Here we go, one more nail in our coffin

ianwood said:
Cars, planes, helicopters, pedestrians all put each other at risk all day long without prior consent with much more deadly consequences. My 2kg flying chicken hovering 150ft over the center of a street is the smallest of present threats to anyone underneath it.

And as for giving ammunition to the media, the FAA, etc., that horse has already bolted. We're already pariahs. We have nothing to lose at this point. The FAA is going to crush us with restrictions no matter what.

By flying in downtown LA, I am building public awareness. I get an overwhelmingly positive response every time. People ask where they can get one. iPhones come out by the dozen to take pictures.

We need to fight fire with fire. For every negative that is painted about "drones", we need to demonstrate something positive.

We're not talking about cars, planes, horses, pigs or any other manor of convoluting the issue.

And the idea that there is no way to make things worse is naive at best, disingenuous at worst.
 
And in the videos place is confirmation of what most of us already know was some pretty drainbramaged flying. Brokeback boy has now appeared under the FAA's microscope: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/06/10 ... .html?rh=1

Way to go cowboy. We should all be back to flying balsa planes with rubber-band power by the end of the year at this rate. Yee Ha!
 
There are no absolutes when it comes to safety. Therefore comparison to other reasonable levels of safety in the same environment is entirely warranted. I take extensive precautions when I fly in an urban environment yet I cannot guarantee that there won't be injuries or damage. Much like when I drive my car I cannot guarantee that I won't cause injuries or damage. In both applications, I am confident that through planning, caution and awareness I can minimize the risk enough so that it would take an exceptional event for significant damage or injury to occur.

The aviation industry often refers to safety using the analogy of layers of swiss cheese. The more layers of cheese (safety measures), the less likely each piece of cheese will have a hole in exactly the same place (resulting in a serious incident). You can take a similar approach with urban flying of multi-rotors.

These are my layers of cheese:
Obey all applicable laws and rules.
Do not fly over crowds.
Do not hover low over cars so as to distract them.
Shoot during off hours where there will be less traffic and people.
Avoid sensitive areas.
Get permission if there is any doubt as to private property or security or other issue.
Always know what is under the Phantom at all times.
Preflight the Phantom carefully. Look for any defects.
Any sign of unusual behavior, ground the Phantom until proper function can be confirmed.
Always have a ditching point, somewhere you can direct the Phantom if it starts to go out of control.
Don't overfly any area where you cannot alert people in time should something go wrong.
Be especially aware of children, animals and the infirm.
Use high-visibility strobes in twilight and night flight.
Always keep a clear LOS to the Phantom.
Do not ascend more than 25ft above buildings if you cannot see what air traffic may be approaching from the other side.
Know where all helipads are within a 1/4 mile.
Listen for approaching helicopter traffic and stay below building line if not clear.
Etc. Etc. Etc.

And that is all I am going to say on the matter for now.
 
Looks like a good list. The only other thing I would add is to never fly over any person or building without permission or that you do not control or have not been authorized to over fly.
 
Ianwood,
Know where all helipads are within a 1/4 mile.

Is this a rule, a standard or merely your recommendation? I ask as I'm recording a construction site two blocks from a hospital helipad. I spoke with a commercial, private jet pilot not associated with the hospital and he felt I would be fine staying below 400 feet. (Rarely do I hit 100 feet at this location.)


Flying Cephlopod,
You mentioned it is trespass to land on someone's property. Is the landing by accident the trespass or the walking onto, climbing upon to or driving onto the property the trespass? If I accidentally land on someone's property and then seek and am granted permission to retrieve my Phantom, have I committed trespass prior to the permission being granted?
 
All you need to do is check your area for whatever laws are in place. In my state the only law is that law enforcement can't use drones. There are no local laws.

That's it.

The FAA "guidelines" are not laws. I can fly above 400 feet if I want to. I can also use my drone for commercial purposes as well.

I won't get arrested or fined.

However, I fly responsibly and don't fly over crowds of people or in congested public areas. I typically follow the guidelines Ian listed.


