Drones and fire works

Dustoff · Jul 5, 2018

was down at the local fireworks show tonight and noticed there where two drones filming the event . The first one got up pretty close and I think a little too close becuse after one of the bigger rockets went off it climbed up a another 50 feet or so and then turned around and back to where it took off from . The second drone was not so lucky . It flew in down wind of the fire works and got pretty close too. It was pretty windy and after one big one went up you could see it being blown by wind out of control . It flew spinning wildly and went out over the lake and out of site. I doubt it went back where it launched becuse the path it took had 8 miles of open lake before it reach land.

Some poor person lost a drone tonight

PatR · Jul 10, 2018

A fool and his money are soon parted...

FlushVision · Jul 10, 2018

Anyone who is daft enough to fly his drone in among fireworks or too close to them is just an accident waiting to happen. To me, I would have thought that taking a position further away would have yielded far better results. I've never flown any of my aircraft is such circumstances but common sense tells me that if I ever do, then taking a position further away would be far safer and yield better results.

DrNewcenstein · Jul 15, 2018

The operators probably thought they were far enough away. However, given how the cameras (at least on the Q500) don't offer a 1:1 field of view, but rather zoom everything out considerably, they probably felt that they should get closer to see them more clearly.

The first drone was probably not knocked by the shockwave, but rather by the operator when it went off, perhaps in an effort to avoid getting hit by the discharges. He may have flipped the Home switch afterwards.

The second drone sounds like he didn't have all his props tight.

Then again, perhaps the chaff thrown by the firework scrambled its signal reception long enough to send it veering off course.

You didn't happen to note the design/brand of them, did you? YouTube is filled with DJI drones behaving badly. There's even one where some morons tied fireworks to the landing gear, and watched it land upside down with an explosive tied to it.

Dustoff · Jul 16, 2018

Was too dark to tell but they where quads . I bet the second lost part of a prop becuse they way it was spinning wildly .

Yes I saw the one with idiots attaching fireworks to a phantom 4 and setting it off (kids speninding Mom and dads money) .

Seen lots of stupid people doing dumb things with drones and everyone wonders why people hate drones

FlushVision · Jul 16, 2018

Dustoff said:
Seen lots of stupid people doing dumb things with drones and everyone wonders why people hate drones

Never a truer word spoken. I don't bother looking at the crash compilations any more: The same types of needless crashes with a brainless moron on the sticks.