[servowire]

Well, you are flying a semi-toy without proper safety near people, buildings, above roads, cars, etc on a tourist site. An arrest might be slightly over the top, but this should not be allowed.

I'm a model RC pilot for 20 years and these kind of "stunts" are hurting the hobby. At least ask for permission next time.

A phantom only has 4 motors, and the quality is "meh" - there is hardly any 2nd control (fa I have tripple recievers in my jets, if one RC system fails I still regain control over another radio).

It has a "failsafe" - i=even if it works it's still not really good in an urban area. GPS signals might be weak (flyaway danger) and it's only flies to 25 meters when returning to home. It could fly into a tower or even not reach proper 25 meter when the 3D GPS lock is weak or disengaged.

My 2 cents. Sorry. Please people, don't fly above crowded areas. I've seen a Phantom hit a car it's almost 1KG of deadweight when it comes down. It's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.

[dirktheman]

As an avid RC/quadcopter enthousiast I second this. Do not fly over populated areas. Imagine flying a 2 pound brick with 4 sharp, spinning blades at 25 mph. With a camera attached. Sounds safe? You're right, they're not. I've seen a quadcopter crash through the windshield of a car without any trouble.

Flying over urban areas is asking for trouble, and will hurt the RC hobby gravely. It's people like these who will cause a legal ban on RC models.

[chiph]

There have been photos published on Reddit from people who were seriously cut up by the spinning propeller blades - both from RC helicopters and commercial quadcopters.

Not something I want happening to me, or being responsible for.

[dirktheman]

Don't get me wrong, it's a great hobby! Designing, building, tinkering, flying, improving (and repairing, always repairing) your own models is very rewarding. If you know what you're doing it's not a very dangerous hobby, too. A lot more people get injured with baseball, american football, kayaking, paragliding, cycling, racing, scuba diving, boating just to name a few. If you have a little common sense (not grabbing your UAV out of the sky with your bare hands, for instance), keep a safe distance with buildings, roads, people and animals you'll be fine!

[Florin_Andrei]

> Imagine flying a 2 pound brick with 4 sharp, spinning blades at 25 mph.

With 4 sharp blades spinning at potentially over 10k RPM.

The quad I'm building now has a foam shield all around the rotors. And it's a mini. It's gonna be slow, but safe(r).

[dirktheman]

Minis are safer, and perfect for learning how to fly! Take this for example: http://www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX10-CX10-Mini-24G-4CH-6-Ax...

Mad fun to fly, it can do everything its bigger brothers can (well, apart from carrying your GoPro, of course!), and it's only $23.00. Worst thing that can happen is your cat attacking it, but with these tiny props and this weight, no damage will be done!

[Florin_Andrei]

Well, okay then, maybe mine is not so "mini" after all. 5x3 props, 10A ESCs - fairly small still.

The GoPro is wildly over-rated. The Mobius is smaller, lighter and cheaper, and works about the same.

http://mobius-actioncam.com/

[jgrahamc]

Part of the problem with these devices is accessibility. It's been common for a long time for people doing RC to get involved in clubs, build their own aircraft, understand how the aircraft works (how it flies, its engine, its radio components).

Quadcopters seem totally 'plug and play'.

I'm involved (somewhat) in high-altitude balloon flights and we have a similar problem. People want to be able to buy a kit of everything they need to launch a balloon into the stratosphere. There's been a lot of resistance in the UKHAS because we want people to learn about the entire process (and that includes safety).

[andygates]

It's Eternal September for model fliers (yes, I stuck a Parrot drone in a very tall tree).

[dirktheman]

Accessibility is an issue. Technology that was military-grade only 1 decade ago (UAV's, powerful model rockets which can be converted to guided missiles) is available for anyone to buy online today.

With great buying power comes great responsibiliy.

[doctorKrieger]

go home ur drunk , rc models were accessible long before that.

[cjrp]

Out of interest, do you have to contact NATS and get a NOTAM put out for balloon launches?

