Wait What did I just hear?

[Ars3nal3432]

So I was flying my MA2 up above my house to take a photo of the sunset, I was just about finished when I hear a neighbor, yelling land your drone now or Im going to call the police. I said" I was just taking a picture of the sunset". Her reply, "no your're not". I landed my drone and had a conversation with her and her husband.

I was honestly take off guard. I thought something like that would happen, but this is literally my 3rd or 4th time flying. The thing is her house is behind my house and the sunset was in front of my house, so when I was taking photos of the sunset, she was actually seeing the back of my drone. I was flying around 125ft and pointed away from her home.

People create an illusion in their head that they are always being spyed on. But my advice to anyone who is caught in a similar situation is that they should land their drone immediately and talk to the individual. I offered my flight plan, told them I was registered with the FAA ,and offered for them to see my pictures. She still seemed a little suspicious. Im pretty limited with flying around my house due to air restrictions and due to the density of our neighborhood I can only wonder how many others have an issue with the drone.

Moral of the story, this may happen to you if you are flying in your neighborhood, so prepare yourself ahead of time to have a relaxed conversation, it's the only way to prevent a bad confrontation and things escalating. For me, a future confrontation with others is not worth flying around my house. I know my rights and yes I was only flying above my property, but still be careful.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Being prepared is half the battle, that is a great point.

I also recommend you join your neighbor hood watch , let them know your available for search and rescue with your drone.
This way you dont have to limit yourself to im taking pictures of the Sun Set ,you can offer something more rewarding.

The more pictures you can post , the better , its never going to be about knowing your rights as it always going to be about them seeing you a something more
than someone taking pictures with your drone. .

Of course it helps if your Drone looks like it can Search and Rescue. Lights, Wet Suit - Hook Release can take the sting out quickly.

If you need some ideas, post weather pictures, pictures of your drone flying a life jacket , doing perimeter checks , we need people to see us a someone that can help, rather than a bunch of house peepers looking the other way with our camera.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in and out of the Storm.

 

[Erikson]

Being prepared is half the battle, that is a great point.

I also recommend you join your neighbor hood watch , let them know your available for search and rescue with your drone.
This way you dont have to limit yourself to im taking pictures of the Sun Set ,you can offer something more rewarding.

The more pictures you can post , the better , its never going to be about knowing your rights as it always going to be about them seeing you a something more
than someone taking pictures with your drone. .

Of course it helps if your Drone looks like it can Search and Rescue. Lights, Wet Suit - Hook Release can take the sting out quickly.

If you need some ideas, post weather pictures, pictures of your drone flying a life jacket , doing perimeter checks , we need people to see us a someone that can help, rather than a bunch of house peepers looking the other way with our camera.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in and out of the Storm.

Great info. I had similar problems with my neighbors. I was mid flight, when I needed to pause over a guys house while I adjusted the video settings, then continued on. He interpreted that pause as me spying. There's a lot of fear and paranoia with drones. That's why I rarely fly in my neighborhood anymore.

 

[jzilla80]

Id also ask if theyre interested to see what the actual view from that altitude is with the Mavics. I think some have seen too many movies and think these drones have military 'reaper' like magnification, which we know they do not! Hopefully then, theyd see that a spy tool it is not.

Now the stupid expensive Matrice 2 is another story, with the right payload...

Truthfully though (and truth hurts sometimes), Americans now days are becoming a fearful, complaining and entitled bunch (nowhere near all, more like half, so dont get offended... If your not that type, then you surely know one or a few. Just be honest about it.) So its quite likely that nothing you do will ever satisfy them, so be prepared for that outcome as well!

 

[eaglesurfing]

Fear and guilt. Asking them what they are afraid of and are you doing something your feeling guilty about?
If they think they want there privacy then tell them that what window shades are made for or you can show them a picture of their house from the Google/Bing maps.
You can also offer to take a video from the neighbors lot so the can see what it looks like from their point of view.
Also record all of the conversations plus tell them please call the police so you can be on record that you're not doing anything wrong.
I was told by an expert to always record conversations with any authorities and they will not pull any off handed crap.
I went over to one of my neighbors, show him what his place looked like and he was amazed.
I also had one neighbors said she didn't want me to catch her naked and I assured her that was the last thing I wanted to see... lol.

 

[OldGuy]

Great info. I had similar problems with my neighbors. I was mid flight, when I needed to pause over a guys house while I adjusted the video settings, then continued on. He interpreted that pause as me spying. There's a lot of fear and paranoia with drones. That's why I rarely fly in my neighborhood anymore.

This is exactly what happened to me.

 

[ZFlyer]

So I was flying my MA2 up above my house to take a photo of the sunset, I was just about finished when I hear a neighbor, yelling land your drone now or Im going to call the police. I said" I was just taking a picture of the sunset". Her reply, "no your're not". I landed my drone and had a conversation with her and her husband.

I was honestly take off guard. I thought something like that would happen, but this is literally my 3rd or 4th time flying. The thing is her house is behind my house and the sunset was in front of my house, so when I was taking photos of the sunset, she was actually seeing the back of my drone. I was flying around 125ft and pointed away from her home.

