There are drones in your future

[gjohnsoniv]

Turn one of those 10/22 Gatling guns into an AA turret.

[Caster]

Time to put up the camo netting...

Won't help if they have FLIR.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Caster

[tnhawk]

The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has asked County Commissioners to purchase several drones, as part of a $400,000 grant from Department of Homeland Security.

[lunarpowered]

Anyone wanna go halfsies on a Stinger missile?

Just one?

[Moped]

I don't think many will get shot down. If they were that easy to hit, seems to me that more of them would have been shot down over Yemen, Iraq, Afhganistan and Pakistan. Why does a local police department need with drones? The Border Patrol I could understand, but Nashville? Sounds to me like a waste of Taxpayers money.

[Jonnin]

I don't think many will get shot down. If they were that easy to hit, seems to me that more of them would have been shot down over Yemen, Iraq, Afhganistan and Pakistan. Why does a local police department need with drones? The Border Patrol I could understand, but Nashville? Sounds to me like a waste of Taxpayers money.

Mostly used to take a look at something dangerous. A local PD? Should not need it. But should a state have a couple? Possibly... for their swat teams, anti-terror teams, or the like? 2-3 per state, maybe a couple more in gigantic states, would make some sense. Could pay for themselves if they make them able to read the speed off vehicles (they can already see the plates...) and that would be an annoying turn of events indeed.

[subsonic]

Actually had a drone fly over our place last year. I was outside grilling a steak, heard an unusual motor sound approaching, and here comes this torpedo with stubby wings and a push prop whizzing over. If I had to guess, it was around 12-15 feet long.

[gjohnsoniv]

Actually had a drone fly over our place last year. I was outside grilling a steak, heard an unusual motor sound approaching, and here comes this torpedo with stubby wings and a push prop whizzing over. If I had to guess, it was around 12-15 feet long.

If they're that noticeable, people will take pot shots.

[subsonic]

If they're that noticeable, people will take pot shots.

Might just start bringing the Mini 14 to the grill with me.

Edited May 4, 2012 by subsonic

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Mostly used to take a look at something dangerous. A local PD? Should not need it. But should a state have a couple? Possibly... for their swat teams, anti-terror teams, or the like? 2-3 per state, maybe a couple more in gigantic states, would make some sense. Could pay for themselves if they make them able to read the speed off vehicles (they can already see the plates...) and that would be an annoying turn of events indeed.

I don't get out much but in TX long ago the state patrol used little pipers and cessnas for traffic enforcement coordinating with patrol cars. Maybe they still do. West of the mississippi you have to drive hundreds of miles to get anywhere useful so people tended to put the pedal to the metal between towns. Drones big enough for western highway enforcement are probably still expensive to buy and operate, but small human-operated planes ain't cheap to keep in the air. Ain't sayin one way or t'other whether rural highway speed limits are worth spending a bunch of money on. But if it is worth doing then possibly drones could do it cheaper at least if they ever get the price down?

One would think a big drone might be sufficient potential liability to require stringent testing, quality and maintenance standards at least as strict as a small human plane? Just sayin, liability seems a big reason that medical equipment will never be cheap. Medical equipment companies have to earn sufficient profit to pay out millions of dollars in lawsuit judgments on bad pacemakers or artificial hips even if 99.999 percent of the product run is flawless, and the companies can't realistically cut corners because occasional defects are so expensive. Just sayin, if drone manufacturing might be the same sort of issue, then maybe they can never be inexpensive because of the extra 99 percent of effort spent on that last 0.99 percent of product improvement? Dunno.

I have a sneaking suspicion there are plenty of laws they could use to lock up a fella for shooting down either manned or unmanned aircraft over his property? Specially if it belongs to the gov, even a small model-airplane-sized drone? Dunno. Maybe there are holes in the laws but we got so many laws it doesn't seem likely that we don't have laws against shooting down an aircraft just because it happens to be over your airspace? Unless there are ownership, altitude, or size exclusions, maybe it is equally illegal to bring down the snoopy neighbor's R/C copter or to bring down a multi-million dollar gov drone? Bet one of our members knows the answer.

