Drones at fireworks shows..

[Xclone]

So like many of you, I went out to my local fireworks show last night. I wanted to get a discussion going about the "legal" aspects of this and the "mob" mentality (forgive the bad pun). I'll lay out the circumstances that I observed, from the ground, and would love everyone's opinions.

So our local fireworks had about 15,000 people in attendance. Just out of curiosity, I checked the NOTAM's and TFR's and didn't see any NFZ's popping up for the show, so I did expect to see a few drones in the air. I ended up counting 5 drones at various parts of the show. The below observations are not me passing judgment in any way, just things I noticed:

• All were operating well past civil twilight
• No anti-collision strobes outside of the standard GPS signal lights
• A few were operating well above 400' AGL
• 1 got so close to the fireworks he had to bug out when the "altitude" of the show changed putting his drone at risk
• VLOS was doubtful based on their return path
• A few were operating directly overheard of a huge crowd (15,000+ people)
• Near the end of a show a private plane came thru the airspace and appeared to be well below the altitude of the operating drones. None of them moved or took action to :make way". The plane did not have to course deviate but given the conditions and lack of VLOS, it was luck.

So, really what I am wanting to find out is the attitudes of most pilots here. Do you see any of these things being an issue in regards to safety? Again, I'm not trying to bash anyone and i'm not looking to start an argument.

 

[james_mav]

Everyone on this board see's a number of problems & would not operate in such a manner. Drone operation is no different then drinking & driving. You're going to have people obey the rules & others who don't care that they are endangering others lives.

 

[Ozz]

Have there ever been any calculations done as to the odds of two objects in the sky colliding? One being as small as a drone.

It must be really rare with all these apparently close flying - yet never so far any incidences of an actual mid air crash reported.

>No anti-collision strobes

Especially between two drones.