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Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

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Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#41

Post by Mikeb85 »

I used to fly remote control planes. There ARE rules for where you can fly them, because many of them (the ones with turbine engines) are capable of 200+ mph (actually faster, but it's hard to keep track of them) and can weight 10-50 pounds (some of the bigger propeller-powered ones are 100-200+ pounds, though much slower). They are dangerous in the wrong hands, and require quite a bit of training to fly properly and safely.

This guy broke the law, did something dangerous, and deserves a fine. Period.

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#42

Post by martin-adams »

angersock wrote: post #31
yeukhon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You c…

Very simply, the odds of a drone falling out of nowhere and beaning me on the head are quite small, even if once they become popular. Now, banning drones above a few hundred feet in a landing path for an airport, sure, but let's not kid ourselves that we're significantly helping anyone else. Regulating urban drone usage by hobbyists doesn't do anything significant to help, and just dissuades people from having fun an…

>> Very simply, the odds of a drone falling out of nowhere and beaning me on the head are quite small, even if once they become popular.

Don't forget to consider the odds of it falling on someone else, especially in a populated area.

I'm not sure banning is the right solution as there are responsible hobbyists and enthusiasts who will be caught out.

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#43

Post by dingaling »

yeukhon wrote: post #13
jamesbritt wrote: post #3

Seems he was arrested for crashing it near a pedestrian, not simply for flying it. He was charged with reckless endanderment for is inability to control the device.

To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Though the activity should be allowed in some rural area with permits. Especially in a dense, metropolitan city like NYC, flying a robotic copter or drone can pose dangerous. especially if everyone were to fly one.

Imagine how dangerous it is for everyone to drive two tons of steel at 40 mph through the city streets, too.

But somehow that's just fine, even though in NYC:

- 27% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved driver failure to yield

- 79% of crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians involve private vehicles

- Traffic crashes cost the City’s economy $4.29 billion annually ( 2009 data )

Sounds like driver regulation isn't working. Let's ban cars, except under permit in remote rural areas.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/pedsafetyreport...

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#44

Post by retrogradeorbit »

yeukhon wrote: post #27
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a RC plane flying hobbiest my greatest fear is from over reaction to fools like this one. Yes he did the wrong thing. And he's been charged. The present laws seem fine. The big danger is from over-reaction and then just a law outright banning all civilian use. This is my worst case scenario. When me and my friends fly it's a day trip. We travel to a remote location, or a large open flying field. We don't fly over…

Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You c…

Firstly, your comment is not what I called foolish. I was referring to the original act. Secondly, I'm not raging at all. I'm quite calm. That is what I'm actually asking for. Calmness.

With regards to driving not being related because of it 'having regulations', RC model plane flying has regulations too. Ones I abide by. You say it needs to be regulated. Guess what? It is. I've even talked to my local ranger about the regulations.

I think if you look at it you're actually over reacting a little. If you are worried about "copter cut someone's head off", what about someone who chops someone's head off without first getting "a permit"? What will you do then? There will always be foolish people doing foolish things. And there are laws and consequences.

Have you actually looked at your local regulations regarding RC plane flying?

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#45

Post by retrogradeorbit »

potatolicious wrote: post #37
baddox wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Define "this activity." I hope you don't mean all flying of remote control aircraft, which is a decades-old and historically extremely safe hobby.

"This activity" = "the flying of powerful RC aircraft (i.e., at substantial risk of major injury if it collides into a person - it's a quad carrying a GoPro, not a supermarket RC heli), by an unqualified operator (watch the feed from the quad, the guy crashes it five times into buildings before losing control permanently), in an area where there is a guaranteed swarm of people directly below the flight path". My unde…

> With the advent of incredibly cheap RC aircraft, it seems more and more people are getting into the hobby who have no idea WTF they should/shouldn't be doing, have no one to teach them, and aren't aware of their own ignorance.

This is very much it. I see the solution as education and mentor-ship. I would recommend anyone interested to get in contact with clubs and activities that are happening in their area. Even indoor flying is an option in the big cities!

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#46

Post by moocowduckquack »

yeukhon wrote: post #13
jamesbritt wrote: post #3

Seems he was arrested for crashing it near a pedestrian, not simply for flying it. He was charged with reckless endanderment for is inability to control the device.

To me, I think either way this activity should be banned. Though the activity should be allowed in some rural area with permits. Especially in a dense, metropolitan city like NYC, flying a robotic copter or drone can pose dangerous. especially if everyone were to fly one.

In the UK I think that if you fly a remote control aircraft through a video feed rather than through line of sight then you need a pilots licence and then normal flying rules apply. Banning new classes of flying things is hardly neccessary when you have a licencing and training regime readily available with a century of experience in dealing with airbourne vehicles.

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#47

Post by moocowduckquack »

pak wrote: post #32
nknighthb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we do have regulations on driving You don't want regulations on RC aircraft, you want to ban them. But you know nothing about them. I have a small RC helicopter, I could run it into a baby's face at full power and it'd barely tickle. You've gotten your ideas from media sensationalism of extreme incidents. I could just as easily use your arguments to say "ban bicycles" because someone fell off one and died, or ran i…

You're not quantifying correctly. Car accidents and bicycle accidents are currently more common than RC aircraft accidents partly because RC use is so uncommon. If you throw in a denominator of operator-hours, the picture likely changes. You should also account for the foresight and preventability afforded to potential victims. From the perspective of a pedestrian or property owner on the ground, it is a lot easier t…

Nimby.

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#48

Post by moocowduckquack »

yeukhon wrote: post #27
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a RC plane flying hobbiest my greatest fear is from over reaction to fools like this one. Yes he did the wrong thing. And he's been charged. The present laws seem fine. The big danger is from over-reaction and then just a law outright banning all civilian use. This is my worst case scenario. When me and my friends fly it's a day trip. We travel to a remote location, or a large open flying field. We don't fly over…

Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You c…

Do you want me to pull out news or video showing people's head got cut off flying copter?

There is a weight class. There are already regulations. People have been flying RC aircraft for fun in cities perfectly happily for a long time and accidents are rare. Most of the aircraft weigh very little. If flying RC aircraft were a particularly dangerous activity then you would expect there to be many injuries when people gather to fly them, but there are not and certainly I have never heard of anyone getting their head cut off.

Re: Brooklyn man arrested for flying drone over Manhattan

#50

Post by coldtea »

nknighthb wrote: post #30
yeukhon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please before raging at me look at what I said. Flying in a dense area is dangerous. Flying in a rural area (or if you want, open field somewhere remote) is fine. So you took the wrong direction. My comment is not foolish at all. We just need to ban in the city. Even 100 ft is dangerous. This is not foolish. And importing the argument "ban driving" is certainly foolish because we do have regulations on driving. You c…

> we do have regulations on driving You don't want regulations on RC aircraft, you want to ban them. But you know nothing about them. I have a small RC helicopter, I could run it into a baby's face at full power and it'd barely tickle. You've gotten your ideas from media sensationalism of extreme incidents. I could just as easily use your arguments to say "ban bicycles" because someone fell off one and died, or ran i…

>I have a small RC helicopter, I could run it into a baby's face at full power and it'd barely tickle.

That sounds very reassuring. Have you tried it?

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