[Jonnin]

sorta.

No human on board means no one dies if it crashes, unless it hits something. They tend to be smaller: less fuel, less mass, less destruction if they fail. So, basically, it needs a "safe crash" system where it shuts off and blows out a parachute or something like that, so it lands harmlessly, leaving about the worst case as a drop into traffic on say the interstate (bad, even with a parachute).

I would say they are less of a danger than a real airplane, but, probably more prone to failure (small parts more likely to fail in my experience, and less redundancy than big vehicles). No matter what the owner will want good insurance, because people tend to sue even if not harmed. Some yahoo get one landed in their yard and wins 10 billion in a lawsuit because it hit the dog or prize rosebush or something. Heck these days the loud noise might be worth a few tens of millions with the right lawyer.

Much of the cost per unit is R&D, even now. It takes a long time or a lot of units to recover that investment. And the R&D goes on, its an important area.

As for shooting at them --- the operator would be wise to stay above shotgun range, which is really not that high up. If someone starts in with a rifle, they are going to be in more trouble for launching rounds all over creation than for hitting the plane -- which is unlikely when you start talking a 15 foot object 500 yards up moving at 30+ MPH.

[Caster]

Antique mortar cannon filled with large diameter balls. Super shotgun anyone?

Edited May 4, 2012 by Caster

[gjohnsoniv]

Antique mortar cannon filled with large diameter balls. Super shotgun anyone?

Excellent.

[Jonnin]

I would rather have one of those punt guns than that thing.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

No human on board means no one dies if it crashes, unless it hits something. They tend to be smaller: less fuel, less mass, less destruction if they fail. So, basically, it needs a "safe crash" system where it shuts off and blows out a parachute or something like that, so it lands harmlessly, leaving about the worst case as a drop into traffic on say the interstate (bad, even with a parachute).

I would say they are less of a danger than a real airplane, but, probably more prone to failure (small parts more likely to fail in my experience, and less redundancy than big vehicles). No matter what the owner will want good insurance, because people tend to sue even if not harmed. Some yahoo get one landed in their yard and wins 10 billion in a lawsuit because it hit the dog or prize rosebush or something. Heck these days the loud noise might be worth a few tens of millions with the right lawyer.

Much of the cost per unit is R&D, even now. It takes a long time or a lot of units to recover that investment. And the R&D goes on, its an important area.

Thanks Jonnin for the well-reasoned thoughts.

As for shooting at them --- the operator would be wise to stay above shotgun range, which is really not that high up. If someone starts in with a rifle, they are going to be in more trouble for launching rounds all over creation than for hitting the plane -- which is unlikely when you start talking a 15 foot object 500 yards up moving at 30+ MPH.

Antique mortar cannon filled with large diameter balls. Super shotgun anyone?

Hypothetically speaking, if there MAY be rare situations when it would be legal to shoot a small intrusive drone owned by a snoopy neighbor, news crew or other private org-- Perhaps ya'll are correct that some kind of shotgun would be most effective. Dunno anything about it. Except for city firearms discharge ordinances, maybe it wouldn't be legally risky to fire in the air as long as whatever goes up, comes back down on yer own property? Perhaps the shotgun pellets would ideally be spec'd small enough to not hurt too bad if the pellets come back down accidentally impacting one's own noggin, or one's own dawgs, automobile, roof, or house window?

Following are random dumb misinformed "thinking out loud" on the hypothetical problem of taking down a drone, if there were rare hypothetical cases where it would be legal to do so-- Perhaps there are simpler more elegant methods.

