Man faces $9000 fine for using a drone to pick up a Bunnings sausage

[mr smith]

Good, hope he cops the fine. I would like to see a ban like Sweden.

[Adamz Ghia]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Good, hope he cops the fine. I would like to see a ban like Sweden.

Why?

[Falcon SXR8]

Originally Posted by Adamz Ghia

Why?

Probably to stop the thugs of the sky doing fun things like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb08n3bLSvA

I agree though people need to be kept in check with these things and there are laws in place to punish the people doing the wrong thing. 99% of drone pilots ( man I hate that term) are not out to perv on your wife/daughter nude sunbaking in the backyard ( apparently most people who hate drones do activities like this regularly ) we are out to have some good old fashioned fun.

[XR6TCraig]

Originally Posted by creative

No there arent any regulations regarding the sale of them and nor should there be. The onus is on the purchaser to act responsibly which is how it should be! People taking responsibility for their actions and all that!

Which is exactly how it should be.
But, if a body like CASA has to play nanny to this kind of activity, I would just rather that they used education to inform potential buyers and if this means a licencing system that someone had to pass so that they are educated, then that's preferable to trying to fine someone the equivalent of a new cheap car because they break the rules unknowingly. This is just blatant revenue raising!

Originally Posted by creative

Its not just about airports and planes. They can seriously injure someone if they fall out the sky, as they do occasionally or havent been set up correctly and when the RTH function isnt calibrated properly and it slams into a building as the DJI flyer has no idea how to fly one in an emergency without aids.
This is why you dont fly over buildings and crowds, especially if you are nowhere near the area!

Sure the potential to injure is there but lets face it, this is not a common occurrence. I mean, people can get hurt and die in all sorts of strange and unusual ways. Phil Hughes was killed playing cricket for example! Do we ban the use of hard heavy balls in cricket to prevent all death as a result?

If we banned or regulated everything to the point where no one would get hurt, we wouldn't be able to leave the house every morning. Even staying in the house poses certain dangers!

As others have said though, flying one of these larger drones into a large jet engine shortly after take off has the potential to kill many, so poses a much greater hazard, hence the reason I mentioned airports and their proximity to Bunnings in Sunbury.

[pottery beige]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqE0WyAdSqs

[Ratmick]

Originally Posted by Falcon SXR8

Probably to stop the thugs of the sky doing fun things like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb08n3bLSvA

I agree though people need to be kept in check with these things and there are laws in place to punish the people doing the wrong thing. 99% of drone pilots ( man I hate that term) are not out to perv on your wife/daughter nude sunbaking in the backyard ( apparently most people who hate drones do activities like this regularly ) we are out to have some good old fashioned fun.

Man if that was FPV then that would have been a hoot...closest thing to being Superman

[creative]

Originally Posted by Ratmick

Man if that was FPV then that would have been a hoot...closest thing to being Superman

I love freestyle.. one of my vids from my dvr... so this is the view I have. Ignore the bad picture at times, thats just the dvr not being able to keep up with antenna switching.

Good, hope he cops the fine. I would like to see a ban like Sweden.

Also Why?

[mr smith]

Originally Posted by Falcon SXR8

Probably to stop the thugs of the sky doing fun things like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb08n3bLSvA

I agree though people need to be kept in check with these things and there are laws in place to punish the people doing the wrong thing. 99% of drone pilots ( man I hate that term) are not out to perv on your wife/daughter nude sunbaking in the backyard ( apparently most people who hate drones do activities like this regularly ) we are out to have some good old fashioned fun.

Exactly why. That was about as interesting as watching golf. I'll be taking the Holland and Holland approach if one comes near my place.

[creative]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Exactly why. That was about as interesting as watching golf. I'll be taking the Holland and Holland approach if one comes near my place.

Just because you find it boring you will fire a gun at it and have it totally banned?

[pursuit57]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Exactly why. That was about as interesting as watching golf. I'll be taking the Holland and Holland approach if one comes near my place.

I live in a rural/village environment with a lot of birds etc, an unknown neighbour or holiday terrorist USED to have one.....Hawk 1 Drone 0.
Crashed badly, hawk prob thought it was parrot...haha

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by creative

Just because you find it boring you will fire a gun at it and have it totally banned?

Dumb does what dumb does...bit of luck he will indeed have a go at one then end up face down on his kitchen floor surrounded by the armed offenders squad.Hopefully his mrs doesnt have access to a firearm.

[Ben73]

I see drones like another version of RC cars. Heaps of fun when you first get them, but after a few goes it will probably become boring and repetitive. Unless you have some sort of specific goal or competition going.

