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Inspire 1 smacks into Seattle's Space Needle

Yeah I just posted that article on the Seattle Group. I wonder if they had their FAA ID on their drone.
 
Pretty sure they shouldn't have been flying there... Not to mention putting them workmen at risk.
 
The Space Needle is it's own NFZ, ever since someone buzzed the observation deck in July 2014..
 
1m higher and definitely would hit the pyro tech.
Factoring in his take off point, I don't think he was flying with VLOS.
 
1m higher and definitely would hit the pyro tech.
Factoring in his take off point, I don't think he was flying with VLOS.
Great video from the drone's perspective. Obviously it was impounded. Someone's gonna get in deserved trouble.
 
Its gonna be stuff like this that ruins it for everyone. What an idiot......

No it won't. Even if everyone from here on out flies perfectly without any incidents, regs and bans will continue to pop up. It's a false narrative to think these events will hasten (or lack of them will slow) the progression of new laws. .Gov will do what .gov wants. Remember, NO ONE has been seriously injured or killed by a hobby drone. Plenty of close calls, could'a, would'a, should'a... Yet, the bans keep popping up.

I think the biggest motivator for .gov to institute ever-increasing restrictions is the privacy aspect. They'll sell it as safety (if it only saves one child mantra), but the reality is the majority of the masses are more concerned about peeping Toms than any other safety issues. Also, .gov has a history of resisting filming of public servants by the populace. They love their eyes in the sky... as long as .gov is doing the snooping. But try filming a .gov employee in public while they're performing their duties (perfectly legal and SCOTUS approved) and watch the fangs come out. There is a natural aversion people have to being filmed - and that is what will cause the dwindling of the available areas where we can fly.

Just last June, Florida passed a law explicitly restricting drones (hobby, commercial and LEO) from filming any private property without WRITTEN CONSENT from the owners. In effect, it makes flying in your neighborhood a potential minefield. It will only get worse. With or without videos like this guy.
 
While I agree with much of what you're saying erkme, there is no way these near misses have no impact on new laws popping up. I can't agree to it being 100% a privacy issue as you imply, but would guess it's more of a 50/50 balance.
 
No it won't. Even if everyone from here on out flies perfectly without any incidents, regs and bans will continue to pop up. It's a false narrative to think these events will hasten (or lack of them will slow) the progression of new laws. .Gov will do what .gov wants. Remember, NO ONE has been seriously injured or killed by a hobby drone. Plenty of close calls, could'a, would'a, should'a... Yet, the bans keep popping up.

I think the biggest motivator for .gov to institute ever-increasing restrictions is the privacy aspect. They'll sell it as safety (if it only saves one child mantra), but the reality is the majority of the masses are more concerned about peeping Toms than any other safety issues. Also, .gov has a history of resisting filming of public servants by the populace. They love their eyes in the sky... as long as .gov is doing the snooping. But try filming a .gov employee in public while they're performing their duties (perfectly legal and SCOTUS approved) and watch the fangs come out. There is a natural aversion people have to being filmed - and that is what will cause the dwindling of the available areas where we can fly.

Just last June, Florida passed a law explicitly restricting drones (hobby, commercial and LEO) from filming any private property without WRITTEN CONSENT from the owners. In effect, it makes flying in your neighborhood a potential minefield. It will only get worse. With or without videos like this guy.


While I agree with much of what you said as well you might want to reference this BBC article titled "Toddler's Eye Sliced In Half By Drone Propeller" Toddler's eyeball sliced in half by drone propeller - BBC News
 
While I agree with much of what you said as well you might want to reference this BBC article titled "Toddler's Eye Sliced In Half By Drone Propeller" Toddler's eyeball sliced in half by drone propeller - BBC News

OK, but tell me how anything other than an outright ban (think lawn dart ban) would prevent freak accidents like that from happening.

