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Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

thedrive.com

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Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#91
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're possibly violating airspace of people's property There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.

Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property. Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace. https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over…

The article at your link is very old, and almost none of it is still correct today.

> Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property.

According to the federal government, they do not.

> Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace

Incidentally, 400’ is the maximum height a UAS may fly under 14 USC 107 without special authorization.

> But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property)

As “drones” are considered aircraft under federal law, shooting at them is a federal crime:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2016/04/13/faa-confi...

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#92

> 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 guy…

“Are you afraid?” “Yes”

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#93

Somewhat 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?

I'm surprised no one has been assassinated by a drone. Train a computer vision model for the target, attach a gun, and let it fly around until the person is found.

Assassination by drone has happened; just ask General Qassem Soleimani of Iran. By an autonomous drone, though? Maybe not.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#94
post #63

Somewhat 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…

[deleted]

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#95
post #84
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He told the tail something along the lines of "He's pulled over on the side of the road? He has meth shit in the back!"

Up until that day I had no idea what he was dealing, but he was obviously a drug dealer; every week a cadre of scummy looking people would meet him in the cafe and give him their burner phones, he'd toss the phones into his backpack and give them all new ones.

This story has way more ridiculousness to it, especially from that particular day... maybe for another time.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#96
post #86
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you build a basic quadcopter yourself you can even include everything for $1000. This would buy you a fun hobbyist FPV rig, although it wouldn't have the range, speed, or endurance of the drone in the article. For that you'd have to pay more, but even then we're talking "serious hobbyist" money, not "nation-state" money.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#97
post #19

Somewhat 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?

All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more difficult than can be seen prima facie, starting probably with the flight time of battery powered drones..

I was also going to mention zipline in Rwanda, last video I saw was two years ago but it looks like they’re doing well enough to be hiring interns in San Fran. Really cool tech, the way they have a sort of assembly line for getting ready-to-fly parts on the package in the space of minutes - these are life and death deliveries out here!

https://youtu.be/jEbRVNxL44c

https://flyzipline.com/careers/

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#98

> 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 guy…

Exactly. A high school bully in a Bell 206 is not a good authority on the capabilities of even amateur UAV hardware

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#100

Somewhat 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?

The main activity of gangs is transporting drugs. They do use autonomous aircraft to transport drugs but except for synthetic drugs, generally the volumes are high enough to require sea transport (narcosubmarines).
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