Are Drones the new Jetskis?

Stemar

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All the same, if that somebody else's property comes illegally trespassing on my property and privacy

If it were a problem around me, I rather think some kind of EMP weapon might be in order.
"Oh, your drone malfunctioned and fell in the sea. What a shame. What - that's the third time this week and always near me? It must be my magnetic personality. Better go fly somewhere else"
 

INT QRK

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All the same, if that somebody else's property comes illegally trespassing on my property and privacy

If it were a problem around me, I rather think some kind of EMP weapon might be in order.
"Oh, your drone malfunctioned and fell in the sea. What a shame. What - that's the third time this week and always near me? It must be my magnetic personality. Better go fly somewhere else"

In the UK they are not so doing, you however would be breaching various telecommunications acts and commiting criminal damage.
 

LONG_KEELER

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Just wondering , apart from God who owns the air space above your own property ?

If someone marched into your back garden and put a sun lounger down and started sun bathing you would probably be offended.

I would think that a law of around 100m straight up would not be unreasonable. Anything less could be in the death zone.
 

Kelpie

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Just wondering , apart from God who owns the air space above your own property ?

If someone marched into your back garden and put a sun lounger down and started sun bathing you would probably be offended.

I would think that a law of around 100m straight up would not be unreasonable. Anything less could be in the death zone.

Relying on hazy memory of when I studied this at uni, but IIRC you own everything above and below your property. But a precedent was established a long time ago that there is a right of navigation/passage through airspace so 'ownership' is pretty meaningless.
 

ashtead

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One way to protect against both drones and even worse jetski is to berth inPortsmouth harbour QHM is not keen on either and I guess Plymouth might be the same -that said I believe our shiny new carriers also have drone problems.
 

Neeves

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I might suggest that, like anchors :), a sense of proportion might be required.

The nuisance value of drones can be mitigated. you can go indoors (and get your air rifle), put you hat on and even get dressed (do you really think anyone is not going to edit out pictures of you naked?) It is slightly more difficult to reduce the impact of a jet ski close at hand.

Jonathan
 

Stemar

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I might suggest that, like anchors :), a sense of proportion might be required.
You are of course quite correct, but that's no fun
It is slightly more difficult to reduce the impact of a jet ski close at hand.

Jonathan
There used to be a thing on the internet somewhere about a jetski-seeking missile. Significant impact, but no more nuisance. Unfortunately I can't find it now.
 

JumbleDuck

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You can get gadgets that block mobile phone signals, surprised there is not a bit of kit that will do the same for drones
I have a Tesla coil which basically widdles over the entire RF spectrum near it. I'd be surprised if a drone's onboard systems were hardened enough, let alone the comms.

The other obvious way of dealing with drones is to send a small child out to play naked in their line of site, then get the operator done for filming them.
 

Baggywrinkle

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Modern drones have onboard flight systems that will keep them flying and return them to their take-off point if they lose communication with their controller. Interfere with their GPS and you are interfering with everyone's GPS in the vicinity, including emergency services.

Interfering with a drone in flight may result in unexpected behaviour, it may veer off into traffic, or people, or it may simply rise to it's pre-set return to home altitude and head off to an unknown home-point, where it will land without the control of the pilot.

The telemetry system also records everything the drone experiences, including the motor speeds, signal strengths, voltages of batteries and readings from sensors - any interference will be easy to spot, and any malfunctions/damage are logged as soon as they occur - if the link to the controller is up then the telemetry is also stored on the controller in real-time.

So when the pilot can legitimately say he was flying in airspace he was allowed to fly in, following the CAA rules and the drone was interfered with (visible in the telemetry) and then subsequently crashed causing damage or injury, then the hunt will be on for the person who caused the thing to malfunction (be that shooting at it or attempting to jam it). The pilot will also be able to pursue a claim for criminal damage, but that will be peanuts compared to what the CAA will be looking for if the damage/injury is substantial. You simply do not interfere with an aircraft in flight - period - as you have no idea how or where it will subsequently end up crashing - pretty stupid and irresponsible IMO.

Of course you can try and counter-sue for invasion of privacy, but if a drone is more than about 30m away, you're just going to be a few blurry pixels on the footage. It would be more reasonable to follow the drone and identify the pilot, then politely ask to see what he had filmed and ask him/her to stay away from your property.

In public you have no defence as long as the drone operator is following the rules set out by the CAA for the class of drone he/she is flying. As a comparison, how often do you think you will pop-up in the background of selfies or other cell-phone footage compared to a drone? .... or on peoples doorbell cams/private CCTV as you walk past their houses? ... or on dash-cams as you drive or walk about the streets?

A typical drone has the equivalent of a 24mm lens, which is way wider than what you experience as a human - approx 50mm - 24mm is a landscape lens, not a portrait lens - and it's useless for picking out details of people when more than 30m in the air.

Examples of what a drone actually "sees" and how easy it is to identify individuals can be found here ...

Figure 1 | Scientific Reports

Remote-controlled aerial drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles; UAVs) are employed for surveillance by the military and police, which suggests that drone-captured footage might provide sufficient information for person identification. This study demonstrates that person identification from drone-captured images is poor when targets are unfamiliar (Experiment 1), when targets are familiar and the number of possible identities is restricted by context (Experiment 2), and when moving footage is employed (Experiment 3). Person information such as sex, race and age is also difficult to access from drone-captured footage (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that such footage provides a particularly poor medium for person identification. This is likely to reflect the sub-optimal quality of such footage, which is subject to factors such as the height and velocity at which drones fly, viewing distance, unfavourable vantage points, and ambient conditions.

... basically, unless it is hovering very close (metres away) the pilot is not going to get much footage that is of any use for "spying" on people. Try shooting some portraits with a 24mm lens at 40 metres.

Drones produce footage that makes aerial photography available to any amateur photographer, and those pilots are far more interested in getting beautiful aerial footage than filming some middle-aged gammon with a persecution complex - drones, generators, jet-skis, outboards, music .... I guess there is just so much to get angry about these days.

This is what drones were made for ... and if used responsibility they do no harm at all.

 

INT QRK

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So when the pilot can legitimately say he was flying in airspace he was allowed to fly in, following the CAA rules and the drone was interfered with (visible in the telemetry) and then subsequently crashed causing damage or injury, then the hunt will be on for the person who caused the thing to malfunction (be that shooting at it or attempting to jam it). The pilot will also be able to pursue a claim for criminal damage, but that will be peanuts compared to what the CAA will be looking for if the damage/injury is substantial. You simply do not interfere with an aircraft in flight - period - as you have no idea how or where it will subsequently end up crashing - pretty stupid and irresponsible IMO.

It's not that long ago that a child was killed not far from where I lived by an out of control model aircraft (the old fashioned RC type), far more dependent on the signal and far easier to interfere with, but the consequences for the third party of some sort of idiot who thinks they can take the law into their own hands are much the same.
 
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