[Falcon SXR8]

Originally Posted by Ratmick

Man if that was FPV then that would have been a hoot...closest thing to being Superman

Yep fpv, its very very adictive

Originally Posted by mr smith

Exactly why. That was about as interesting as watching golf. I'll be taking the Holland and Holland approach if one comes near my place.

Obviously not your thing by the sounds of it mate, all good, we all enjoy different things in life no need to ban things you personally don't like.

[commodorenutt]

By all means have fun with them at the local park, or over your backyard etc - people should have the freedom to do so, and the rules do allow for non-commercial (eg hobbyist) levels of equipment & generous usage.

But to fly it over a 4 lane road, out of direct sight, and well within reach of people - perhaps 4-6-8 or maybe even 20 people depending on how busy the place was - that's just downright stupid. Actually, even more stupid, was posting the video online....

There were so many risks taken by that act of laziness/stupidity, that he deserves the fine.

If he was parked only 50m away, and flew it across to the BBQ, whilst maintaining vision, and there weren't many people around, then it would be a completely different outcome - perhaps only a caution for endangering people.

It doesn't take much for someone to lose an eye. And it's too late to say sorry after the damage has been done. 2D vision from a camera, streamed (probably low quality) to over 100m away, is not going to give him any depth of field or sense of distance. Try driving a car on a busy road with one eye covered, then pull into Bunnings & park in a spot - you wouldn't dream of doing it because of the dangers.

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by xahh

Yes, CASA have changed things recently so that recreational drone operators can have fun on weekends flying them within the rules but even these 2Kg or less versions are not allowed within the 5.5KM exclusion zone around airports so they must be still deemed as a hazard to aircraft.

I agree, a balanced view is needed and that's why we can have a friendly chat here and get our opinions off our chests.

My point behind the bolded part is that a bird doesn't contain metal parts and a high powered lithium battery capable of causing an explosion or fire if damaged on impact.

I agree, big difference between a bird and something metal being sucked into a gas turbine engine. Sure the testing has been done on frozen chooks but that's not a drone.
While losing an engine shouldn't be the end of the world it certainly can be on short final in landing config and requiring large amounts of power.
Throw in a bit of weather or a fire (both very plausible scenarios) and it's easy to see how a bad accident can happen.
Aircraft are most vulnerable around airports - statistically.

I don't believe these should be banned, responsible people are always going to be responsible. Flip side is a ****head will always be a ****head and ruin it for everyone.

[blackf6]

Meh. Don't see the big drama. If he dropped the snag though. That's a paddling!

[mr smith]

Originally Posted by creative

Just because you find it boring you will fire a gun at it and have it totally banned?

No....

[mr smith]

Originally Posted by 98TLS

Dumb does what dumb does...bit of luck he will indeed have a go at one then end up face down on his kitchen floor surrounded by the armed offenders squad.Hopefully his mrs doesnt have access to a firearm.

Yea OK, I think you need to get out more and stop watching TV.

[xr8cam]

Only a matter of time untill these things really F someone up. Too many idiots can get their hands on cars let alone high speed flying machines!

[pursuit57]

On tonight's Prime7 news...Domino's Pizza did their first delivery of 2 pizza's (it was in NZ !) but only matter of time before they'll try here - think CASA will have something to say..

Also, a while back Aust Post were talking about deliveries to remote/rural area's - not heard anymore about it, maybe CASA again ?

[GXL078]

Drones and driverless cars both **** me no end. Every time I see that bloody ad for Subaru Eyesight I think, use your own bloody eyesight. Drones are the new jet skis. Every tool has one or wants one. CASA will have something to say if his pizza arrives cold.

[xr8cam]

Originally Posted by GXL078

Drones and driverless cars both **** me no end. Every time I see that bloody ad for Subaru Eyesight I think, use your own bloody eyesight. Drones are the new jet skis. Every tool has one or wants one. CASA will have something to say if his pizza arrives cold.

Totally agree with you. Another thing I believe will create a generation of sub standard drivers is 'driver aids' Sure they prevent some accidents but people are lazy by nature and will become reliant on them, much the way a new driver is fooled by the all wheel drive systems into thinking they are better drivers than they really are.

[Grunter]

Considering how many drones are out and about now and going off some of the comments above, I'm surprised planes aren't dropping from the sky and people are not getting hacked to death yet?

Researchers say FAA is really overblowing risk posed by small drones

The Federal Aviation Administration has pushed forward strict rules for the operation of small consumer drones. Drones weighing more than 250 grams (a little more than half a pound) will have to be registered*with the FAA, and there are*restrictions on where they can be flown. The regulations are largely prompted by fears that the toy-sized flyers will pose a danger to commercial and civil aircraft—fears that new research suggests are unfounded. That research, shown in a study just published by George Mason University's Mercatus Center, was based on damage to aircraft from another sort of small, uncrewed aircraft—flying birds.

