Guess I hadn’t considered that if I were a foreign entity that wanted to surveil an AFB, it could be as easy as just, like, hauling a UAS and tracking antenna out into the desert.
Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
81–90 of 275 posts
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#82"There's no line of sight...it must be satellite controlled." Oh FFS. There's a lot of real estate on the ground where an operator could have been sitting and flying the thing with a high-powered FPV rig. FPV systems don't require satellites, and you can put a basic one together for less than $1000.
> the drone... proceeded northwest at high speed and climbing, with the helo and another LE helo in trail. The copter began to climb and flew out of the TUS area about 50 miles to the northwest of town into the middle of nowhere desert out by the mine west of KAVQ. It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared.
> the mystery craft was essentially playing with them by repeatedly positioning itself directly above their helicopters’ rotors, some 1,000 feet above them
> the drone maintained a speed of 75 knots in a 30-knot headwind
Can they do all of this for under $1k?
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#83> stating that its high speed and impressive maneuver ability made it difficult to get a decent visual identification.
The orbital velocity of Venus is 35.0 km/s so pretty quick, but no real manoeuvrability.
The solar system it's within is 200 kilometers per second. But it's all relative so that's being silly. I guess this is it, a relatively slow looking planet looking like it's going fast from the observer who's moving and missing a frame of reference. The way we move through space is pretty interesting, Earth doesn't go in circles, controversially called a Vortex, a frames of reference thing again - http://rhysy.net/solar-system-vortex.html
But if you are into real life drones ISIS have been working on pulse jet ones based on US hobbyists, but no success so far, dam real life bit, but still pretty interesting - https://www.conflictarm.com/reports/procurement-networks-beh...
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#84Somewhat off topic, what I find curious is that gangs have not yet started really making use of drones. I've heard of them being used to drop drugs and phones into prisons, but not much else. Some of the higher end hobby drones can fly just as high as general aviation aircraft and really fast and carry a lot of weight. Or perhaps I have missed the stories?
A cafe I used to frequent became a meth-dealers' hub of operations. One exceptional day he seemed to be coordinating receipt of some large shipment, and he started freaking out about some truck driver not being where he was supposed to be who apparently had a tail to monitor his whereabouts. Over the phone with the tail, quite loudly despite being on public display, he instructed the tail to "deploy the kite". Once d…
I'm curious as to how you knew he's a meth dealer. I'm guessing he was being very overt about his operations?
That seems like it would be really entertaining, at least until he figures out you're paying close attention.
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#85"There's no line of sight...it must be satellite controlled." Oh FFS. There's a lot of real estate on the ground where an operator could have been sitting and flying the thing with a high-powered FPV rig. FPV systems don't require satellites, and you can put a basic one together for less than $1000.
> the drone... proceeded northwest at high speed and climbing, with the helo and another LE helo in trail. The copter began to climb and flew out of the TUS area about 50 miles to the northwest of town into the middle of nowhere desert out by the mine west of KAVQ. It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared. > the mystery craft was essentially playing with them by repeatedl…
Probably not but that's not what the post above you said. Do you think it's reasonable to say this drone was controlled by a -satellite-?
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#86"There's no line of sight...it must be satellite controlled." Oh FFS. There's a lot of real estate on the ground where an operator could have been sitting and flying the thing with a high-powered FPV rig. FPV systems don't require satellites, and you can put a basic one together for less than $1000.
> the drone... proceeded northwest at high speed and climbing, with the helo and another LE helo in trail. The copter began to climb and flew out of the TUS area about 50 miles to the northwest of town into the middle of nowhere desert out by the mine west of KAVQ. It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared. > the mystery craft was essentially playing with them by repeatedl…
FPV just means that the drone has a camera with a first person view and doesn't rely on the user being able to see the drone to fly it.
Yes, it can be easily done for under $1k. This is not $1k for the drone, just for making whatever drone FPV capable, if that's what you were misunderstanding.
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#87> I would have to imagine it was larger than a quadcopter, and I guarantee you it was nothing like a quadcopter from how long it was up - it has to be satellite-driven because there’s no line-of-sight, there’s no cell phone coverage that could have dealt with that, so it has to be satellite-driven, which is pretty freakin’ sophisticated.”
So, setting aside this claim that there’s no line of sight, my bet is these guys have not kept up with what quadcopters and hexacopters can do: here’s one video from 6 days ago showing really unnatural acceleration, changing direction in ways that make you say “UFO” [0] - check out the other videos on the channel, there’s another one six months ago hitting 234mph [1] - granted these are LiPo with short dwell times but other larger heavier models can go 90 minutes… so somebody out there has something custom and is having fun freaking out cops and militaries. I’d say next time instead of trying to chase it they start sweeping for radio transmissions… if they’re not already programmed to autonomously play cat and mouse with police helicopters XD
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Property rights in the US are particularly funny. You don’t own as much as you think you do. The land deed you have is a 2D plot of land. There are also mineral rights, air rights, and raparian rights. That last one is the rights to collect water in your land. Most likely there is a water management authority who owns the rain water in your property. Unless your deed specifically states you own mineral rights a minin…
I think this may depend on jurisdiction. I was told that I own my land and everything up to “the sky”. Granted, for practical purposes this means that if a neighbors tree over hangs my plat I have the right to trim it up across my property line. Any legal beagles able to chime in?
For the US, there's no such thing as private property rights to airspace, and all the laws controlling airspace are exclusively federal. There can be temporary and permanent flight restrictions for events or protected areas, and there are restrictions about flying too close to buildings when operating manned aircraft that don't apply to drones (the opposite, in fact, you can fly at higher altitudes if you are close to a building). Now you can get busted for flying in an unsafe manner, harassment, or any number of privacy violations, but not trespassing.
To make matters confusing, there are "air rights," but those have to do with zoning and how tall a building can be made. Nothing to do with flying.
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there is anything that has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and a capacity to carry 150 kilos of cargo. You have any links?
Jump 20 by AeroVironment with a wingspan of 5.7m and a payload of 13.6kg[0]. A tweet from Spanish police with a video of the compartment[1]. A Vice article about the same drone[2]. At the end it says, "Police found seven drones, each with load capacities of between four and 25kg," which puts the biggest at 1/6th the capacity of this one. Allegedly. For perspective, the Aerolite-103, a single-seat ultralight aircraft…
Please stop citing shit.
Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson
#90"There's no line of sight...it must be satellite controlled." Oh FFS. There's a lot of real estate on the ground where an operator could have been sitting and flying the thing with a high-powered FPV rig. FPV systems don't require satellites, and you can put a basic one together for less than $1000.
> the drone... proceeded northwest at high speed and climbing, with the helo and another LE helo in trail. The copter began to climb and flew out of the TUS area about 50 miles to the northwest of town into the middle of nowhere desert out by the mine west of KAVQ. It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared. > the mystery craft was essentially playing with them by repeatedl…
Unlikely, but they probably could for under $10k. The expensive part is the long-distance high-bandwidth radio system. The aircraft itself is trivially easy, assuming it's a liquid-fueled fixed-wing craft.
You'll notice I used the word "basic" above to imply a starter or hobbyist capability.