Drones visit California wildfire, angering firefighters | Hacker News Reader

Drones visit California wildfire, angering firefighters

cnn.com

69 pointsstefap276 comments

Sooner or later there will be laws against anything but the most basic drone flying because of jerks like this. Lately i have been reading an article about the Dutch government thinking about quite expensives licences for commercial drone flyers and height and distance restrictions for private flights (which are already in place in many places). In germany you are generally limited to 50 meters of height in most places for example.

A reason why many regulations exist even though they do not seem optimal for this day and age. Those who blindly cry that "regulations are bad" do not realize that in many cases a very small group of people will ensure the necessity of the regulations even though it may result in the overall population being worse off due to the existence of the regulations.

> Those who blindly cry that "regulations are bad" do not realize that in many cases a very small group of people will ensure the necessity of the regulations even though it may result in the overall population being worse off due to the existence of the regulations.

Then one should think really deeply how to create regulations that only avoid the problems with the small group, but not make the overall population worse off.

I'm starting "Dangerous Drones Daily" I'll include links to HN discussions so it'll be easier to repeat the same discussions.

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-dai...

Selfish %#$&%s. I would fully support the firefighters takings them out of the sky with any means necessary. Jam their communications, throw nets, have an 'attack' drone, anything. Surely there are some laws about obstructing firefighters or other emergency services?

Yea, my first thought was "Just shoot them down".. Then I realized that's probably harder than it sounds ;) Plus the risk of stray bullets etc etc.. Still, there's likely something that can be done besides wandering the area and kindly asking the people with drone control's in their hands to stop.

I don't see why a shotgun wouldn't be a reasonably safe way to deal with these things.

The shot can travel a significant distance and still be deadly when they come back down to Earth.

It's no more dangerous than shooting at ducks.

Besides, nobody is really supposed to be wandering around near a forest fire. If they happen to be there, I say "fair game" -- I'll even pay $10 for an ear.

Hunting birds in flight is a common activity.

If you -as all projectile-weapon-wielding hunters should be- are aware of what is downrange, then shooting at things in flight with a shotgun is a relatively low risk activity.

A few bits of stray shot travelling at terminal velocity are unlikely to do significant lasting harm to someone on the ground. (For comparison, try to find out how many folks have had fatal encounters with pellet or BB guns. The size and weight of an average BB is in the same ballpark as a single piece of shot.)

I've been hit by falling shot dozens of times. Still alive. Eye injury is a risk. You need eye protection, in the form of goggles or ballistic glasses.

Gonna hafta call [Citation Needed] on anyone killed by ballistic birdshot.

Seriously. Dick Cheney blasted a colleague right in the face and the guy was able to apologize for getting shot the next day. (I wish I were making this up)

Instead of replying to everyone, I'll reply to myself:

I was thinking of regular shot (20/12/10 gauge), not bird shot. I have a skeet shooting mentality. I imagine you all are correct and bird shot would not be carrying deadly velocity when it returns to ground level.

no it won't you wouldn't even feel bird shot falling on you the energy it has from it's terminal velocity is really nothing.

Anyone who's been to skeet, pigeon or water bird shoot can tell you that, you only really notice it when you hear it hit your hat / jacket it sounds like rain more than anything else.

A bullet needs to be fairly heavy to actually kill you, even 72grn bullets are not heavy enough to do serious damage, they will hurt tho...

I wonder if you could use some kind of foam gun, which fires a fast hardening and sticky foam to jam up the motors/cover the blades. You still have the issues of (possibly heavy) drones falling to the ground, and lithium batteries in a fire. But it might be worth the trade-off for dealing with the wildfire quicker.

They are firefighters.. they have giany squirt guns. They gotta have some range.

According to a reddit post the sighting might actually have been due to a fully legal RC field in the area.

https://pay.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/3dqoyh/multico...

The RC field would've received a grounding notice from the FAA, like any other private / civilian field.

Emergency areas are cleared for emergency flights only and their airspace is restricted, even news copters cannot go into that space and many of them were fined and even licenses were revoked when they violated the restrictions.

That seems unlikely to me. The RC field is over 12 miles from the nearest fire location, and 8 miles outside the boundary of the TFR.

The FAA sets altitude zones to separate drones from helicopters, but these helicopters have exemptions that allow them to fly low. I have seen someone fly a drone around a low flying helicopter before. Both the drone operator and the helicopter pilot noticed each other from a long ways away. The drone pilot adjusted his altitude to stay about 100ft below the helicopter, navigated out of its flight path, and both were able to navigate the same airspace safely for 20 minutes.

These operators would likely do the same if a helicopter was present. You may need to fly to 500ft so that the operators know there is an aircraft that needs the airspace. An ambulance doesn't wait at the hospital until the roads are clear, it turns on its lights and sirens to notify surrounding vehicles to get out of the way.

They're everywhere, and a few people are probably going to ruin a lot of the current Lack of legislation around them by doing things like this. At the July 4th fireworks show we went to there were at least four buzzing around the entire time, and this was just a small one in northern Idaho.

Seems like either the FAA needs to start broadcasting their flight restriction advisories a bit more broadly (now that they need to be heeded by more and more people), or people who fly multirotors need a basic "here's how you follow the rules of the sky" course when they buy one.

Based on some some Reddit comments [1], it does indeed seem like this was a lack of information, not a malicious action (or even ignorance).

[1] https://pay.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/3dqoyh/multico...

I saw that, but the point that even if flight was normally allowed at that location, it was cancelled by the FAA advisories, which the multi rotor operators were not aware of.

If they (well, we, since I'm one of them) want to operate in controlled airspace, we need to be aware of the restrictions put in place by the managers of said airspace.

I appreciate that they were willing to shut down so quickly, however. That shows good will and an interest to do the right thing.

It seems like the firefighters should have a device to disrupt the radio frequencies of the drones in these cases. Whoever is operating them near a disaster such as this one is being an inconsiderate, thoughtless jerk.

there are plenty of autonomous systems that require no tx/rx link. They are usually for photography on fixed courses, after which they return to a home.

Destroy them mechanically if you want them out of the sky.

Would it be possible to hit them with flak cannons, or are they too low?

I'd rather they spent the money on fighting the fires - starting an electronic war against the drone fliers would be terrible.

That, and the wide-spectrum jammers they require (2.4, 900mhz, what else do they use?) would probably wreak havoc on operational frequencies.

I was at the beach the other day, and this drone was flying too close to my friend in a skimpy bathing suit. It was probally innocent, but got me thinking about a drone hack I read a year ago.

Basically, this guy put together a hacking drone that I believe uses Aircrack-ng, and node-ar-drone(I have never heard of this program?) to capture signals of the target drone. Once captured, the hacking drone flys off with the target drone, and takes it home.

The parts are :Using a Parrot AR.Drone 2, a Raspberry Pi, a USB battery, an Alfa AWUS036H wireless transmitter, aircrack-ng, node-ar-drone, node.js, and my SkyJac

http://samy.pl/skyjack/

Has anyone tried this hack? just curious? I would definetly stop irritating drone operators? while I Believe Hobby Drones(with height limitations built in the software) Are An Overstated Danger To A Aircraft; There should be laws prohibiting them at emergencies/events, with low flying aircraft.

If I saw a drone interfering with an emergency situation, or hovering over my residence; I might take a chance and high jack the offending drone--if this hack worked?

How about very focused and fast (high energy) water cannons, from the ground and from helicopters, as one among many anti-drone weapons?

EDIT: A drone-clearing drone, carrying the water cannon. It would be sent into an airspace where a problem drone has been reported, and either water down the offending drones, or report that they're gone. After clearing the airspace, firefighting aircraft are allowed in.

XKCD already has the solution https://xkcd.com/1523/

I don't really understand how a small drone can represent a problem for a helicopter, particularly if the helicopter comes from above. Really. Can someone explain?

Despite this, however, I of course agree on the fact that irresponsible behavior is to be condemned.

If the helicopter strikes the drone, or vice versa, it could cause the helicopter to crash. Think of it like a bird strike, which are also a problem for aircraft.

How many helicopters crash because of birds, and how many more birds are there than drones?

birds arent made of aluminium and copper, and birds are aware of the surroundings, and usually fly away the steel/noisy steel monsters.

You can't control birds, you can control idiots who are flying drones in what common sense would dictate to be a restricted zone.

This argument is on the same level as "people die due to lighting strikes every year, so why do we need lighting catchers on buildings?" Or better yet why have surge protection at all?

This is blocking an ambulance level of dickery here sorry and there is no way around it.

Where risk to human life is concerned, each individual's perception of the risk-reward trade-off involved in regulation will vary. Evidence of this can be found at every airport in the country. So I can see where you're coming from here.

However, the position you're taking puts you on the side of: people should be allowed to fly drones in an area where aircraft are responding to an emergency (a wildfire) that puts other lives at risk. Any drone not flying in coordinated effort to actually put out the fire is of a priority that is very, very distant to that of the firefighting aircraft. At least by my measure, and I'm in the camp that believes the TSA should be abolished.

Any statistical analysis of helicopter bird strikes won't negate the fact that having drones in the area of operation increases the chance that a pilot may lose their life to a collision with a drone that serves no purpose than to populate YouTube with riveting footage of a disaster. Is an increase of even 1 in a million worth that? Not by my account it isn't.

How many birds try to get near helicopters for a better shot?

There is no guarantee the helicopter will be coming from above. Aerial firefighting is a very low level activity, well below the operating ceilings of RC planes/multirotors.

Many of the commercial drones you can buy weigh north of a kilogram, and contain a fair amount of aluminum and copper. It is very likely that would result in a very bad day if it were ingested by the turbine powering the helicopter.

Would it be ok for someone to fly their private Cessna over the fire? EDIT: Nope. Learned about Temporary Flight Restrictions from a comment here. So, we just need to be enforcing these for ALL aircraft.

This thread currently has the lame self rightness on par with reddit. Evil humans are stopping firefighters cause they are evil.

Where's the science. Can a drone actually hurt a helicopter. And did the drone controllers know they were causing an issue, I doubt it.

I am sure helicopter can not be damaged, since it is much bigger. Blades at almost supersonic speed will slice everything like a butter. I seen it in movie.

Firefighters are probably just worried about expensive drones ;-)

Agreed, are they stopping helicopters for large birds too, or is this just an excuse?

Large birds fear for their safety and avoid the helicopter, I'm guessing at least some drone pilots - especially those willing to fly their drone over something like this - have less fear for their drones "safety". Hell - They may even be trying to get "the action shot" by trailing the helicopter etc etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike

Bird activity is indeed a cause for concern in aerial firefighting (and aviation in general).

"Can a drone actually hurt a helicopter. And did the drone controllers know they were causing an issue, I doubt it."

Drones in a restricted flight zone, in a fire situation will ground fire-fighting helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. That stops essential fire suppression operations which allows fires to get out of control. In turn, this hurts people. Is that clear enough?

So just fly the damn helicopters and forget the drones. The chance of a drone taking out a helicopter almost certainly so low as to be not worth worrying about.

I was thinking the rotor wash from the much-larger-than-toy-drone helicopters would handle the drones just fine.

Assuming the drone is below the helicopter. It's just as likely the drone would be above the helicopter and rotor wash would pull the drone _towards_ the turbine inlets.

Your[1] argument seems to be "We don't know if they're dangerous, I personally don't think they are so we should just allow them". The first part is okay, the second part I strongly disagree with. We're dealing with an emergency situation here, if drones can damage helicopters/hamper the efforts of the firefighters and they're not banned there is the potential of loss of life. If they don't, and we ban them, there's the loss of cool pictures, and personal freedom in a disaster zone. Something which we have experienced without problems for ages now.

Sure, perhaps some research would be in order to determine if/what kind of drones can cause issues, and allow those which are safe (or atleast give licenses to news drones and the like for public interest purposes). But erring on the side of caution before the results are in does not seem to be a bad idea IMHO.

[1] as in, the people in this thread arguing for the use of drones, not you as an individual.

You sound like a drone enthusiast, so let's play the odds.

Assume for a bit that there is a low but non-zero chance that a helicopter could be damaged by a drone.

Now let's imagine the unlikely scenario that a helicopter and drone collide, resulting in loss of the helicopter and death of its operator.

Do you think the public response to that scenario is going to leave much of the drone hobbyist ecosystem intact? Or is it more likely (human nature being what it is, especially when faced with an event in the "We could have prevented this but failed to" category) that laws will be passed to ban drone operation unless the operator has a year of training, N hours of flight time, retinal scans on record, and a giant red 'D' branded on their chest?

For the health of the drone hobbyist ecosystem, it would be wise for drone operators to steer clear of emergency response situations so as to not even make the question of what to do in the event of a crash a necessary one to answer.

If this was the case, why would aircraft (including helicopters) be so wary of birds? Birds generally have much lower mass than your average multirotor, so if one of those can hurt an aircraft, why can't a drone?

Yeah, I think the one thing we can all agree on is that firefighters are a bunch of scaredy cats who need to accept a little risk in their jobs.

Well obviously - depending on the helicopter and where its turboshaft (jet engines, with air inlets, but designed to create rotational energy rather than raw thrust) are mounted, it's quite possible for a drone to get sucked into the inlets, possibly causing FOD (foreign object damage).

Likely - maybe not, but definitely possible.

So, you're saying that it is so implausible that ingesting a couple pounds of aluminum and copper would be bad for a turbine that 'science' needs to prove it's unsafe before we consider it an issue for aerial firefighting?

When a small bird can shatter the windscreen of a helicopter temporarily blinding the pilot, I think it's pretty safe to assume a 2kg drone can cause some pretty significant damage;

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/03/after-bird-blinds...

Would it be possible to develop a drone that avoids airplanes, people, etc? Not that the operators should rely on it of course, but more as a fail safe. No one worries about birds flying into aircraft because they are usually scared of them. Perhaps we could make drones afraid of them as well.

Why don't we just develop people with better morals.

... still waiting.

Yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOrVgSUVJE4

That being said. The temporary airspace restriction around the aerial firefighting operation means the drones shouldn't be in the air in the first place.

This is a non-issue - the probability of someone dying because they crash into a tiny drone is miniscule. They are just being hyper-cautious and raising a stink about it. They should get on with their lives and drop the water on the fire.

Probably the same people who slow down or stop driving safely to look at whatever is going on in a single lane or the side of the road (accident or some other distraction).

what's the problem with slowing down to inspect the accident scene and figure out if they need help or something, I think this behavior is much better then that of those who just ignore accidents and drive away without checking if accident passengers need help.

So if there's a tow truck and emergency vehicles already working the scene, you still should observe and make sure they're okay?

I understand people want to help but in some situations it's better to just keep going.

Original comment I replied to was referring to accident, there was nothing about emergency vehicles already working the scene...

In light of this situation, I'm betting California will pass a law this year to deal with this. The penalties will be severe (Felony).

Im getting tired reading all this drone whining. Drones are small and light, there is almost zero chance of a drone doing any harm to an aircraft, drone on the other hand will get obliterated. You dont see Firefighters complaining about big birds.

I can appreciate you getting tired of the whining when you're completely misinformed.

1. There are many drones that are anything but small and light.

2. We are talking about helicopters here. One drone flying into the tail or even overhoard rotors could easily take it down.

3. Birds are a natural occurrence and do not view large helicopters as a threat i.e. they aren't going to consistently and repeatedly fly towards it. The issue with these drones is that are constantly hovering and constantly attacking the helicopters.

>The issue with these drones is that are constantly hovering and constantly attacking the helicopters

in the same way people are constantly reaching for a gun when Police kills someone.

I do wish helicopters would stop hoarding all the airspace with those overhoard rotors, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike

Here's a nice cockpit camera view of a CT-155 Hawk ingesting a bird and then crashing in a field [1]. (The title and description say it is in F-16, but that is incorrect [2]). Why do you think drones would not be capable of causing similar damage?

I have no idea about helicopters, but for aircraft with turbojet engines all but the smallest drones would hit the blades if ingested and that would cause damage. It might not cause a reduction or complete loss of engine power if the drone is small enough, but it would still cost a lot of money due to inspection and repair costs and down time.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_Zl64OQEw

[2] http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-nftc-ct-155-...

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