Drones flying nighttime patterns over NE Colorado leave law enforcement stumped
denverpost.com
denverpost.com
> large-scale detection
> terrorists
sigh...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/the-s...
Law enforcement doesn't have to have an answer or info about every single event.
If I'm driving a car down the highway, law enforcement doesn't need to know where I am going or why. I'm not breaking any laws and not infringing on anyone's rights.
As a pilot I can go fly my plane at any altitude I wish as long as I am not entering any controlled airspace. I don't have to ask or tell anyone what I'm doing.
So why do they need to know why I'm flying my drone and where I'm going?
Well, no. That’s not true. Firstly there are rules about the altitude you can fly at when it’s greater than 3000’, and second you are required to file a flight plan any time you are flying IFR.
If you want to get pedantic, you're also required to file a flight plan if there is some restriction in place requiring such for the area you are flying in. For example a TFR, or operation in an ADIZ or SFRA/FRZ(Washington DC). Or if you are flying internationally.
And why are you bring up IFR? Most private pilots are flying VFR, even if they are IFR certified. But even in controlled airspace you don't have to file a flight plan. I can take off from a class C, fly through uncontrolled space and am not required to talk to anyone again. I don't have to say anything until I decide to land.
This is pretty common among pilots too. I'm not sure why drone pilots should be held to higher standard. Really they should be held to lower.
Drone pilots have to be held to a higher standard, because they have no skin in the game.
If a plane pilot flies like an idiot, they might hurt other people in the air... But they are very likely to also get themselves killed in the process.
This creates an incredibly strong incentive to not fly like an idiot.
A drone operator flying like an idiot is far more likely to get other people killed, than they are to get themselves killed.
If drone pilots could only operate them, while wearing a suicide vest that explodes if the drone crashes, I'd be more open to holding them to a lower standard than pilots.
IF something catastrophic happens. Issue is that a 2lb drone is much less likely to do damage than a plane. You seriously can not compare the two. The danger levels of the two are nothing alike. If they were, I'd agree with you, but these things have magnitudes of difference in danger.
Your point is valid, in that every other motor vehicle that operates on public property has a requirement to be able to be positively identified to a owning entity. But there is no requirement that this be identifiable from great distance.
A drone in the air does create a unique challenge that a transponder would help resolve. But just like any other form of identification, it's an 'honor system' in that I could just put any vessel ID number on my boat, could steal a tag, or transmit a fake transponder ID if I were engaging in illegal activity. A trivial matter if I am advanced enough to be conducting operations with unmanned aircraft.
So I'm not sure that resolving someone's curiosity about my legal activity is a compelling enough reason to require me to attach a broadcasting identification device to my drone, or otherwise identify myself or my aircraft to law enforcement 'just because they should know'
Transponder codes aren't just going to be used by lawful citizens, but specifically lawful citizens that are careful and read the instructions (and have bought a drone with proper instructions or they independently looked them up). With how few people read instructions, I don't think this is a good solution.
The N number is there for when the drone crashes into something/someone. They had dropped the requirement for a while - looks like it is back on again.
I agree that common courtesy would dictate that you inform the public, but it's not a requirement and not something that should become law.
I doesn’t seem to be acceptable that somebody is flying pretty heavy drones every night without anybody knowing who or why.
For the most part neither of those things are requirements for regular aviation.
Additionally, transponders aren't needed for a lot of flying either.
Shooting an inanimate object hovering over your property is illegal? ... on the federal level? I suppose it would have to be, but...
Edit: Now I know: "Under Title 18 of the United State Code 32, the sabotage of an unmanned aircraft could carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison." [0]
I like the advise to not shoot down the drones, as this can cause a battery fire
> If it doesn't move, try shooting it.
This is my 12 word guide to Texas.
> New swarming drone technology could help find lost hikers, study wildlife
CU Boulder Today, Sept 16, 2017
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/09/06/new-swarming-drone...
Edit: Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECVU): https://www.colorado.edu/recuv/
Edit 2: This has been a fun topic to research! Here’s a link to the list of equipment used by the Integrated Remote and In-Situ Sensing (IRISS) team:
https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waiver... ?
If they're non-government/military and are operating legally I think they would most likely have a 107 waiver filed, at least to allow night flying. That does mean they'd still need to be under the weight limit but I think the number of non-107 authorizations, which would allow heavier drones, is very small.
Also I'd be surprised if a University research program had the resources to field 17 drones of this size.
and as a ham we don't capitalize it, its not an acronym.
Well unless you care about privacy, the potential for stuff crashing on you/your property, and/or noise pollution.
I have no problem with people not wanting drones flying over their properties, and I have no problem with a collective decision that people's privacy should supersede the right to fly drones in public airspace (indeed, I'd probably agree with it). But that should be enforced by a change in law, not by an demand that someone justify their supposedly legal actions.
Myabe law enforcement feels left out of the game.
Other aspects to consider are that the “drones” are replaced by others as batteries deplete or that the drones aren’t really there as long as people believe.
