Drone crime
 

Interesting article about the difficulty of preventing crimes using drones. Lots of jurisdictional and technical issues. My neighbor has a drone hooked up to virtual reality goggles. It's pretty slick what he can do with it, though he says it nauseates him if he's not careful.

Should be legal to shoot them down. Man I’d get a lawn chair, my favorite shotgun and enjoy a nice weekend of anti aircraft fun.

I've seen some really cool real estate marketing videos, where the drone flys around a rural property slowly, while rotating to get a 360* veiw just above the trees. That could be used for evil as well I guess.

Registration at point of purchase should be required.This does not cover all of the non- registered drones already sold of course.Governments should have had more foresight years ago.

Legal smeagle...camo yer chair like a duck blind, then let 'em...

Prove it :)

Don't forget the background check and ban on high-capacity batteries.

been used as forward observe in ukraine for awhille now...

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???

Not sure I know what you mean.

He means several idiots are out at the fires flying their drones near the fires trying to get footage of "cool fire videos" to sell to the TV networks or get hits on YouTube, and it is deadly dangerous for the pilots of the aircraft trying to fight the fires.

A bird strike is bad, but image a several pound carbon fiber and lithium batteries power-pack whacking a windshield of a chopper, or going into the engine, or hitting a vital part. The human pilots have a job to help fight the fire, but every pilot's job one is to go home to bed at the end of the day alive and well.

The idiots flying the drones are illegally flying in areas where it makes the firefighting pilots stop, and that cause more and bigger fires, and more death and destruction for the residents.

Ah, got it.

I recall a mass shooter in Houston several years ago was killed by a robot that delivered explosives to him. They drove it next to a wall and blew it up. He was killed by falling debris from the wall. I have wondered when we will see drones used to chase down bad guys in hostage situations and such.

Nope. Happens often and unless there is a way to track and imprison the quad copter owners they will continue to fly them by the fire.

Why do people call them drones?

Because in a hive the drones are expendable each year.

Early unmanned aircraft were also used in expendable roles.

I understand the drones in unmanned military aircraft and these are not the same. So they are expendable?

They should all come with a transponder code/ADS-B so they can be tracked back to the owner so the fire fighters can kick the ever living crap out of the owner.

A couple of years ago, we had an armed barricaded suspect inside a residence. We had a command post, containment, and a tactical team getting ready for the entry. Our helicopter spotted a drone flying over my command post and alerted us. The drone then flew over the target location. We had to temporarily stop our operation to find out who owned the drone and if he/she was streaming it. After about 20 minutes, the battery evidently was discharged and the owner returned it to his location via GPS. Our helicopter directed patrol cars to the location and met the owner who happened to have an unrelated felony arrest warrant. We discovered he was in fact streaming the video as "entertainment" via social media. We were fortunate it was not the armed suspect who would have seen the tactical movements of my team! We were powerless to do anything to take the drone out without endangering the community. Before someone chimes in about shooting it down with a shotgun, think about what goes up also comes down!

In the UK now drones heavier than 0.5lb/0.25kg have to be registered at a cost of £9/yr or any owners caught face a £1000 fine

That should stop people mis-using them :rolleyes:

The way it works here is the police will have a very public drone amnesty hand in which will rid the skies of such evil :rolleyes:

That's kind of what I was getting at.

This holiday season, look for armies of criminal drones swarming down upon neighborhoods to grab the packages as they are delivered.

The possibilities are endless.

Here in the US they are supposed to be registered, but I bet most are not. Plus, you will not see the registration number unless you shoot it down or track it to where it lands. With ADS-B you could know instantly. This include all RC aircraft, whether it is a park flyer or quad copter.

I am all for using them for real estate and what not, but flying them in prohibited areas like over the pools at Yellowstone or at police/fire activities should result in serious repercussions.

David, you need a monofiliment fiber snare device on your helicopter for the drones. Or a microwave gun.

In the US, they are legally restricted to 400 feet max altitude. That is often ignored by the owners.

If you get into the hobby of UAVs you will soon find the web sites that have the shady guys. They build their own UAVs with parts from multiple web sites or hobby stores. They build them with no identification and they are careful to leave no clues as to the origin. We can all hope they just like playing outside the law, and have no evil intentions. But they can build those, and sell them to bad guys to have them fly contraband into prisons, and if the UAV is captured, it can't be traced.

Can't they put a cow catcher on the front of the fire fighting helicopters?