-- Larger drones most likely have sufficient built-in autonomy that they couldn't be brought down merely by jamming the control signal? Maybe they would just automatically keep going straight and level until they exceed the range of the jammer and then they lock back on to remote flight control? Maybe even small commercial manufactured drones would be resistant to crashing if jammed? Skill is required to R/C an aircraft unless it at least has automatic flight stabilization. Am guessing that even if a drone company merely desires to sell miniature camera drones to business and law enforcement, then the device would at least require sufficient autonomy to be flown by (relatively) unskilled employees? If the typical commercial drone would be equipped with auto flight stabilization then perhaps only the cheapest homemade amateur camera drones could be crashed via radio interference?

-- Unless there is an easy "shortcut" way to generate an EMP other than the brute force method of massive discharge thru an RLC circuit then perhaps it would be "too fancy&expensive" to home build an EMP gun with decent effective range? Adequate effective range would most likely require overkill capacitor banks and high voltage. Tight directionality would be desirable. Otherwise one might fire an EMP at a low-flying drone and simultaneously fry every gadget in the house! Perhaps even a suitably long-range directional EMP gun could only disable the cheapest-shoddiest drones? Would military-grade drones all be shielded by initial design? Perhaps even the least expensive devices purchased by non government entities would inherit EMP resistant properties?

-- It does not seem currently feasible that the average bubba could build a laser or particle beam in the basement, strong enough to take out even a small drone. OTOH, could an industrial-grade metal-cutting laser with appropriate beam optics, adversely affect a slow low-flying drone?

-- Along the same lines, the average dude probably can't build a basement power maser, unless perhaps there would be a way to pump it using something cheap like the magnetron from a microwave oven? Is it feasible to focus an ordinary microwave oven magnetron into a "pretty tight" beam? A slow-moving or hovering small drone might not function quite correctly after being targeted with the power of a 2000 watt microwave oven for a couple of minutes? Metal parts might get overly warm. Maybe some combination of feed horn and diffraction lens could hold a tight beam for a few hundred feet? Or maybe not. Tis as beyond my expertise as are all of the hare-brained ideas on this list..

-- The authorities would most likely put a person in jail for mere possession of explosive tipped rockets? On the other hand am not aware that it is illegal to possess or launch fairly ambitious amateur rockets, presuming that the rockets are used neither for nefarious nor criminally stupid purposes? I don't keep up with modern amateur rocketry but some of the designs of yesteryear could possibly put the hurt on a small/medium sized drone if an amateur rocket were to accidentally impact at full-speed? Accidental inertial damage. A 1 foot X 1 inch aluminum rocket might do a number on a small hover drone if it accidentally happened to fly straight thru a spinning rotor? One common old design entailed three parts-- Aluminum tube threaded on both ends. Threaded aluminum nose cone on one end, and threaded nozzle on the other. There are most likely better fuels nowadays though an older mediocre-specific-impulse fuel was sugar and saltpeter melted into a "taffy" and poured into the tube to cool and solidify. Though low-tech it was capable of scooting an amateur rocket to pretty decent velocity and altitude.

If an amateur rocket happened to be built big enough to tote simple guidance-- Perhaps a forward-looking sparse photocell grid with simple analog feedback electronics controlling rudimentary tail fins or jet tabs. Light up a low flying drone with a green laser and then the rocket might home-in on the laser dot?

-- I don't keep up with radio controlled model aircraft. Long ago when I was a kid a few folks would fly all-aluminum model airframes powered by flap-valve pulse jet engines. They were atrociously loud and difficult to fly because they were kinda fast. I would be a real shame if a fella happened to be flying a model jet out of his back yard and it accidentally happened to run straight into a small or medium-size drone at full speed. Mayb a fella could sue the drone operator for negligently causing the demise of a favorite expensive model airplane?

[gjohnsoniv]

Lester you bring up some interesting points. As far as model rockets go I have two that I have to call the airports before I launch because they can reach altitudes of over a mile because of their "Coke can engines." I'll take some pictures when I get home because I think you'll get a kick out of it. I could very easily see one of them doing some damage even though they are made out of plastic and paper.

