
Illegal drones ground water-dropping helicopters in Maria fire battle - starpilot
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/maria-fire-drone-hinders-firefighting-efforts-as-blaze-doubles-in-size-overnight
======
bsamuels
I hope DJI responds with a firmware update preventing flight in temporary no-
fly zones. Right now they respect static no fly zones, but when temporary ones
get put up you can still fly inside them.

It's a real shame that large ready-to-fly drones aren't required by law to
prevent arming in no-fly zones. About half of the DJI pilots I know actively
prevent their firmware from being upgraded to the one that will respect static
no-fly zones.

~~~
reaperducer
The sort of arrogant self-absorbed people who would fly a drone over a
wildfire are the same sort of arrogant self-absorbed people who would flash
their drone with hacked firmware to bypass any restrictions.

Rules are for other people.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Hmm, maybe when I own the device, I should be able to use it without
interference ( and suffer the appropriate consequences ). I wonder if you be
posting the same thing if say.. your automaker made your car refuse to enter
Boston, as it was just designated a no drive zone. Rules matter and should be
enforced. Just not via limiting my ownership rights.

~~~
shakna
Your car however carries registration, which has a strong papertrail that
leads directly to you, which can easily be observed from a distance.

Drones on the other hand may not carry registration requirements at all
(depending on jurisdiction, power and weight), and building one yourself
doesn't require more-than-hobbyist level knowledge of engineering.

A technical solution probably is required, but what that technical solution is
I can't say.

~~~
leetcrew
in the US, any drone above 250g must be registered with the FAA. there are
very few drones below this weight that can hover in place or be controlled at
all from more than 100 feet away away. the new DJI mavic mini is a notable
exception.

I know it's tempting to essentially say "fuck them, just _force_ them to
comply" when people partaking in an activity you don't really care about cause
problems, but imo this is not the best solution for a free society. if you
believe car registration creates an effective deterrent, why not advocate for
stricter registration requirements for drones? if you believe drone
enthusiasts are ignorant, why not require an exam?

> building one yourself doesn't require more-than-hobbyist level knowledge of
> engineering

this seems like a red herring in your argument. the DIY crowd is not likely to
bother implementing no-fly-zone enforcement in their own project.

~~~
shakna
I don't think you've really grasped what I'm saying at all.

I do care about drones, I've built several myself.

A technical solution doesn't come without regulation, so yes, this area does
need better regulation, so that people can't ruin a hobby with terrible
behaviour such as getting in the way of fire-fighting. (I'm Australian,
bushfires are one of our hot-button issues.)

The regulation can be used to enforce the technical solution, so that the DIY
crowd knows there is a hurdle to entry they need to comply with. Some won't,
but you'll have significantly less unknown drones in serious danger areas.

I don't have a significant answer, and I've already said that.

~~~
leetcrew
based on the original comment you were responding to, I assumed you were
arguing in favor of software controls. my apologies, I should have read your
post more carefully.

------
rasz
Lets not forget "Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show"
[https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-
wildfires29-2008jul29-st...](https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-
wildfires29-2008jul29-story.html)

"To professional firefighters, though, it was a prime example of a “political
air show,” the high-profile use of expensive aircraft to appease elected
officials."

“CNN drops.”

~~~
newguy1234
So what would be an effective way to fight wildfires then? Just clear brush,
better fire resistant structure...or?

~~~
biggestdecision
It's not that aerial drops aren't effective. But the way they are used is
sometimes more political than practical.

~~~
angry_octet
It may be a practically effective way to get news coverage, important for
getting the public to move their ass out of the dangerous area. Not to mention
a visible symbol requiring funding.

------
brenden2
Startup idea: an accurate weapon for destroying drones that are flying in
places they shouldn't be. Has anyone tried doing something like this?

~~~
rubbingalcohol
It's relatively easy to shoot down a drone, you can do it with birdshot. The
problem would be falling debris and the safety hazard that represents. Might
be a moot point in cases of fire, but in general that would be a pretty
specialized startup around a task that a basic shotgun would already excel at.

~~~
Balgair
DO NOT DO THIS.

1: Missed bullets/shot may kill your friends and neighbors [0]. Especially in
densely populated sub/urban environments.

2: Many drones use LiPo batteries. When punctured, LiPo batteries may catch
fire [1]. You stand a good chance of starting even more fires if you shoot at
drones.

Congrats, you have likely made things worse.

