101–110 of 275 posts
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There were two helicopters involved, border patrol and tucson police. They also phoned into the FAA as it was going down. They also made visual contact with the light on the underside of the drone: "From what I can tell just from its position light, you know, I would have to imagine it was larger than a quadcopter"
Weird how the illegal drones always use their position lights.
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And you're 1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles 2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
> 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.
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..
Anyways, after talking to a lawyer and learning about FAA regulation I decided it was too much work.
The short version is a drone with line of sight can fly under x' (think it was 600). Over that it must have first person cameras, and is technically an aircraft so it must be flown by a licensed pilot and get FAA clearance... but you can't drop a taco from 600', and you can't go below 600' without the operator having line of sight.
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> 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.
Someone playing with tech that someone else is paying for though?
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Nah, probably just Jupiter and a a confused pilot
Jupiter is a flashing green light that can change elevation and circle?
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> 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.
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.
> 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 mo…
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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…
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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.
What fixed wing craft can hover 1000' directly above the rotors of the helos? Don't fixed wing aircraft need to be constantly moving to stay in the air?