - if the idea is to improve security, why would they hire the TSA of all people?

[Haku]

Want to get into quadcopters?

Start small, real small.

Sure it looks like a cheap toy, because it is a cheap toy, but it flies well and has the same basic flying principals of the bigger ones so you'll only waste 'pocket money' on the spare parts when crashing them rather than serious money when crashing a big one that cost hundreds.

I have a couple of those and they're great fun, I also have its 'full size' brother, the Cheerson CX-20 I bought at the beginning of December. Due to the weather I've only managed 5 flights (battery lasts about 10 min a flight, and no crashes) but learning to fly the CX-10a first meant I felt much more prepared on its maiden voyage.

Really itching for the weather to get better, lots of big hills with fields far away from property/people here.

[Boonie]

"In May, a Harrier jet landing in Yuma, Arizona, spotted one of the troublesome gizmos 100 feet away"

I suspect the operator was one of their own airmen on base.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Good point. Although I suppose it's easier to control the idiots inside the fence than those outside, at least on military bases.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Drones near military bases

That reminds me - don't they need to practice their AA skills anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Drones near military bases

In a spirit of one-upmanship, the US likes to use the term AAA.*

*anti-aircraft artillery, for them in the past has started at 0.5" (12.7mm) which makes me think of "that's not a knife, this is a...."

[bed]

What? - no proof reading

What? - no proof reading

This is really poor piece of journalism. No meaningful research or proof reading.

What does this " do us a massive solid " mean?

"Thanks to the metal and lithium batteries in the toys, the gadgets pose a significant risk to aircraft."

No. No thanks at all. The risk is because of the mass which may include metal and batteries (which include metal).

In May (of what year?), [the pilot of] a Harrier [Jump]jet landing in Yuma, Arizona, spotted a drone 100 feet away, and in July, a [the pilot/crew/passenger of a ] Navy T-45 Goshawk training aircraft again (again - you mean this had happened to said Navy T-45 Goshwawk before?) came within 100 feet of a drone over (somewhat unlikely to be anything other than over) near the same airfield.

The FAA is trying to set up a database of drone owners. Wrong - the database exists..."Effective December 21, 2015, anyone who owns a small unmanned aircraft of a certain weight must register"

https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/

How difficult is using Google?

Not one of Chris William's best pieces of journalism.

[ecofeco]

If there is a way for people to be dicks and fuck up a good thing

...they will find it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with voluntary registration

As with all of these registration schemes only the honest people will comply. There is probably no way to track who actually buys the drones or parts to build one of their own.

Maybe the Yanks should worry more about guns than drones. Oh I forgot, the gun bunch have the NRA to back them up and the drone bunch are an easy target.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Couldn't the FAA get the drone owner database info directly from the NSA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bah!

Probably not if they have bought it with cash from a shop on the high street.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Reminds me of advice..

.. I was given about flying a microlight aircraft in the general vicinity of Swindon/Wooten Bassett. Stick to the published heights over S/WB because of the (then) Herc transport traffic out of RAF Lyneham. They won't divert for you and will probably barely notice the bump when they pancake you..

[Vic]

Re: Reminds me of advice..

Herc transport traffic out of RAF Lyneham.

Lyneham is a ghost-town airfield now. If they want to use it, they issue a NOTAM first :-(

Vic.