Idiot attempts world record at 3.4 Km/11.000 feet with Phantom Drone

[oscar88]

In an attempt to break the world 'how high can you fly a consumer drone' record, an anonymous person from the Netherlands flew a Phantom 2 Quadcopter to a height of up to 3.4 km. That is more than 3 km above the maximum European Union legal height of 120 meters, which has applied since July 1, 2015 to hobby drones. Undoubtedly he set a new record of sorts, which also led to substantial discussions among the drone pilot community on the safe use of drones. At a height of 3.4 kilometers or 11000 feet you can indeed run into regular air traffic, or cause a lot of damage in case of a crash. Fortunately not in this flight -- but the battery had only 4% capacity at the moment of landing.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/0...-sparks-criticism-in-pilot-community#comments

 

[Mike H.]

I would ask questions like "Are you in a known flight path area of commercial or private air planes?"....If not there was ZERO risk of an accident.

Thats like doing donuts in a shopping mall parking at 12 am midnight with not a single car in sight. and some crying how dangerous it was to people on the public roads 200 yards away...I know it was illegal but come on, cry me a river.

Now if you are doing this in an area of known aircraft traffic or doing donuts with cars and people all around then yes, you are an idiot.

 

[GJH105775]

Well do we know for sure that he broke the law in this case? You can get legal exemption and permission from ATC to attempt such things. In the US (in my state even) the guys at flight test got a RC plane up to the upper atmosphere seeing black the black abyss with a weather balloon. It is actually not much more dangerous than flying 400' AGL as a plane hitting it would be about the same chance as the pilot getting stuck by lightening, coupled with the chances of bringing a passenger jet down from a strike of even a 3 pound multirotor being far, far less. Bringing ahelicopter down would be much easier, and a lot more likely at a lower altitude. Also note that a phantom would reach terminal velocity way, way before 3000m high, so chance of damage to an object on the ground would not be increased much if any.

Should he be that high without legal exemption? No, and it could cost you guys some legal headaches however that does not mean it was all that dangerous.

 

[FloridaQuads]

Private VFR airplane flights do not have to follow any sort of flight path area. We can fly anywhere as long as the airspace is not restricted and we are meeting proper visibility and cloud clearance requirements. So to say there was zero risk is not true.

At the speeds involved, any aircraft at 11000 ft will be moving at a very good clip, a collision with a small drone could be unavoidable and possibly catastrophic. It could blast right through the windscreen or possibly damage wings or other control surfaces.

I love this sport but I fear that all sorts of regulations are right around the corner if we don't voluntarily keep it low and out of any sort of controlled airspace without knowledge of ATC.

 

[Cale262]

Although it's true that we don't know for sure that he didn't have a "Permit" for this flight it sends the wrong message especially to the young kids out there. If not legally flown things like this will only force authorities to place further restrictions on an already restricted hobby... With mandatory geofencing on the horizon, we don't need to give the powers that be anymore ammo for their fight.

 

[RJB]

we don't know that it wasn't a government plant to introduce more restrictions either.

 

[GJH105775]

we don't know that it wasn't a government plant to introduce more restrictions either.

Get your tin foil hats ready hahahaha C'mon if they went through the trouble don't you think it would be more extravagant

 

[Mike H.]

It wasnt really a dji phantom...it was a syma X5C-1 with a modded X8C transmitter...*puts on tin foil hat.

 

[Cale262]

New information from the FAA suggest that it was actually a hijacked Phantom that crashed into the Pentagon on 911!!





Too soon?

 

[Mike H.]

Ill be back guys..i just got called in on a G47 classified mission.

 

[Mike H.]

Ok im back...apparently G47 was code for the presidents restroom was out of toilet paper...I never get the good missions

 

[RJB]

Get your tin foil hats ready hahahaha C'mon if they went through the trouble don't you think it would be more extravagant

You're country need more than tin foil hats the way it's losing its freedoms so quickly. Extravagant mmmmm doesn't need to be really does it?