[jgrahamc]

http://www.ukhas.org.uk/guides:faq

[spyder]

Yea, here is a video about an injury caused by DJI Phantom 2 with carbon fiber blades (warning: some blood dripping):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji3Hii_LZOc

Sure the propeller is not the original, but it shows that quadcopters can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

[dirktheman]

That top comment: "I catch by hand all the time"...

A stiff carbon blade rotating at 35,000 RPM causing injury? Who would've guessed!

[belorn]

It seems there should be a nice market for improve safety. Making hard objects slow down or crash safely is not a total unexplored area.

Has there been any experiments with airbags? I did find experiments with parachutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhrZbiK0T0), so safety seems to be a work-in-progress in order render that 1KG of deadweight into something more manageable.

Last, I must ask since this is a security issue, what is the statistics on this problem? Is a person flying a 1KG quadcopter in a crowded areas more dangerous than a person using bicycle in a city? The comparison is not perfect, but it would be nice to have some comparisons to other recreational activities performed in crowded areas.

[drdaeman]

Just curious. Are there RC multirotors that employ some other emergency measures than GPS-based navigation in case of lost connectivity, but can also survive fairly severe power, rotor or engine failures?

Judging from YouTube videos, autorotation doesn't seem to cut it - it's still falling too fast, but maybe something like deploying an emergency parachute - if altitude allows for it, or maybe (not sure if that's a sane thought) some inflatable wings to glide and thus not gain much vertical speed. Anything so it won't fall down like a brick.

[rtkwe]

You can't pull autorotation with fixed pitch blades, at least not in any meaningful manner. Light quads can fall pretty slowly with pinwheeling motors but that's not actually autorotation. The way a helicopter is able to autorotate is to pull negative pitch, which spins the rotors using the fall energy of the copter, then shortly before crashing pulling back to positive pitch and using the still spinning blades to slow down to a controlled landing.

For motor failure ETH Zurich has some research out there about recovering to normal(ish) flight after a prop loss. The quad goes into a pretty rapid spin but it's still controllable, link below to an outside the lab test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs

[Varcht]

There is indeed some work going on with failsafe parachute deployment and one or two commercially available solutions. So far they are not very popular from what I have seen being very much involved in the hobby.

[airassault]

What are the punishments for "taking down a quadcopter? Ever since seeing Bezos on 60 minutes, i keep thinking that this would be a good hobby. If the copter was just re-routed to a different locations and not harmed, would this still be a crime. Most likely.

I assume taking control of the machine with out permission would not be easy, but possible. Also a game show where the copters fight to the death would fill the void of "Robot Wars" being of TV.

[jobigoud]

1. Get four quadcopters.

2. Stretch a net between them.

3. Catch the passing freight quadcopter.

4. Get the package, get the parts.

5. Profit.

But now the other bandits are doing it too. Add automated defense mechanisms. Intercept competitors. Degenerates into fully unmanned airborne war.

[airassault]

I like the net idea. i was thinking more of taking over the radio signal and controlling it.

Full unmanned civilian aviation warfare sounds pretty cool.

[icebraining]

Right now taking control is not that hard[1], since most quadcopters are unprotected, but I suspect more autonomous versions (which are supposed to fly without line-of-sight by the operator) will probably only accept encrypted and authenticated packets.

[1] http://samy.pl/skyjack/

[dirktheman]

Parrot AR Drones work by creating a dedicated WiFi access point. It's not that hard to hack into. Because of the limited range of the WiFi signal, I'd still classify AR Drones as toys.

The vast majority of RC planes, cars, multirotors, etc. work with a 2.4Ghz transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX). In the old days you'd claim a frequency, put the corresponding crystal in your TX, and hope that nobody else would use that frequency. Nowadays we have Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) or Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) to ensure that you're not interfering with someone else's TX/RC. These signals are a lot more difficult to hijack.

GPS Spoofing is probably a better way to hack into UAV's. The Iranians caotured a Sentinel UAV in 2011 with this method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incide...