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Flying Drones are becoming a life threatening problem here in California.

#161
Stewie26 said:
I agree that the drone industry is in it's infancy and will become more in our every day lives in the very near future. Just like in the early aviation days, the William Boeing's and Jack Northrop's of the drone business will arise.
What scares me is that this could allow a 1984 scenario, where the authorities will be keeping more than a watchful eye on the population via drones. When you look at the big picture, bozo citizens flying drones over fires and into crowed airspace is minor in comparison. Once the government gets the ball rolling with drones they won't know where to stop with it. I guess you can say I don't trust politicians making good decisions with the technology.. Just sayin

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You are preaching to the choir my friend. Back in the early 80's the ANG flew grids over the entire state with A-10's fitted with high speed camera pods, looking for pot. Oddly enough, one of the most popular proposed use of drones by LE is "crop survey".

But yeah, our world is about to get a lot smaller and a lot more public, or more to the point, a lot less private. You didn't think Sam would waste an opportunity to use some killer military hardware on his charges now did you?
 
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#168
Stewie, as a pilot do you know if these drones are picked up by airport radar or are they to small ? after reading hdracers post you probably surmised what Im getting at, this could pose a huge security problem if a fleet of these loaded with explosive could descend on a major airport.
 
#169
bluesblaster said:
Stewie, as a pilot do you know if these drones are picked up by airport radar or are they to small ? after reading hdracers post you probably surmised what Im getting at, this could pose a huge security problem if a fleet of these loaded with explosive could descend on a major airport.
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It is very unlikely that a drone would be picked up on FAA radar screens. The FAA radars depend on two signals to create a target blip on the screen. The first signal, called the primary, is somewhat like a WWII radar and fully dependent on the actual microwave reflections off the target and then back to the radar antenna. Since drones are so small and made with a lot of plastic, the radar signature is so reduced that it will unlikely be seen by a ATC contoller. The FAA type radars mainly depend on the aircraft's transponder to draw the target on their screens. The transponder transmits a radio signal to the controller's screen so even a little Cessna 150 can have the same size blip on the screen as a Boeing 747. In addition, the transponder transmits to the controller what altitude the aircraft is at, plus a flight-squawk number which can give even more information on the aircraft's flight plan and such. With that said, there is no reason why drones could not be outfitted with miniature transponders in the future. In my opinion, as the drone industry evolves and matures, they will be required to have some type of transponder so they can be tracked in flight. Hope that answers your question.

EDIT: After thought here. If you recall, the first thing the 911 hijackers did after gaining control of the cockpit was to turn off the aircraft's transponder to make it difficult for ATC to track them.....and it worked.
 
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#171
Stewie26 said:
Almost correct. This goes way back before there was an FAA. As aviation started to prosper in the US, individual states to tried regulate aircraft in the same manor as states regulate automobiles today. They were even licensing and registering individual aircraft just like cars. The Feds then realized that aviation was good for interstate commerce and did not want states to mingle in such maters. So they decided to declare the nation's airspace as a Federal National Asset giving them full control. They also decided that all US aircraft must be registered and licensed only by the federal government, not states. This is the reason that even today all US aircraft tail numbers must start with the letter "N" meaning "National" registration. When the FAA was established in the 50's as the successor of the CAA, Civil Aviation Authority, these rules were already in effect. It is only when the Feds, (FAA) come out with new rules covering drones will we see changes. The are suppose to working on it but it has been under study for a couple years now with no results.
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"N" is just the letter prefix assigned to US-registered aircraft. Canada uses "C," Iceland uses "TF," and so on.
 
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#175
bluesblaster said:
Its not the drone its the owner/operator , same with guns, be responsible and its not a problem. Some people seem to have difficulty with this.
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'Some people seem to have difficulty with this.' Yes, they do. That's why there's a problem. When baby starts hitting people with his toy, you do something about it. You can tell baby 'No! Bad baby!' but he will just do it again and again until you take his toy away from him. Then he cries for awhile but he gets over it.
 
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#178
Clark Dark said:
Kentucky man shoots down drone hovering over his backyard
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charged with reckless endangerment for the birdshot and something else for the property damage. I bet he gets off on the property damage.

I would have denied everything and told cops to come back with a search warrant. Then if I was the cops I would have told complainants to give me proof to justify the search. Then they would have been all shy and all would have been well in the hood.
 
#179
I thought the guy was pretty cool about it saying he had nothing against drones but they should be operated responsibly like down at the park and not hovering in someones back yard with a camera mounted on them, How is this not consider voyeurism or what they used to call "a peeping tom"
 

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