So basically we have no ground to stand on when condemning drone pilots of what they are doing because it is within their legal rights. Am I defending them? No way. Actions like this will ultimately force drone laws down our throats.
 
ianwood said:
There are no absolutes when it comes to safety. Therefore comparison to other reasonable levels of safety in the same environment is entirely warranted.

I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you Ian, you're a smart guy.

Yes, there are no absolutes when it comes to safety, there is only risk mitigation, something you are well aware of. How can you compare a jet airliner, which has multiple levels of redundancy, and is highly regulated, to a quad? You can't, it'll take light a few billion years to travel that gap.

I believe YOU would act responsibly when flying, which is confusing me as to why you'd defend this *******. He had a total disregard for everyone and everything above and below him. The thought that someone had the crawl out on that roof to get his Phantom has a lot of people seeing red. Even if we were talking about a "right to fly", which I don't believe in, my rights end where your nose begins.

Edit:

And please don't suggest that they let BillyBob climb out on that roof to get his Phantom himself. Let's just stop the insanity before it starts.
 
Buk said:
Ianwood,
Know where all helipads are within a 1/4 mile.

Is this a rule, a standard or merely your recommendation? I ask as I'm recording a construction site two blocks from a hospital helipad. I spoke with a commercial, private jet pilot not associated with the hospital and he felt I would be fine staying below 400 feet. (Rarely do I hit 100 feet at this location.)

I'm betting that any EMS pilot who flies into that hospital might have a different opinion. I have a close friend who flies EMS and who is a long time RC pilot. There is a general sense of anxiety in their community about people flying quads near their points of operation (accidents, hospitals, etc.). You might want to touch base with the EMS companies to chat with them about where you are flying.
 
I barely watched the video. Apparently the audio may color the story more than I know. It was taken down before I got to listen. Regardless, I am not defending the video as much as I am taking issue is with the visceral knee-jerk reaction to it and just about any other video taken in an urban area. I am sure the reaction to mine will be no different. C'est la vie.

As for comparisons, I am not comparing a Phantom to a 777 or even a 707. I know plenty about aviation safety and as a solution architect I know plenty about redundancy vs. single points of failure, failure rates and probabilities. Ask me about any major airline accident and why it happened. I can tell you quite a bit about BA38 and the systematic failure that was never supposed to happen.

But I digress. When I compare me and my Phantom to a 16yo in a 2 ton Chevy Tahoe or a 50h pilot in a C172 at 1,000ft or a war vet helicopter pilot who hasn't quite transitioned back to civilian life (no disrespect vets, but some of you heli pilots in LA are simply nuts!), I come out the cleanest. Yet all but mine are considered reasonable levels of risk at least according to our laws and practices. I actually find all but mine to be totally unacceptable risks. Me and Phantom are a much lower risk by a wide margin. The statistics don't lie. Compare NTSB fatality data to known drone serious injuries/fatalities. I don't care about relative volumes. When the number is zero, it is zero. It will likely be zero for a long time or at least until a complete fluke of an accident occurs.

My point in all this being that safety is a relative concept. I de-risk flying my Phantom in urban areas to the point where it is at least similar to that of any other common risk in the same environment. In this case, it would be cars, motorcycles, cyclists, pedestrians, light aircraft and helicopters. Without building an actual risk model in Excel, I can confidently say that what I am doing poses no greater risk to the public than any other common activity occurring in that area at that time. Given this I am not imposing any greater or undue risk on the public when I fly in urban areas.

And that's it. I am tired of defending myself. Until someone can show me cold hard data of drone related serious injury, I am bowing out of this "it looks unsafe" debate.
 
ianwood said:
I barely watched the video. Apparently the audio may color the story more than I know. It was taken down before I got to listen. Regardless, I am not defending the video as much as I am taking issue is with the visceral knee-jerk reaction to it and just about any other video taken in an urban area. I am sure the reaction to mine will be no different. C'est la vie.