It’s possible that someone is doing this as a hobby for artistic, conspiracy theory “reconnaissance“ or benign data gathering-purposes or conducting some sort of investigation or intelligence gathering.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201912241077783862-its-not-santa-...
This sounds like a commercial operation. They're obeying the law, staying below 400ft, and operating in a rural area. It seems like the news articles are doing their best to make this sound bad when there's nothing nefarious going on.
The article states that small drones must be flown during daylight hours according to the regulations. These drones are flown at night, which means they would be in violation of those rules.
Also, from the article: "they emerge each night around 7 p.m. and disappear around 10 p.m.". 7-10 p.m. isn't night, it's evening. Yes, in the US it's (probably?) dark by then this time of the year, but maybe they're following some regulation that is defined in terms of time of the day, and not the amount of daylight?
Night is after sunset in common English: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/8954/the-exact-time-...
Also for the FAA:
14 CFR § 1.1: "Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."
Looks pretty comfy to me. How much does an abandoned farm house in Yuma County go for these days?
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9191659,-102.240448,419m/dat...
Given the first sightings were in the more eastern counties of Colorado, and have been moving westward, but remaining in the rural areas still, it seems like someone is searching for something. Did the military lose something? There's an air-force base in Cheyenne, WY, and one down in Colorado Springs...
Assuming they are searching for something what could be found after dark? Perhaps something that gives off radioactivity or light in an invisible spectrum? Why would they fly at night other than to help them lay low?
Perhaps it is some sort of military drone flight training program?
I assume the nighttime thing partially has to do with avoiding migrating Canadian Geese, and of course obscured visibility.
It absolutely could be some sort of training program, which seems like the most likely answer, but why lie about it when you've been so readily "caught"?
Or freindly UFO... scouting out landing spot for mother ship anyway it is not normal to fly and operate such a fleet of drones undocumented in the USA..
They seem to just loiter for several hours at a time.
We have a fleet of (at least) 30 drones operating in a similar manner over Indiana. All of them reliably following paths between fixed waypoints. Upon reaching their waypoints, they tend to loiter place for a bit, change elevation, then move to the next point on their route. They typically come out around 7 pm, and disappear around 5 in the morning. They never fly in poor weather conditions.
The bulk of them seem to be Delta-wing aircraft, with lights at each point of their triangular bodies, and another array of three white, rectangular lights beneath them which will often flash, be disabled, or even on in lieu of the lights at their wingtips. I've estimated them to be between 6 and 15ft in wingspan.
They have a forward-swept vertical control surface with a red light at its apex, that I've variably seen at the top, and the bottom of the craft.
I've seen them fly forwards, backwards, and taxi side to side in rotating triangular formations of four, with one at the epicenter. They typically fly around 50mph.
They first appeared in the large numbers around south-central indiana July of 2018, but operate at lower densities across much of the southern half of the state.
I've always attributed it to the nearby naval warfare research center, due to the lack of public comment on the part of our local government, or regulatory bodies.
> ... the nearby naval warfare research center, ...
I'd be interested in more details (either here or via e-mail to my username at gmail) as to where you've seen these flying. I'm basically in between Bloomington and Crane (which is, I assume, where you're referring to) and have several friends who work at various levels in law enforcement in the area and even more friends who work at Crane.
This is the first I've heard of anything like this in the area, though.
The car following a star is a classic.
It used to be aliens, now it's drones, interesting culture shift.
America is pretty great isn't it? Just don't try to bring a liquid on a public flight and you're a model citizen.
People robbed of illegal property usually do not report such losses to the authorities.
>People robbed of illegal property usually do not report such losses to the authorities.
Because growing, selling, and possessing cannabis is illegal under US federal law, and if you are a organizer, manager, or supervisor deriving substantial income from such an operation conducted with 5 or more other individuals, you can be charged wih a felony with a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first offense, and if the operation handles enough product or makes enough money, the minimum sentence moves up to life without possibility of parole.
There's a current federal law that prohibits initiating prosecutions for cannabis operations that are permitted under state-level medical marijuana laws, but that doesn't negate the offense, it just means any charges that would be covered by the prohibition (which violations not strictly with medical marijuana laws.are technically not) are delayed as long as the policy is in effect.
> They have legal cannabis in Colorado.
No, they have a situation in which some cannabis trade is prohibited by only one of the two applicable sovereigns.
FYSA wasn't able to replicate the reader view issue with uBO on Firefox, both desktop and mobile.
It’s a huge shame this is happening, but more of a shame that no at the paper successfully innovated to survive the switch to digital.
Any chance the drone activity is related to Kim Jong-un's promised Christmas present? NE Colorado has, or had at one time, a few Atlas or Minuteman missile silos.
He urged people not to try to shoot the drones down, both because their batteries can cause intense fires and also because shooting a drone is a federal crime.
“It becomes a self-generating fire that burns until it burns itself out,” he said. “If you shoot a drone down over your house and it lands on your house, you might not have a house in 45 minutes.”
So these are really vehicles of arson?