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Activists’ drone shot out of the sky for fourth time

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By Matthew Schroyer sUAS News

“As soon as I hit the go home mode, because the GPS and compasses were damaged, it went crazy,” Hindi said. “I flipped off the ‘come home’ mode and went into manual control. It wasn’t working right, but we were able to bring it in for a crash landing anyway.”

“I had more control than I anticipated,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it didn’t just drop out of the sky.”

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http://www.suasnews.com/2012/11/19719/activists-drone-shot-out-of-the-sky-for-fourth-time/

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  • Moderator

    I'm awake now so doing it now

  • Motion passed :)
  • Seconded.

  • Moderator

    since the majority of the discussion has turned to cars, bullets, and name calling, let's close out this thread.

  • I wasn't aware they recovered the bullet. .....?

    you will have to forgive my prius comments, there just so amusing after that SP ep........were just not ready for them yet...:-)

  • Oh Geez, here we go with the RedNeck stereotype. Personally, if the guy did shoot the Cinestar with a bullet he is a good shot personally speaking, damn that GPS/Alt Hold...damn it! ;-)

  • Will, the point about the bullet that you seem to be missing is this:

    You do not shoot birds in flight with bullets.  This is probably illegal in most places, as shooting bullets in the air is dangerous.  It's also darn-near impossible.  You hunt birds with shotguns, the spray makes it much easier to hit, and the small pellets are far less dangerous when they fall back to earth.

    The Octocopter was hit with a bullet, not shot.  Ergo, they can not claim that it was a stray shot that hit the machine, it was targeted.  This is therefore intentional destruction of property.

    This guy would be better off with an X8 than a Cinestar.  Since it will be moving, it will be much harder to hit.  I would think it would be impossible for them to hit it in flight, since these inbred rednecks need to shoot at birds in boxes. (since we have now descended to throwing around irrelevant stereotypes).

  • @Mathew,

    As I stated many thread earlier, I am well aware the Air is not owned by said Property Owner. However - photographing someone from the Air is a hot topic right now for privacy advocates. As I stated, that is the mindset the property owners of this club took when they took pop shots @ the drone. Whether it is LAW or not, they will enforce their own LAW when it comes to THEIR Property. And I hazard to say I doubt a SLG/LE will interfere currently or even in the future if another incident like this occurs. Its not like they are hurting a lifeform right :) its only carbon and lipos.. In the end this guy/activist is more like an antagonist IMHO and is not helping the future of drones for real journalistic use - just my 2 cents. If anything he is only harming it, like others who try to glorify taking risks with RC tech...as stated above i.e. Trappy... Like the guy, but the NYC flight did not help our case....

  • weak? Prius owners indefinitely drive in the fast lane, but at just under the speed limit and refuse to move over. There even traveling in packs now! creating pockets of Smug.Am I the only one who has seen the South Park Documentary? he he

    Pria aside, this is definatley the kind of thing we don't want, Especially with the threat of coming Legislation. I never thought there would be a 4th amendment issue with drones.....not in this direction anyways. Right now all of us need to be as safe and courteous as we can, and avoid this kind of thing as much as possible. Almost every time I go to fly my drone I have someone ask me about it, and allot of them are surprised to see this tech being used in fun and peaceful way, and walk away with a different perspective....which is Important because these are the same people that may be voting on propositions that affect the hobby.

    I can see a future where drones become a important part of Journalism....But how do you sculpt law to allow journalism and not venture into the realm of unleashing the Paparazzi? 

    It also touches on a Blog post ive been tinkering with. Is there a "Safe" way to photograph people at events using a drone? What would that drone look like? I'm going to be picking up and AR Drone and see what I can come up with....I also have an ultralight Carbon fiber frame I'm going to be playing with. See If I can come up with something that can "bump" into a person and not cause injury..

    @Mathew krawczun

    Obviously photographing pigeons isn't a paying job....But someone who can appreciate and use a $1500 + Gimbal is probably some kind of photographer. Someone who can fly said gimbal over a place where it's been fired on 3-4 times before? And for footage that already exists en masse  at that.

  • I just went back and read the article at suasnews.com again. It turns out that the pilot of the drone was not claiming to be a journalist at all. The activists were monitoring the activities taking place at the shooting club, by their own words. For me this changes things somewhat. It's still an obnoxious use of a beautiful tool, but at least they are not claiming to be journalists. A journalist would put on a hidden camera and get inside. 

    There is a lot of what not to do here, what kind of idiot uses a public road to set up their ground station on? He's lucky that no one was hit by a car! Forget all the privacy questions of private property overflight, this was reckless behavior on the ground.

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