If you are thinking of shooting at a drone: STOP.

Put down the firearm and pick up the phone.

Call the police. Then call your state and local representatives[2]. Then call
your neighbors. Organize and vote.

Pass laws, not ammo.

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928000018/http://ats.ctsnet...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070928000018/http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/83/1/283)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFxlf4fXjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFxlf4fXjo)

[2]
[https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/](https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/)

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Surely it goes without saying that private citizens should not discharge
firearms aimed at another person's property? I mean literally there is no need
to say it, as it's extraordinarily unlikely that the person you're responding
to or anyone else on this site is foolish enough to do that. Yeah, there is a
YouTube video here and there of some idiot shooting at a drone. But it seems
unlikely that this is a rampant phenomenon, seeing as how it's illegal and
probably a felony in most places. E.g. I don't know if a drone counts as an
"aircraft" under NY state law, but it's a class E felony to discharge a
firearm at an unoccupied aircraft here (1 1/2-4 years in prison).

Edit: oops, 18 USC 32 imposes a maximum of twenty years for sabotage of an
aircraft anywhere in the USA, and apparently the USG has been interpreting
this to include drones. Note that this law also applies to local and state law
enforcement. Only the feds are allowed to deploy anti-aircraft technology.

[https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/88696-before-
you-p...](https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/88696-before-you-pull-the-
trigger-the-legal-implications-of-shooting-down-a-drone)

~~~
Balgair
To be fair, the person that I was replying to literally advocates using
firearms to take down drones as a viable solution. I agree with you, it is a
insane thing to do. It seems that for drones, the laws may need to extend to
state and local law enforcement, not just federal.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
I didn't advocate shooting down drones. It should not be done under normal
circumstances due to the falling debris hazard. But of all the ways to shoot
down a drone (assuming it were necessary to protect public safety), using a
shotgun is probably the safest, and I agree this should be done by police.
Unless perhaps you're a firefighter trying to dump a helicopter full of water
on a fire, and then I think most reasonable people would make an exception
there too.

------
hurrdurr2
The article mentioned people may be operating drones to film footage for
social media or to sell to TV stations.

If this was really the case then it shouldn't be too hard to track these kinds
of folks down.

------
jiofih
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21426012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21426012)
(14h ago)

------
tomohawk
Time for firefighters to keep a few shotguns in the equipment with bird shot.
They already have clearance to destroy property to stop a fire.

~~~
bilbo0s
I'd imagine things are not as simple as that in large forest fires.

What if they shoot this stuff down, and start more fires?

They have to think about all that probably.

------
hanniabu
Is there not anything similar to a cell phone jammer for RC?

Would also be cool if they can send out an overriding "return to home" signal
that will make the drones return to their starting position. This is something
that would need to be in the hardware or firmware or to where the device would
be bricked if removed from there or software.

~~~
mips_avatar
GPS jamming would be more effective. The flight computer relies on it heavily.

~~~
missosoup
For older consumer products yes. For new ones or military purpose, nah.
Optical flow + vSLAM + IMU is now the primary localisation system. GPS is just
there to stay on track for long paths.

------
sakopov
Just throwing this out there, but can this issue be tackled with licensing?
Similar to a HAM radio operator license. The drones would also have to be
registered and identified with the operator license number. I feel like it is
likely where this is heading anyway.

~~~
godelski
I think this would take care of a lot of low hanging fruit, but probably not
much more. Just like in HAM it is hard to find someone abusing the airwaves
unless they are constantly broadcasting (and you can go on a fox hunt. But it
is a hunt). So you get the people that are just flying to see the fire and you
can ring them up or knock on their door.

The real problem though is that this doesn't fix the major concerns with drone
DOS attacks. It is not hard to set up a repeater to control the drone (adding
an extra level of difficulty to your fox hunt) or by just programming the
drone to take certain actions (even basic AI can do some disastrous things).
That seems, to me, to be more what the FAA is after and why more effort is
being put in to take down drones instead of tracking the operators. This also
has the effect of stopping the DOS attack immediately instead of just fining
the person later. This being much more important considering that peoples'
lives are at risk.

------
ahaferburg
Would it be possible to triangulate the remote? Maybe even from the
helicopter?

~~~
nradov
In theory it's possible. But accurate triangulation requires multiple passes
with specialized equipment not carried on firefighting aircraft.

