President and his pesky TFR's

[Rich QR]

I don't know the answer but to think that someone could attack the president with a 250g drone from 30 miles out is absurd.

I'll agree that it's absurd to think a Mavic Mini flying 30 miles away represents a significant threat.

Having said that, the powers that be have the job of identifying and stopping every threat long before it gets close enough to do harm. An aircraft flying at 250 knots will travel 30 miles in 6 minutes and 15 seconds. 250 knots is the general speed limit for aircraft below 10,000 ft, but terrorists won't necessarily obey speed limits once they've breached the TFR. So 30 miles may give less than four or five minutes warning.

A small private jet could potentially do great harm if it were used by a suicidal terrorist to crash into a car or building where a VIP was known to be. So the big, fast planes obviously have to be kept far away. But what about our little toy drones?

Our drones won't go 250 knots, but small racing drones have topped 140 knots. That would take a bit over 11 minutes get from the edge of a 30 mile circle to the center. Maybe you think drones should be allowed to go within 6 minutes of the center, like the big planes. That would say drones should be allowed to fly within maybe 15 miles, versus 30 for the big planes. But how do you guarantee that every vehicle flying just outside that 15 mile limit is really as slow as you think?

Something the size of a Mavic Mini has very limited ability to carry a payload, but a biohazard dispersed over the site of an outdoor speech (or any place where a person of interest was known to be outdoors, maybe transiting from a building to a car) could do serious harm without requiring a lot of mass. An FPV drone could potentially deliver a small payload with quite a bit of accuracy. Furthermore, larger drones up to 55 lbs. are regulated almost exactly like the sub-250g ones. 55 lbs leaves room for a significantly larger payload.

A small drone flying low is hard to see and presents a small target. It's hard for me to imagine a military fighter having a great success rate at stopping such a tiny target. How much time do you think they should have to stop it?

If the evildoers know that drones are exempt from suspicion and can get close, they may work on figuring out a way to take advantage of that. Maybe they'll fly a bigger, more capable aircraft that radar will perceive as a harmless little drone.

I don't know where to draw the line. Though I agree that a sub-250g drone flown slightly inside the 30 mile limit wouldn't present a serious threat, if we allowed swarms of them to fly much closer, I would be at least somewhat concerned about what else might be flying among the little Mavic Minis.

 

[dirkclod]

Guys you can talk all you like but A presidential TFR is nothing to mess with. You can slap them keys till they fall out but nothing
is going to change. Some can say a debate is healthy and maybe it is but the fact remains the same. If you have a President or other dignitaries in your area your going to have and deal with it.
Im sorry but that’s just a fact.
Yes you can hack,find another brand to fly but when you do
and get busted don’t come back in here to

cause you know better and do it.
Sorry but that’s just a fact Jack ?

 

[spudster]

An aircraft flying at 250 knots will travel 30 miles in 6 minutes and 15 seconds.

You can bet they are monitoring the airspace well outside the TFR space. By the time it gets to that space they will have already IDed the aircraft.

 

[alenalien38]

Don't know if it was legal or not, but I was able to fly around my yard without any fighter jets coming after me.

Well unfortunately it looks Nox Vidmate VLC like my drone practice will be dominated by TFR's. I live in southeast PA and President Biden likes to visit his home in Delaware. The ridiculous TFR covers most of Chester County and Lancaster County and all of Delaware County. They just happen to be my area of operation. So inconvenient.