Drones ground water-dropping helicopters at critical moment in Maria fire battle | Hacker News Reader

Drones ground water-dropping helicopters at critical moment in Maria fire battle

latimes.com

27 pointslnguyen16 comments

If you come across drone photos of the fire described here, in social media or anywhere, please report them to the Ventura County Fire Department at vcfd@ventura.org Subject “I found someone’s drone photos of the wildfire” for further investigation.

(They could be taken by licensed media personnel, so be polite about it.)

I wish comments like the dead one here weren't killed. Nobody wants to consider alternative viewpoints too often around here.

I honestly feel like the officials here are just malingering to try to get drones banned because they don't like them. No way one tiny drone flying somewhere in the forest means no helicopters can do their job in the entire vicinity. It's no different than a large bird being around.

I'm not sure I totally agree with it, but I do agree with you that it's a legit POV worth discussing, so [vouched].

Thanks, my vouching ability just stopped working one day. Maybe vouched too many comments the mods disagreed with.

What is vouching on HN?

If you have enough karma, you can "rescue" a comment from being dead (i.e., not displayed by default).

This particular fire grew to over 4,000 acres in under an hour. "Somewhere in the forest" very quickly becomes "right over the most critical parts of the fire." These fires are dynamic, spotting 1-2 miles ahead of themselves and propelled by winds of 50-80 mph.

There is a key difference between birds and drones. Birds tend to fly away from fires. Drone operators are getting close to the action. The forest may be big, but the chances are high that a drone pilot and helicopter pilot are aiming for the same spots.

Fire services do operate their own drones. But they do it in coordination and under the guidance with the air traffic controllers so the location is known at all times.

> No way one tiny drone flying somewhere in the forest means no helicopters can do their job in the entire vicinity. It's no different than a large bird being around.

Aircraft dropping water on fires are:

1. flying very low,

2. over fires that will be causing a lot of turbulence,

3. in aircraft that are heavy loaded, making them less nimble than normal, and making maneuvering put more stress on the aircraft than normal,

4. in conditions with poor visibility.

This makes it a very stressful, dangerous kind of flight, where if anything goes wrong the chances of the pilot recovering in time are greatly reduced. Encountering a drone could easily lead to a crash in these circumstances.

And yes, it is very different from a large bird, because large birds will be avoiding the fire.

5. useless in the grand scheme of things

"Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show" https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-wildfires29-2008jul29-st...

"To professional firefighters, though, it was a prime example of a “political air show,” the high-profile use of expensive aircraft to appease elected officials."

“CNN drops.”

I agree. Officials should instead use their limited resources to down such drones forcefully and violently. Bans clearly aren’t doing the job.

Hasn’t the US/Canada law changed to require a pilot license and radio contact for flying a drone?

Rather than the boring af repetitive talk about the fake Gatwick Drone. Or all the fake sightings.

Or the one sub par test of a drone hitting a plane in a facility.

How about we talk about how we let the government take over so much of our world.

We are moving to 3D, f the government. How do they own it all?

How can we not even use toys in 99% of our world.

It's a disgrace.

The data we are collecting from drones around the world is amazing. They lets us crawl back some of what governments have taken away. Good on people filming fires, they are possibly contributing more than these grounded helicopters. Helicopters need to learn how to share the space.

Do you really think that there’s a significant public value for someone to be able to “use toys” in the same place where people are actively fighting a raging fire near an inhabited area?

I think there’s a lot of value to things which can be done with drones but that’s about the worst area to make this argument: it’s limited in both space and time, and there’s a direct risk to human lives.

> Do you really think that there’s a significant public value for someone to be able to “use toys” in the same place where people are actively fighting a raging fire near an inhabited area?

The kind of reactionary legislation that articles like this generate support for will not simply ban drones over fires. The collateral damage to our present freedoms to collect data and imagery will be significant.

Then don’t fly drones where the authorities are desperately trying to put out a fire, thus there would be no backlash.

I don’t, yet I will still have my freedoms restricted by the reactionary and unnecessary legislation passed because of fearmongering articles like this.

Your words seem to imply that people who have their freedoms taken away in bulk are somehow themselves to blame, when that is rarely the case.

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