People create an illusion in their head that they are always being spyed on. But my advice to anyone who is caught in a similar situation is that they should land their drone immediately and talk to the individual. I offered my flight plan, told them I was registered with the FAA ,and offered for them to see my pictures. She still seemed a little suspicious. Im pretty limited with flying around my house due to air restrictions and due to the density of our neighborhood I can only wonder how many others have an issue with the drone.

Moral of the story, this may happen to you if you are flying in your neighborhood, so prepare yourself ahead of time to have a relaxed conversation, it's the only way to prevent a bad confrontation and things escalating. For me, a future confrontation with others is not worth flying around my house. I know my rights and yes I was only flying above my property, but still be careful.

I had the same thing happen to me on my second flight from my back yard. My neighbor came running over and to me that she was scared and was ready to call the police. I explained to her that I was not videoing her house and showed her my footage. Lot of misconceptions about droning.

 

[Ars3nal3432]

Id also ask if theyre interested to see what the actual view from that altitude is with the Mavics. I think some have seen too many movies and think these drones have military 'reaper' like magnification, which we know they do not! Hopefully then, theyd see that a spy tool it is not.

Now the stupid expensive Matrice 2 is another story, with the right payload...

Truthfully though (and truth hurts sometimes), Americans now days are becoming a fearful, complaining and entitled bunch (nowhere near all, more like half, so dont get offended... If your not that type, then you surely know one or a few. Just be honest about it.) So its quite likely that nothing you do will ever satisfy them, so be prepared for that outcome as well!

Because of COVID, I didn't want them getting close to me. However, I did explain to them how wide the field of view was this camera. I told them that a photo from my drone was actually wider than their cell phone. I told them to take a picture of something 125ft away and that what Im seeings.... not much close up detail. I also told them that the drone doesn't have any zoom capability. I even showed them a picture of the sunset I was photographing. Regardless, Im actually a little happy it happened because it prepares me. I really wish the MA2 had streaming capability so I could tell my neighbors to watch the link when I fly.

 

[Frustrated]

In my neighborhood I only have to worry about trees, xwifes ,wolfs and coyotes

 

[monteolsen1]

Id also ask if theyre interested to see what the actual view from that altitude is with the Mavics. I think some have seen too many movies and think these drones have military 'reaper' like magnification, which we know they do not! Hopefully then, theyd see that a spy tool it is not.

Now the stupid expensive Matrice 2 is another story, with the right payload...

Truthfully though (and truth hurts sometimes), Americans now days are becoming a fearful, complaining and entitled bunch (nowhere near all, more like half, so dont get offended... If your not that type, then you surely know one or a few. Just be honest about it.) So its quite likely that nothing you do will ever satisfy them, so be prepared for that outcome as well!

Interesting comments about Americans. I don't know very many people like that. I suppose it depends on who you hang out with. Maybe you should find different friends. And, yeah, I'm offended, whether you like it or not. And, no, I don't knock people from other countries with ignorant blanket statements based on nothing but my "sense" of them.

 

[Davros007]

Id also ask if theyre interested to see what the actual view from that altitude is with the Mavics. I think some have seen too many movies and think these drones have military 'reaper' like magnification, which we know they do not! Hopefully then, theyd see that a spy tool it is not.

Now the stupid expensive Matrice 2 is another story, with the right payload...

Truthfully though (and truth hurts sometimes), Americans now days are becoming a fearful, complaining and entitled bunch (nowhere near all, more like half, so dont get offended... If your not that type, then you surely know one or a few. Just be honest about it.) So its quite likely that nothing you do will ever satisfy them, so be prepared for that outcome as well!

Sad thing is, a bunch of Australians look to the “negative %” of USA citizens for their lead! To the point some Australians read about US laws and think ours are the same - usually the self-entitlement bunch I’m sad to say! In many cases our laws are similar, and usually in a drone-friendly, safe way, luckily. But under our laws we don’t have nearly as many no-fly zones, or restrictions on overflight of property, just overarching laws - minimises confusion in my opinion! Yep, we do have different states but the laws and consequences of breaking them are relatively the same. And definitely none of that “in one state it’s ok, in another you’re in gaol cracking rocks for life” rubbish. But overall - we still have a percentage of tinfoil hat wearing nutters, and I try to remain calm, but there are temptations to rev them up!!

 

[NAVMAV]

We also have that t-shirt!!!

Neighbor two lots to the East asked us to take overhead shots of his newly installed pool. To get there we had to overfly the guy between us, and he went crazy about what 'we' had done.

It ended a wonderful 23 yr friendship - for a while.

Another Neighbor eventually saved our butt. He'd heard some of our local 'Native Canucks' were flying along the shoreline looking for folks growing MaryJane on their shoreline lots.

They would come back at night to steal the Grass, BUT... he thought it was us doing all the flying around his house! Once he knew about The Other Guys, Pals again!

Rgds, WRIDR