All you really needed to say. The music/voice fit a certain stereotype (wrongly I might add, I've lived in the south), it was pretty funny. I never said you can't fly safely in an urban environment, but Cowboy Bubba sure wasn't doing it. I kinda doubt your video will end with your Phantom parked on the roof of a stadium, so don't expect millions of hits. :)
 
SilentAV8R said:
I'm betting that any EMS pilot who flies into that hospital might have a different opinion. I have a close friend who flies EMS and who is a long time RC pilot. There is a general sense of anxiety in their community about people flying quads near their points of operation (accidents, hospitals, etc.). You might want to touch base with the EMS companies to chat with them about where you are flying.

I completely agree. All air traffic not only has right of way, it is best to assume they cannot see you and by the time you can see them it is too late to get out of the way. Therefore, my policy is to never be in a place where the air traffic would be. I follow the terrain so to speak. No more than 25 to 30ft above buildings and if there is an active helipad nearby, it is 0 feet above buildings, i.e. I will not fly above them or into any open space where a helicopter would normally operate. LA is chocker full of heli traffic (some very questionable, but that's another matter) and it has been there long before the multi-rotors and must be given a wide berth at all times.
 
Thanks for the heads up on the TFRs. Look ridiculously complicated. Fortunately, they're short lived.
 
ianwood said:
Thanks for the heads up on the TFRs. Look ridiculously complicated. Fortunately, they're short lived.

Basically most of Orange County is going to be a No Fly zone from 8:15 am to 2:15 pm on Saturday. Obama is going to be at Angel Stadium for the UCI Commencement. Surface to 18,000 feet. That about covers it!!


The Sky Vector website is a great tool to see where TFRs are located. Like the permanent one over Disneyland!!
 
SilentAV8R said:
ianwood said:
Thanks for the heads up on the TFRs. Look ridiculously complicated. Fortunately, they're short lived.

Basically most of Orange County is going to be a No Fly zone from 8:15 am to 2:15 pm on Saturday. Obama is going to be at Angel Stadium for the UCI Commencement. Surface to 18,000 feet. That about covers it!!


The Sky Vector website is a great tool to see where TFRs are located. Like the permanent one over Disneyland!!

I use it to keep track of TFRs based out of Dodger Stadium as that actually grounds me especially at my training area in Elysian Park. I normally get the alerts from FAASafety.gov but I didn't see one for this weekend. As for the complications, I was referring to the multiple areas, possibility for last minute changes, inner and outer rings, flight plan requirements, etc. For me, it's only an hour in the morning at the moment. Downtown is about 5 miles outside the large Southwestern ring.
 
Thanks ianwood for bringing common sense to the discussion. I think Bob Eddelman was flying irresponsible only for the fact he should have permission from the owner but I have been to events where the drones have been used over the crowd and also times where other motorized equipment (bikes and cars) are driven near crowds and nothing causes an uproar like this. This is only a story because its a drone as what if it was a football thrown on the roof?

Its like anything else we do in our daily lives we are still liable for anything that goes wrong while it is under our control. There are no rules or laws that can make us any more or less liable for the damage we cause.

I guess we all need to stop playing golf or baseball or riding bicycles or driving cars as we may hit something and cause property damage!!!!
 
gmbn.inc said:
There's soon to be another nail in the coffin..... Some idiot calling himself Aerial Shots Sydney, has posted video on YT which he recorded with his P2V+ whilst on a cruise on a Carnival ship in the South Pacific.... In the video it's flying low over a beach, there are people/kids swimming etc. Also paying particular attention to a girl in a white bikini (really stupid). It gets worse.... Then he is flying around and on the cruise ship itself... I assume the master of the ship (Captain) wasn't aware of it as he would have had a fit....
With all the negative publicity UAV's are copping at the moment, this kind of irresponsible behavior is not good for any of us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e84GvjVcAxY

There is just no way around this, as the Phantom is advertized as a "ready to fly" product, and this implies you need no knowledge to use the product. It seems inconceivable to me that DJI doesn't at least consider a manual where a few of the bigger no-noes could be address.
 
I don't subscribe to the notion that these and other videos will have any effect on legislation or regulation nor do I believe there is a proverbial coffin.

The 'dangers' and benefits of these systems are already well known and understood. More [video] examples, in and of themselves, will not change the intent or severity of regulation.
 

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