Owner knows why drone crashed into stands at bull run
Found the story intriguing. Batteries remane fickle things. Their total charge is still only estimated by stopwatches & coulomb counters, but there is no dip stick for a battery. Even a pilot experienced enough to keep 1 eye on the flight time while the other eye is on the 5000 other details still is often surprised when a battery comes up empty ahead of schedule.
Sometimes you forget to charge batteries. Battery chargers sometimes don't finish charging because they overheat or their own supply sags. Sometimes they don't start charging because of a balky button or a poorly designed user interface. Sometimes they report maximum voltage despite no longer holding a full charge.
A return to launch feature when the battery is low also remanes fickle. GPS comes & goes anywhere besides a wide open field. Is the return to launch feature supposed to count coulombs & maintain a database of every battery's capacity in order to determine when to end the flight? Should the pilot enter in the current battery ID or should the batteries have ID chips, raising the cost & complexity?
It's yet another one of the variables & details that keeping something in the air still involves keeping your mind on. There is still a lot of room in the current state of reliability to keep the price, complexity & training beyond the reach of hobbyists before the personal drone becomes as ubiquitious & hand off as the marketing campaigns depict.
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I had a T-Rex 500 literally fall out of the sky from a perfectly stable 100 ft. high hover a few years ago, onto empty ground with nobody around and myself about about 50 yards away. It turned out that a loose internal screw in my then brand new DX7 Tx had fallen out and landed right on the Tx's main board, shorting it out. So for all practical purposes a crash that was not preventable, and that could have been really ugly if it had happened over people. Some time before that I crashed a T-Rex 450 at speed right into the side of my then brand-new car, putting a nasty little dent in the door. That time it was preventable - I had allowed myself to be distracted by a clueless uninvited spectator's yakking and lost orientation and control. I might have hit this fellow rather my car, he was standing right next to it. Lessons learned: Preventable or not, crashes do happen and if there are people around, they are at risk. Just don't do it. If the Smedley family pops up under "your" airspace with their picnic basket and cocker spaniel, just land.
I resolve... Ya fly over a crowd you're probably not concerned with safety as much as you claim and most likely the owner of a large ego. The equivalent of the diy mechanic who forgets a head stud after a full engine build in the multirotor world.
I test fly a quadcopter on the main lawn of a campus, and regardless of how reliable the stabilization is, regardless of if it's a new battery or not, if I'm at the controls or not, and EVEN THOUGH IT MAY BE A PAIN when people walk right into the area I'm flying in, I NEVER take the risk to fly over people for this amazingly perfectly demonstrated reason. It's something that I've stuck to since my Nitro planes 9 years ago, and I've never had an accident. There is NO reason to risk it people! Don't do it!
Andrew: As we all know full scale crashes also, and when it does the consequences are much worse. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/16/london-helicopter-crash-f...
But for full scale it's a matter of practicality where the need outweighs the risk and damage potential. Imagine for example if passenger planes could not fly over populated ares when coming in for landing etc. At the moment I think we are far from having a real need to fly unmanned copters over crowds that would justify the risk.
I still say until things are regulated properly we ALL stay away from crowds. If you aren't being paid to shoot it isn't worth the risk of getting rocks thrown at you anyhow.
Guys the safest system for flying with prevention of crashes due to low battery is something like the FRsky system where you hook a voltage sensor directly into the main power and when your battery gets low it shows you and beeps like mad, they are very cheap and useful but mostly save many many crashes. and the signal strength indicator helps alot too!, however if you do fly 2.4g and aren't using frsky, do not be surprised if it has a longer range than your radio esprecially spektrum
the system can be used either in your radio if it takes modules with a little lcd screen that you plug into the module. or completely independently with the frsky telemetry display.
Dangerous are those who understand the capabilities, but not the limitations.
Big heavy things filled with explosive juice fly over high density population centres all the time without the (direct) consent of those below. They do have some pretty sophisticated design and operational requirements, but it's not impossible to do, nor should we throw our hands in the air and give up on doing it.
There is enough knowledge out there on safety systems to do this at an acceptable risk. We just need to apply the lessons we have already learned in other fields.
I have to agree. The only things I will film are landscape, architecture, and modes of transportation and never without permission. I will agree to filming sports and racing related things but only if it is with a small group that has made prior arrangements with me and know the risk and still agree to go with it. Like the local skateboarders I filmed with a while back. They wanted me to film their tricks and the area was empty of heads minus us 6.
However with people who are strangers and are not aware of the risks and have no say in whether or not you fly, like crowds, there is never an excuse to be airborne. Especially in public areas. If your neighbor comes into your private field and gets whacked then... well I'd say he was there at his own risk :] but crowds and risky areas are the stupidest stunts I have seen next to people who fly over 400ft (could take out a plane).
Failsafe this, LV alarm that, blah blah blah. No matter how safe it gets, there will always be risk. Flying near/above others without their knowledge /consent is wrong.
I attended a music festival this past weekend. The local radio station had a 450 heli with gopro over the crowd. Appeared to be straight RC, no autonomy. No crash, no injuries. All good.
Before the show, I had been in contact with said station, warned them of the potential danger. On Friday, even sent links to this discussion and the related youtube clips. The responses were polite, but completely ignorant to any sort of safety protocols, 'cause there are none' and arrogant, 'it's our show, don't think we'll fine ourselves.'
As I suspected, many of the bands(2day fest) wouldn't allow it during their set. The audience, didn't have a choice. Average age of attendees was ~23. I'm now the 'old guy' in the crowd. After asking around, seems the general consensus changes with age and especially maturity level. Responses ranging from 'radical' to 'that's dangerous.' One woman recounted that she was 'scared every time it got close to me.' Not cool.
I often fly @ the local bike park. It's the size of a Walmart, with dirt jumps and log bridges. It's usually empty, but l always take a few minutes to talk to all the parents at the park. Answer all questions, and assure them that I'll be staying in one area off in the back of the park. If anyone has any concerns, I simply leave and come back later. And I'm only talking about 10-12 people in a huge park. Not exactly a crowd.
@Arne, I'll try again, perhaps simplifying the message even further. Now, as much as I hate caps, sometimes...
FLYING+PEOPLE=NO
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