Further a single accident like this is horrific, but put it into proper perspective. Look at how many Toddler's are maimed or killed every year by parents who run over them with riding mowers. Not often, but it happens, and we're not regulating those. Perspective. That's all I'm saying.

ETA: looks like 20,000 kids are injured by lawn mowers every year. They even have their own support group:

https://m.facebook.com/LawnMowerAccidentSupportandPrevention/
 
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Remember, NO ONE has been seriously injured or killed by a hobby drone.

That's patently false. Pride parade 2015 in Seattle, person knocked unconscious and concussion, conviction reported today in fact. Toddler lost an eye to a propeller at a park in another case. Just two high-profile cases off the top of my head. And that's not counting injuries from r/c helicopters and airplanes.
 
That's patently false. Pride parade 2015 in Seattle, person knocked unconscious and concussion, conviction reported today in fact. Toddler lost an eye to a propeller at a park in another case. Just two high-profile cases off the top of my head. And that's not counting injuries from r/c helicopters and airplanes.
OK I'll give you that to claim none was a bit of a stretch, but relative to other things like desk fans, lawn mowers and tricycles, the RELATIVE risk of drones is zero when we compare the regulatory actions against drones vs lawn mowers (as an example).
 
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That's patently false. Pride parade 2015 in Seattle, person knocked unconscious and concussion, conviction reported today in fact. Toddler lost an eye to a propeller at a park in another case. Just two high-profile cases off the top of my head. And that's not counting injuries from r/c helicopters and airplanes.
There's even a couple of more examples, the baseball pitcher, the wedding party etc. but in the grand scheme of things, the numbers are minuscule! Do a Google search for common childhood injuries and deaths, the list goes on and on and we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of injuries and deaths by a myriad of causes. "Drones" are not a problem! Notice I didn't say that they couldn't be dangerous, I said they are not a problem. By this time, there are hundreds of thousands+ of hobby/toy quadcopters in use on a daily basis. If they were dangerous to the general public we would be seeing daily reports of injuries or worse by this time but we aren't. Everything gets reported in the news these days when "drones" are involved. Do some Google searches in the news section. There is nothing there!!
 
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Said so succinctly, thank you. In my previous two replies I referenced lawn mower injuries. Apparently there are over 300,000 people injured every year (20k children).

Many of these are devastating or even fatal. Yet not a stitch of regulation, registration, licensing, nothing. Why is that? Why is there such a disproportionatly visceral reaction to the nearly non-existant 'almost-injury' reports? Why so much negative press? Why the need for regulation with such a low relative potential for harm? Again, I assert that it has more to do with privacy than safety.

Ask any non-droning neighbor or friend what their biggest concern is about seeing a drone flying overhead. Is it that it might fall on them? Or that it's somehow spying on them or their kids.

The BBC story linked to above, about the kid with the sliced eye... The surgeon who was interviewed said that this was her first and only drone injury. But she confidently stated there would be many more. Not once, but TWICE in the article:

It was the first drone injury Oscar's surgeon had seen, but she said it was "inevitable" there would be many more.

"That said, given their popularity and the common use, it's inevitable that we'll see a lot more."​

It's been more than a year, with millions of more drones in the hands of untrained fliers. Where or where is this influx of maimed and disfigured people?
 
Old News. Here is the whole event from the Inspire's point of view.
 
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So what? I think there's probably 50 laws already on the books that says you can't crash things into the space needle. Why do we need more?
We all know that this a NFZ. However, this was just to show the whole video.
Nothing more. Certainly the pilot is at error. And he will pay the price. And so could we soon enough for his stupid endeavor.
New FAA regulations are already being written due to this one video!
It saddens me.:(
 
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You mean there aren't already laws and regulations in place that say you can't crash stuff into buildings and people? Wow, who knew?
Please ,, No Trolls here ok? You should keep just DroningOn!,
Yes? Thanks for your input. No debate here.
Sorry to interrupt your thread. :eek:
 
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