Much of the fear around drones hitting aircraft has been driven by FAA reports from pilots who have claimed near-misses with small drones. But an investigation last year by the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) found that of the 764 near-miss incidents with drones recorded by the FAA, only 27 of them—3.5 percent—actually were near misses. The rest were just sightings, and those were often sightings that took place when drone operators were following the rules. The FAA also overcounted, including reports where the pilot said explicitly that there was no near miss and some where the flying object wasn't identified, leading the AMA to accuse the FAA of exaggerating the threat in order to get support for its anti-drone agenda.

There hasn't yet been an incident in which a drone has struck an aircraft. But bird strikes (and bat strikes) do happen, and there's a rich data set to work from to understand how often they do. Researchers Eli Dourado and Samuel Hammond reasoned that the chances of a bird strike remain much higher than that of an aircraft hitting a drone because "contrary to sensational media headlines, the skies are crowded not by drones but by fowl."

The researchers studied 25 years of FAA "wildlife strike" data, reports voluntarily filed by pilots after colliding with birds. The data included over 160,000 reported incidents of collisions with birds, of which only 14,314 caused damage—and 80 percent of that number came from collisions with large or medium-sized birds such as geese and ducks.

Despite the rise in reported bird strikes over time (largely driven by improvements to the FAA's reporting system), the number involving damage has remained relatively constant, numbering in the hundreds per year—a statistical blip, considering that there are approximately 27,000 commercial aircraft flights per day in the US. And in 25 years, there have been only 37 incidents of wildlife strikes that caused injuries or death. The most dramatic of them, the water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009, was caused by a flock of geese being sucked into both the plane's engines. The one commercial aircraft fatality was caused not by a bird strike but by a collision with a pair of deer during landing in 2000.

"On average, only 3 percent of reported small-bird strikes ever result in damage, compared to 39 percent of large-bird strikes," Dourado and Hammond reported. "Given the voluntary nature of strike reporting, the true percentage of strikes causing damage is probably much lower, as strikes that do not cause damage can be either missed or underreported."

Using the FAA data and bird census data, the researchers calculated the probability of airborne wildlife striking an aircraft. "In 2014, there were 13,414 reported collisions with birds and flying mammals, counting incidents in which flocks of birds hit an aircraft as a single collision," the researchers noted. "As there are on the order of 10 billion birds in US airspace, this means that plausibly 1 bird in 1 million collides with an aircraft every year."

Birds spend much more time in the air than consumer drones, which have a short battery life. Birds also don't necessarily avoid areas where airplanes are apt to hit them. Based on usage statistics, compared with bird behavior, the researchers estimated that for every 100,000 hours of flight time for drones weighing up to 2 kilograms, there would be 0.00000612 collisions causing damage to aircraft. "Or to put it another way," the pair wrote, "one damaging incident will occur no more than every 1.87 million years of 2kg UAS flight time."

And the frequency of injuries caused by drone collisions, they estimated, would be another two orders of magnitude smaller—happening once every 1.87 million years of operation. "This appears to be an acceptable risk to the airspace," they concluded..

Ban birds not drones!!

[MITCHAY]

Don't fly in controlled airspace = good. Don't fly over people = good. Don't fly a drone out of sight = good.

So basically use common sense and it is perfectly safe to fly a drone

Wow that is so amazing. If you're not an idiot you won't have anything to worry about.

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

Don't fly in controlled airspace = good. Don't fly over people = good. Don't fly a drone out of sight = good.

So basically use common sense and it is perfectly safe to fly a drone

Wow that is so amazing. If you're not an idiot you won't have anything to worry about.

Mitchay...Your logic and common sense is not welcome here...

As far as I'm concerned, the sausage sanga would have been cold by the time it got home, so what's the point...

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by Beastie

Mitchay...Your logic and common sense is not welcome here...

As far as I'm concerned, the sausage sanga would have been cold by the time it got home, so what's the point...

Btw I thought it was pretty awesome but that doesn't mean it was not stupid. Hot or cold sangas are good

[jpblue1000]

Just on a train into victoria station I could see 4 aircraft flying past the shard in one blink, reminded me of this article and this thread

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38011104

Real world stories
JP

[xr8cam]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

Btw I thought it was pretty awesome but that doesn't mean it was not stupid. Hot or cold sangas are good

Cold sanga sambo with mato sauce!

[marty351]

Drones are bad, mmkay!

[commodorenutt]

I thought this cartoon was quite appropriate: