I am disappointed in one of our own members for his neglegent decision to fly over freeways.

[DucktileMedia]

This Bob Hughes guy jumped on here a few years ago and clearly has had plenty of time to saturate the knowledge of the tribe. but somehow it didnt get through his thick skull that flying over freeways is just downright IRRESPONSIBLE !!

Shame on you Bob.

 

[Bartman]

i know Bob from the site but have to agree that flying over active lanes of traffic like that is a really bad idea.

 

[SamaraMedia]

No "Brilliance" used in making this video. I thought I could see him in the parking lot while flying around the torch statue at about :40 mark of the video. Hatch open on SUV and two people standing next to it...

 

[SleepyC]

 

[Vermiform]

I'll wait to pass judgement until more info is available, like did he somehow get permission, what type of bird he used, etc.

Depending on circumstance, is this any less safe than a news chopper?

 

[violetwolf]

Depending on circumstance, is this any less safe than a news chopper?

Yes

 

[SleepyC]

I'll wait to pass judgement until more info is available, like did he somehow get permission, what type of bird he used, etc.

Depending on circumstance, is this any less safe than a news chopper?

It is less safe. A news chopper even under much distress can 99% of the time "crash under control".
A multi rotor under failure will drop straight down.

Also, no matter what your going by, if you are a professional this is a no go. PERIOD.
UNLESS.... the entire Highway was shut down, all the cars and drivers were part of a film set, and the op has a 333 with closed set filming approved, THEN this would not be an issue.

 

[Vermiform]

Agree

It is less safe. A news chopper even under much distress can 99% of the time "crash under control".
A multi rotor under failure will drop straight down.

Good point and agreed.

What if he had stayed parallel to the highway but close to it? Would this be a safe practice then?

 

[Bartman]

not if his being there had the potential to distract drivers and cause an accident

 

[fengshuidrone]

To fly in the right places and not be a safety issue to anyone or anything you need one special tool in your flight kit. That tool is called "common sense." A misnomer if ever there was one
In Bob's honor I would like to post this crash and burn video to remind people like Bob not to fly like a Doofuss

JUST CLICK THE WATCH THIS VIDEO ON YOUTUBE LINK THERE IN THE VIDEO BOX
I'ts worth it.

 

[Vermiform]

So do you think a modified GoPro and a connex on a small X8 would be impractical for getting footage of a traffic jam?

 

[Old Man]

Until reliability or a means to maintain control if power fails, yes, the safety factor just isn't there. Those two items are the primary weaknesses that limit our functionality.

 

[Ti@goo]

After that take-off why did the guy continued to fly! Well deserved! Glad it did not hurt someone. Next time it won`t happen..

 

[violetwolf]

So do you think a modified GoPro and a connex on a small X8 would be impractical for getting footage of a traffic jam?

Here in Canada we are required to stay 9km (5 miles) from any "built up area" while flying, Unless we have a "Special Flight Operations Certificate" which you must apply for with a full flight plan etc.

A "built up area" is considered anything bigger than a farmstead...

If a SFOC is granted you are required to keep a closed set that only involves people in the shoot. You must have first aid, fire, and crowd control.

Flights like the one in the video are irresponsible to put it mildly.

Flying over an intersection is just as bad. If drivers are looking at your drone they may not notice the light changing to RED for instance.

 

[fengshuidrone]

Here in Canada we are required to stay 9km (5 miles) from any "built up area" while flying, Unless we have a "Special Flight Operations Certificate" which you must apply for with a full flight plan etc.

A "built up area" is considered anything bigger than a farmstead...

If a SFOC is granted you are required to keep a closed set that only involves people in the shoot. You must have first aid, fire, and crowd control.

Flights like the one in the video are irresponsible to put it mildly.

Flying over an intersection is just as bad. If drivers are looking at your drone they may not notice the light changing to RED for instance.

Sounds like a good example of common sense to me

 

[Blue Collar]

To say that full scale aircraft are safer than a drone seems like FAA (Boeing and Northrup) propaganda to me. The facts and the physics say the contrary, if the op video was shoot with something like a 2 pound phantom then the risk to person or property is astronomical low. And to say that the drone may distract drivers is like saying the billboard with the pretty girl on it caused the crash. It is the drivers responsibility to keep his or hers attention on the road. If a police, lifeflight, or news helicopter flew low over a highway would you consider them a distraction to drivers that should not be allowed. Not to mention that it wasn't a distraction to any of the drivers in that video (if you can find any driver that says they saw a suas while driving on a freeway I will gladly retract that statement). Even if a 20lb multi crashed on a freeway how is that different than something falling of the back of a truck which happens every hour in the US, do you all advocate that nothing should be placed in the back of a truck unless the highway is closed and the proper permits are filed. This excessive safety awareness with drones is getting a little ridiculous suas do not have the same consequences if they crash as full scale aircraft but the FAA wants to treat them as if they do. Posting a video of an x8 that is obviously being test flown for probably the first time and it crashing because of extremely light disc loading (something dji fcs do not like) doesn't prove that multirotors are just not reliable enough to be flown anywhere near a built up area. I guess that is why we test fly in a remote location like they did on the yt clip. For all the doom and gloom I hear about these irresponsible drone operators I have yet to see any reports of significant injury or damage (and no I do not consider Ricky Martin's cut hand a significant injury). At this point we have had at least a million hours of flight time with suas (I know I'm responsible for several thousand over the last decade) and yet there is not one report of significant injury or damage. If the FAA was primarily concerned with safety they could start by stopping all photography and videography from full scale helis and planes. Over the last decade or so there have been 19 deaths doing this activity with full scale and during the same time drones have done much more filming (probably a magnitude of 1000x) without a single significant incident. But if the news chopper or film production co. has the proper permits and license than they are safe enough to fly over built up areas even though in the past they have crashed into populated areas and caused significant damage and injury.

With all the above being said I do not condone flying over a freeway or over a crowd of people, but I also don't condone drinking the kool aid and screaming that the sky is falling because somebody harmlessly does.

 

[Motopreserve]

@Blue Collar - while your stats may be true (I do not have personal knowledge of the stats you mentioned), I think the key here is that the price of admission is quite a bit lower for drones. Many of us here have spent time, money and effort to not only build/buy high quality rigs, but also to fly them responsibly...

BUT

If any fruit loop with $500 could buy a full-scale heli or plane and head off over populated areas, we would probably see a rise in the statistics you quoted. At this point, with multirotors we are left to self-policing, and there's some basic, common sense involved with not running the risk of crashing over populated areas/roadways. Sadly, a lack of this sense is borne out on YouTube each and every day.

To me it's less important to focus on the numbers, and more important to focus on the potential. If there have been no serious drone-related injuries thus far, the only way to keep that statistic rolling is to avoid the potential all-together.

 

[Blue Collar]

The only way to avoid the potential all together is to ban all drones, and if you go with that logic we should ban all aircraft.

The price of admission argument doesn't hold water for me. The $500 drones have very little risk because of there size and weight. Sure it's basically no money compared to full scale but the consequences of a phantom or parrot or something similar crashing are almost non existent in the scheme of things. Throwing a football or a frisbee or hitting a golfball has similar chance of causing real damage as a sub 1kg drone.

I own a handful of expensive drones and flew fpv for the first time over a decade ago so I get your point of all the johnny come latelys kind of ruining the game but the safety issue I don't see. I know my $15K rig could do some damage (although the risk is much much much lower than full scale)but the $500 drones the risk just is not there.

The stat of 19 aerial photo/video deaths comes from the FAA.

Sure there are a lot of idiots doing stuff they shouldn't but as long as its being done with smaller drones the real as opposed to perceived risk is very low. So until somebody actually causes some real damage or injury with a drone I don't see the need for starting a thread calling a member negligent.

 

[Bartman]

@Blue Collar

refusal to accept something as negligent doesn't make it any less negligent. A full scale helicopter wouldn't be flying a few hundred feet over an eight lane roadway and it if did a person would see it from far enough away that by the time they got there they'd be adjusted and in control. seeing a drone, which is still something of an oddity especially when at a couple of hundred feet over a freeway, could easily cause someone to be distracted enough to cause an accident or fail to avoid one that may have been started by someone else.

we can argue all day who is in which camp when it comes to restricting or not restricting unmanned aircraft ops but sooner or later we as a community of users with a lot of time/money invested need to police ourselves. in this case, @DucktileMedia referenced a video which doesn't show much self-responsibility and i happen to agree. while it's crossed my mind to delete it as we might normally do with videos that show operations we don't condone, i thought that leaving it up would serve to let others know it's not good for the general public or our community of users to fly in this way.

what you do in the privacy of your own operations is your business but what we discuss in public as responsible or irresponsible here at the site will always err on the side of caution as we have a diverse community of members with a greatly varying depth of operational experience. fwiw, if i was in one of those cars in the video i wouldn't want that heli where it was.

 

[Old Man]

Blue Collar,

A few of us in here have been flying manned aviation for a VERY long time. No accidents. Personally, I've been directly involved with high level unmanned aviation for 11 years. Many accidents. I've been involved with high level R&D for a couple years, and some of those are beyond what most have ever seen. The accident rates are even higher.

Our level of MR's use auto pilots that are realistically no more than toys, with motors and ESC's made from the cheapest components and lowest level of underpaid, unskilled labor available. Most of the radio equipment is similar, with the exception of Futaba, who had been manufacturing very sophisticated industrial robotic systems for a very long time.