Americans find fantastic new use for drones – interfering with firefighting A blaze in southern California, which has already destroyed several cars and homes, has added another tool to its arsenal of dangers: bystanders' drones. NBC LA reports that drones taking footage of the blaze prevented the state's firefighting air units from getting involved in the firefighting effort, due to fears of …
According to the TFR list there wasn't a particular restriction at the particular time but according to the linked IIS site it isn't necessary for a TFR to be issued. "Even without a TFR, anyone who hampers firefighting efforts could face charges as well."
I'm personally all for giving the firefighters a jammer or any other technology to take down any remotely piloted drone. The autonomous ones will still likely require high speed metal projectiles, AD (Anti-Drone) guns or micro-missiles that can home in on a drone's radio signature perhaps.
From where I sit (in a heavily forested state where these fires are a constant threat), I would see nothing wrong with this.. except maybe target the operator first.
Downvote away because I'm not "thinking of the children". I'm thinking of the firefighters and anyone's home which is in the path of the fire.
I'm personally all for giving the firefighters a jammer or any other technology to take down any remotely piloted drone
Ah, but there may be a legit use of drones - by emergency crews, for instance, and permitting this would mean that every firefighter would have to carry a jammer in their kit with all sorts of problematic consequences and costs.
No, the real issue here is that it appears common sense has once again lagging behind technology. Anyone with a brain capable of thinking beyond what it takes to keep a drone in the air would have worked out that drone + firefighter plane cannot physically occupy the same space and getting the fires out is a *tad* more important that making nice pictures that you can flog to the media (to name but one motive other than blatant stupidity).
If a firefighter crashes because of a drone, the owner will not be convicted of being a stupid idiot, I think it would be more along the lines of culpable homicide. And I would agree with such a verdict, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out consequences here.
Any legit use must obviously be coordinated with firefighter control and he did allow for "any other technology to take down..."
It is incontrovertible that given people have been, are, and will continue to be exceptionally stupid in even the worst of circumstances, the only viable solution is to give the firefighters the legal authority and the means to take down the drones.
See, just because you have a drone, you must be a "journalist" or "photographer" that is if you can ever call anyone who works for TMZ a journalist.
Can you add one plus one and answer why public servants might be afraid of dunking the drones of TMZ photogs?
Better to home in on the control signal...
You reminded me of a recent Dilbert :)
While I like the idea, there's one small but very significant flaw in your plan. Drones of this sort aren't licensed, so there's no good way to track down the owner, other than maybe locating them at the time of the incident. Yes, if they find them, I'm all for throwing them in jail. I'm just not sure 5 years is long enough.
"they should have dumped the water anyway...drones be damned."
Agreed 100%. The problem they run into, is they are following FAA rules written assuming any flying vehicle is manned, so they must avoid damage to other vehicles at all costs. You know what, if you're flying a drone over a fire? Fuck it, dump the water on it, wreck that drone. I would also have no objection to them having nets (or some kind of drone tazers or something) or sharpshooters take care of the drones.
It sounds like it's time to bring radio direction finding equipment to these, along with possibly jammers. I'm assuming the owners were not caught but with RDF they'd be caught, and with a jammer the drones would go out of control and crash (there's already a fire there so no harm done I guess), freeing up the airspace within a minute or so.
> The problem they run into, is they are following FAA rules written assuming any flying vehicle is manned, so they must avoid damage to other vehicles at all costs.
While that may be true, the bigger problem they run into is that if they hit a drone, it could cause serious damage to the firefighter's aircraft. So they must avoid the area to avoid the risk to human life a collision could cause.
I'm inclined to agree with other comments - have a means of bringing them down, preferably intact so the owner/operator can be traced. It's going to have fingerprints, serial numbers, possibly WiFi access codes and/or the MAC address of whatever has been connected to it, and all manner of computer forensics on it. Then charge them with obstructing the firefighting operations.
Until there are a few well publicised prosecutions, people just won't see that there's any harm in flying them where they like.
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while fire services stood down should sue the bejabbers out of the morons who were flying the drones, if said perps can be tracked down. Some people hear the words "forest fire" and think "how can I help?", others hear those words and think "ratings!" or "page views!". Shameful, just shameful.
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