Edited May 7, 2012 by gjohnsoniv

[Grunt67]

Well, it doesn't end with drones. There was an article in the Nashville paper a day or so ago, that

Sumner Co. has installed cameras on top of patrol cars to read license plates from all 4 directions,

and store them for future reference, supposedly to catch BGs.

Big Brother is expanding at a rapid rate.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

http://www.realclear...top_it_now.html

"I would say that you ban it under all circumstances and I would predict, I'm not encouraging, but I an predicting that the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that's been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country," Krauthammer said tonight.

[Moped]

About the camera thing, I saw where there is a proposal by Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford Jr., to charge Memphis residents and out of towners that come into the city 2 or 3 times a week, a vehicle inspection fee. He is proposing that traffic cameras be posted a long major roads leading into the city to catch license plate numbers for those that live outside the city limits. Here is the link.

http://www.knoxnews....inspection-fee/

Edited May 17, 2012 by Moped

[Jonnin]

Hmm.

Lester, they fly themselves. I can click in a route, punch go, and go take a nap. The plane will fly the route and do whatever next (repeat it, keep going straight, or more). The only thing they are not good at is landing and takeoff without a human pilot to help out. That is in progress.

However, most of the ones I know about will go into a panic mode if signal is lost. This varies, but if signal is lost for too long some will crash down, some will keep going, some will turn around and go back to seek home base, etc. It depends on what the desired response to this event is for the specific mission and the capability of the craft.

The best way I can think of to kill one with jamming would be to mess up its gps signal. Once it is "lost" for a few min, the vehicle is toast.

I think a home-made emp would do more damage to your own equipment and home and car and so on than it would the plane. Bubba would be in for a shock --- literally--- and if wearing metal, well, you know what happens if you wear metal in an MRI machine??

Cutting lasers require hitting the same spot on the surface of the vehicle for a period of time. While the period of time is short, its long enough to be a very, very, very difficult problem. It is feasible on land. On water, the bobbing at random is intractable. In the air, maybe, if the target were just going straight at a fixed velocity with no turbulance or anything, but no wai for a target that is moving to avoid being hit.

The IED shotgun might work with buckshot. I wonder how high up that would go.....

[BryanP]

Well, it doesn't end with drones. There was an article in the Nashville paper a day or so ago, that

Sumner Co. has installed cameras on top of patrol cars to read license plates from all 4 directions,

and store them for future reference, supposedly to catch BGs.

Big Brother is expanding at a rapid rate.

If Google ever gets the driverless car concept perfected, I could see states putting out driverless patrol cars with the 360 degree camera mounts that Google currently uses to record their Street View images.

[R_Bert]

Well, it doesn't end with drones. There was an article in the Nashville paper a day or so ago, that

Sumner Co. has installed cameras on top of patrol cars to read license plates from all 4 directions,

and store them for future reference, supposedly to catch BGs.

Big Brother is expanding at a rapid rate.

If Google ever gets the driverless car concept perfected, I could see states putting out driverless patrol cars with the 360 degree camera mounts that Google currently uses to record their Street View images.

The PDs don't even have to do that. They can just contract with Google for data from "unmarked" cars. In fact, using real-time computing, the driverless car could tail the "hit" to destination for intervention by real PD.

Edited May 17, 2012 by R_Bert

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hmm.

Lester, they fly themselves. I can click in a route, punch go, and go take a nap. The plane will fly the route and do whatever next (repeat it, keep going straight, or more). The only thing they are not good at is landing and takeoff without a human pilot to help out. That is in progress.

However, most of the ones I know about will go into a panic mode if signal is lost. This varies, but if signal is lost for too long some will crash down, some will keep going, some will turn around and go back to seek home base, etc. It depends on what the desired response to this event is for the specific mission and the capability of the craft.

