Don't Fly Drones Here | Hacker News Reader

Don't Fly Drones Here

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61 pointscyberviewer31 comments

I like the concept, but altitude matters. Airport control areas are like an inverted layer cake: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Airspace_...

It would be nice to add a feature to drone navigation software to prevent accidental entry into an exclusion zone.

DJI software already has that implemented for Phantom 2: http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc

That's irrelevant because it is illegal to go above 400ft with a model aircraft, which is before the zones balloon out any anyway. It's like saying being illegal once over or twice over matters.

It's not illegal, it's just not recommended per a previous FAA advisory. This is a common misunderstanding.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 specifies a blanket five mile radius around airports as requiring prior approval from ATC for model aircraft.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/HR658_020112.pdf

If only civilians in places like Pakistan could also say "don't fly drones here"

It's amazing how much our military seems to dehumanize innocent people. BTW, what's wrong with using police forces to stop terrorists?

Where's the trial? Where's the evidence?

I think they're referring to the collateral human damage. For the most part most will agree "using police forces to stop terrorists" is okay.

(1) It's a violation of the rule of law to execute suspected criminals without a trial

(2) Even if this was not the case, international law on affiliation with terrorist groups is sketchy at best

(3) A multitude of drone strike victims have been verified by independent entities to be innocent civilians (proper innocent civilians, not innocent civilians in HAMAS's interpretation of the term)

(4) It is in fact violation of Pakistanian law for foreign powers to operate military aircraft in Pakistanian airspace. This was determined by the Pakistanian supreme court, which the Prime Minister of Pakistan has actually been held in contempt of the court over.

Soooo... I think point 1 is the most salient, but there are plenty of other good arguments why the global CIA military campaign against suspected terrorists is morally and legally dubious.

You are never going to win that argument against the military, unless you are able to come up with a better way to deal with the terrorists that doesn't put US soldiers at risk.

As for the civilian deaths - well there are always civilian deaths for military action.

I'm not trying to win an argument with the military. Nobody wins an argument with the US military. It's the most powerful organization that exists, if you exclude the leaders to whom it is accountable. But that doesn't change the moral and legal facts, which are pretty clear.

Are you actually allowed to fly drones over the nuclear power stations? They are also not marked in this map.

I would not trust this map, since after doing a 10 seconds check of the airspace that I am personally familiar with I have noticed that restricted area R-2531 above Lawrence Livermore Lab is not marked. Who knows what else they have missed and what sources they are basing their data on.

It's a crowd-sourced work in progress...

Grabbing the restricted/prohibited areas out of the national airspace data and adding them in seems like a fairly obvious thing to do before putting the thing out for the public to see. I actually have a hard time figuring out how you could have the class B/C/D areas and TFRs without also grabbing the restricted/prohibited areas.

Submit a pull request to fix it.

Also Fermilab outside Chicago is not on here. Pretty sure you're not allowed to fly over it. Nor am I seeing no fly zones over Illinois's nuclear plants.

Some guy in my neighbor occasionally play with motor helicopter in his backyard and it happens to be in no fly zone. Should I call polices to get him arrested?

Or should you ask him first if he's aware of it?...

What info does this give you that a VFR sectional chart doesn't? Or is the idea just to avoid having to learn how to interpret a chart?

Probably more of the latter, and the fact that TFRs can be shown along with them.

I just usually use http://vfrmap.com/ but for those unfamiliar with the charts and even for those who are, this probably provides an interesting and easier breakdown.

Interesting but a bit silly, thus landing it in credibility buster territory for anyone who puts a moment of thought into it. Take Boise as an example. Within the five mile radius is downtown Boise. On any given day guess how many planes fly at a low altitude over the downtown corridor? That's right, zero. They all stick to a southerly route over mostly dessert.

Yes, but isn't that just because the view outside the cabin windows is sweeter there?

I'm so glad they're using Open Street Map for this :D

Promoting their OpenStreetMap based data platform is probably part of the reason for Mapbox to have this up.

https://www.mapbox.com/data-platform/#mapbox-streets

(I'm trying to make that come across as not being particularly cynical, I think they have employees that are interested in making maps and post/host some of them, not that they slapped this together as a promotion)

So I live in a no fly zone. good to know. Most of Maryland is.

You can't fly drones in national parks? That's a shame

When I visit a national park the last thing I want to see -- or hear -- is a drone flying around. Even worse when said drone is being flown by someone who has no idea what they're doing like this guy: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-usa-drones-yell...

My (armchair) understanding is this isn't where you "can" and "cannot" fly - it should be viewed more as "where you don't need permission", and "where you do need permission".

The later does not mean permission cannot be obtained, only that it is required.

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