------
rcurry
it seems like the only realistic solution to these asshats is to mount jammers
on all the police and fire aircraft. You could tax drone sales to pay for it.

------
zanethomas
morons

------
DoctorOetker
In the case of continued deadlock, the water-dropping helicopters will have to
become unmanned. (which may even make sense on its own given lowered risk to
human pilot)

there may even be a load of upshots: the tyranny of the helicopter equation,
mass deployment of firefighting drones from other regions not currently facing
fires (without needing to temporarily house pilots from far away), ...

there will always be a trade-off between risk to the firefighter and potential
reward for risky moves. with unmanned vehicles the fire might be more
effectively fought without needing to take into account the loss of pilots,
thus allowing more effective fire fighting moves to be taken.

~~~
rgbrenner
What type of risky maneuvers are you imagining are required to drop some water
on a fire? And how many $30-100 million dollar planes would you throw away to
do it?

It's risky enough as it is, I doubt anyone wants to increase that risk.. and
it seems to me they're perfectly capable of fighting fires without the
multiple $100m losses you think might be "effective". It isn't like these fire
depts have that kind of money to throw away.

And they would still want to clear unauthorized drones from the area... It
would be a big loss if one of these crashed because of someones hobby drone.
And unpiloted or not, a plane that big and heavy won't be capable of moving
out of the way of a small drone that gets in its way.

~~~
zlsa
Where are you seeing $30-100 million dollars? The largest firefighting plane
in operation today cost [about $10
million]([https://www.outsideonline.com/2079591/can-10-million-
firefig...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2079591/can-10-million-firefighting-
machine-actually-stop-fires)) to purchase and outfit.

~~~
rgbrenner
That's an old converted plane. It was a passenger plane, then a cargo plane,
then sat on a lot for a couple of years.. so they got it cheap.

A new CL-415 is $35m: [https://www.rand.org/blog/2013/12/investing-in-
firefighting....](https://www.rand.org/blog/2013/12/investing-in-
firefighting.html) And that's not a particularly large plane.

It does look like a lot of water bombers are old converted planes.. so you're
probably closer to the correct number than the number I posted.

I don't think this changes my point though.. they're still expensive planes.

~~~
starpilot
$100m lol. Don't think these cost as much as a fighter jet.

------
MrBuddyCasino
> While the unmanned aerial vehicles are small, drones can wreak incredible
> havoc. A collision with a wing, engine or any part of a larger aircraft can
> cause severe damage.

How so? Which part of a helicopter is so sensitive to the impact of a drone?
They are not fast and they are not heavy.

> “A bird collision with a plane can cause a plane to go down,” said Jessica
> Gardetto, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center. “These
> are hard plastic items.”

Different scenario. Planes crash into birds with a huge speed, and they can
get into the turbines, which obviously can damage them.

~~~
thanatos_dem
This is seriously your argument? Alright, hold my red bull, it's math time.

Let's assume they're using a Boeing Vertol 234, a civilian model of the
Chinook commonly used for firefighting. They're double rotor, and as such the
rotors are slower than most single rotor helicopters, at around 225 RPM [1] at
full throttle.

The rotors on a chinook are 60ft in diameter [2]. This means that the edge of
the blade is traveling about 188.5 ft per revolution. At 225 RPM, that's 706.8
feet per second, or ~481 miles per hour, on par with a commercial aircraft at
cruising speed.

So yeah, smacking a drone into a relatively thin and lightweight rotor blade
at over 400 miles an hour may cause a wee bit of damage.

[1] [http://www.chinook-
helicopter.com/standards/areas/blade.html](http://www.chinook-
helicopter.com/standards/areas/blade.html) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook#Specifica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook#Specifications_\(CH-47F\))

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Just to be clear, I think the people flying drones are assholes. I'm not
saying "don't make a such a big deal out of it". I'm just wondering what the
actual danger is. Are the blades really that sensitive? I'd assume they would
easily shred a drone to pieces and not be harmed in the process, because they
already need to be quite tough to not tear apart under the centrifugal force
during normal operation. But I have no idea, thats just my intuition.

~~~
podunkPDX
The issue is a drone, or debris from a drone, getting sucked into the engine
intake. This debris can effectively turn the engine into a large amount of
shrapnel, crippling the aircraft and its mission.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage)

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
First good reply, no hand-waving, with real proof, thanks. Theres an actual
picture of the possible damage a small bolt can cause on a helicopter turbine.

