It looks to me that the sad day we all knew would eventually come has arrived. The first person that I have heard of plotting to use R/C planes to bomb the Pentagon and the Capital building. It appears he was planning to use some kind of autopilot given that they stated the plane was to be "GPS guided". Below is a link to the CNN page that has the details. I only hope this doesn't lead to a complete lock down of the R/C and sUAS industry. It is so young and ripe for growth and innovation.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/us/massachusetts-pentagon-plot-arrest/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Comments
The court proceedings on this are going to be interesting. I would hate to be that public defender.
I am less worried about restrictions coming out of this they would simply be too difficult to enforce. What you will see however is directives given to security agencies to up their scrutiny of any one flying in "unusual" locations i.e. Trappy would not have walked away after a chat with the cops. Secondly the AMA paranoia machine will whip their membership into a frothy to report anything out of the ordinary to the point that flying anything other than yellow rubber band powered Piper Cubs will result in frantic calls to their local law enforcement agencies.
All sorts of places watching this now heres a NS UK take
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/09/radio-control-...
While this is of course an atrocity, when reading a story about this in the media it seems more like people think this guy had access to Predator or Reaper type hardware and could do similar damage. What most journalists seem to forget is that a Predator is 14 meters wide, not something you can take-off with in a park.
Furthermore, the expert in the AP raises a very valid point: if you detonate too soon, the C4 produces some fancy fireworks in the air, and if you detonate after impact your detonator will most likely have been destroyed by the crash and your C4 will do as much damage as a pack of clay. There's a reason military missiles cost thousands of dollars.
Over on rcgroups, they think they've found the guy's account: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=360508
The questions the account owner has asked seem consistent with the reported stories. He sounds awfully clueless.
The way the press is expressing this story is similar to the Boy in Balloon incident in Colorado.
It was funny to see commercial news helicopters follow that flight.
It was declare a Hoax after a week of investigation.
This also in a way is a hoax.
It will take time for many to discover the limited capabilities of these miniature planes.
While playing in the parks there are many young inquiring minds that are very curious to how
the operation of the model works. I have a great time explaining to them to start off small and grow.
I hope this incident does not hinder the ability to educate young minds.
Model rocketry lately is also under fire regarding transporation of Motors and igniters being declared as explosives. Yet there has never been a shipping explosion in history.
I personally think cell phones are more dangerous for many reasons.
I was going to make a comment, but am now worried they might be tracking our activities
Remember this is the same bunch that brought you "Project Gunrunner". So easy to whip up some fanatic on the internet then plant seeds in his twisted mind, " we can even get you a plane and some weapons for it" then take credit for the arrest while pointing out the threat to media.
Just what we needed more reason for paranoia. I remember being lectured back in 2005 on visiting a Missouri model shop that al-Qaida was planning to use rc planes to attack America and that as an obvious foreigner I had no business inquiring about motors for giant scale planes (true story). So tomorrow when I fly my quad in the park I suspect that the Sheriff will swing around to give me the equivalent of a MRI......
At risk of sounding like one of the old timers in the AMA, I personally don't think it's too much to ask of the community, our community to be watchful and report suspicious/extreme behaviors exhibited by seemingly fellow enthusiasts. That doesn't just go for our hobby here, it's other fun stuff too. I like shooting guns, you can bet your buns that I'd report someone who exhibited extreme viewpoints followed by alarming actions, especially if they had a lot of firepower.
Not all terrorists are folks from "other places", it's been proven that the folks down the road can be domestic terrorists so a little vigilance seems to be in order. I think that an organized campaign of education and watchfulness can only help our hobby. Like it or not, we must show folks that we are adults, enjoying a hobby that we intend to keep around and that we will not tolerate our hobby being used for hate-mongering.
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