The best way I can think of to kill one with jamming would be to mess up its gps signal. Once it is "lost" for a few min, the vehicle is toast.

I think a home-made emp would do more damage to your own equipment and home and car and so on than it would the plane. Bubba would be in for a shock --- literally--- and if wearing metal, well, you know what happens if you wear metal in an MRI machine??

Cutting lasers require hitting the same spot on the surface of the vehicle for a period of time. While the period of time is short, its long enough to be a very, very, very difficult problem. It is feasible on land. On water, the bobbing at random is intractable. In the air, maybe, if the target were just going straight at a fixed velocity with no turbulance or anything, but no wai for a target that is moving to avoid being hit.

The IED shotgun might work with buckshot. I wonder how high up that would go.....

Thanks Jonnin

Last weekend googled a few hours about R/C craft. One could build a not-too-shabby short range hover drone in the ballpark of $1000 to $10,000. A lot of the R/C parts are surprisingly inexpensive, but its like building a computer-- Put a bunch of cheap parts in a box and all of a sudden the finshed assembled computer got expensive. Some of the parts look "too inexpensive" to inspire confidence. Many components have "too many features" for the price, which might be merely indicative of the remarkable march of progress on price-vs-features, or on the other hand the price may be indicative of cheap failure-prone components.

Some of the fancy inexpensive components might be like some of the zillion-watt gamer computer power supplies. Have seen some cheap power supplies rated for crazy watts with a fancy paint job, that barely weigh more than an empty aluminum chassis. And then the conservatively-rated expensive power supplies with a drab paint job which weigh a whole bunch when you pick em up. One time daughter bought a fabulous zillion-watt gamer powersupply that fried after about a week, so I replaced it with a conservative expensive weighs-a-ton PS which ran fine for years. Just thinking, maybe some of the inexpensive R/C components might be like inexpensive flashy power supplies? Dunno.

A four-rotor (or better) hover drone with tilt-pan-zoom onboard camera, flown with video goggles which have head motion sensing. Be flying the drone and you can "look around" just by moving your head to look side-to-side, up-and-down.

They have flight stabilization modules with GPS. If signal is lost the drone tries to re-trace its steps and go home. If you are flying with video goggles and wander too far and "get lost" then the on screen display in the goggles can point yer way home. Neat stuff.

Can be mounted on model planes as well, which may be better for higher-altitude recreations. Some youtube videos of goggle-equipped geeks going surprisingly high altitude with giant lightweight styrofoam electric planes.

And then there are the big-spenders who fly giant R/C jets nowadays. There are many youtube videos of folk flying huge fast R/C jets but didn't see em using video piloting. All line of sight piloting. It may be safety factors because some of the giant jets go pretty fast. Or maybe after a fella dumps $10,000+ on an R/C jet, maybe the fella doesn't want to risk letting the thing get out of line-of-sight range? Too heartbreaking if the thang flies off and never comes back?

Long ago when I was a kid the pulse-jet models I saw were only maybe 3 or 4 foot wingspan, and tended to be aluminum because pulse jets tend to get kinda hot. There are still pulse jet planes, but both the pulse jets and small turbo jets seem mounted on composite-layer foam core types of airframes. And lots bigger than the old aluminum planes.

[jtmaze]

I am thinking about doing some research on arming a low end r/c plane with maybe a 20 guage tube gun maybe two. I have a couple of old rc airplane kits in the attick from my childhood, I just might look into how high I will have to be to recover after recoil stops forward motion. I haven't played with rc stuff in a long time. Of course this is something you can't work on in the park, and a last ditch self defense weapon. I see many ways this can be dangerous. Did the FAA stipulate in this bill that the drones couldn't be armed? worst nightmare is armed UAV's flying around the country.

[gjohnsoniv]

They probably put something in there to keep people like us from building something to counter their drones. Though if your r/c plane were to randomly explode due to fuel leak...