Aerial Video Footage of New York Taken By RC Plane

kkleiner writes with this fun bit from Singularity Hub: "Expert remote control pilot Raphael 'Trappy' Pirker recently took his 54 inch Zephyr model plane on a harrowing tour of Manhattan and the surrounding area. The best part: his RC vehicle was fitted with a camera that wirelessly transmitted an amazing recording of everything it saw – Pirker was piloting his craft with this visual feed. As you can see in the video, the results were spectacular. The plane looks to be flying within a few feet of buildings and whizzing past bridges with ease. You have to check out around 2:01 when he starts to buzz right by the Statute of Liberty."

Scary?

[AaxelB]

Quite honestly, I'm surprised this didn't cause some sort of panic...

Re:Who gives a shit?

[gblackwo]

It has been modified and tested at a range of 27 miles, with a supposed max operating range of 120. That's news for nerds.

Nice... but

[countertrolling]

Way to many edits. Destroyed the flow

Re:Who gives a shit?

[freeweed]

You know how every few months someone posts yet another video of guys taking video from high altitude balloons, and we all yawn because we've seen it a dozen times or more?

This is the exact opposite of that.

Re:More Details here...

[jack2000]

What are you people? MAD? It's an RC plane, It's a toy, it's a remote controlled piece of plastic and foam.
Terrorism? I'd be more scared of the loonies living in America right now than the damn terrorists.

Re:Scary?

[Mr. Freeman]

The sad thing is that I'm not surprised they showed up. People can't even fly an RC plane around without someone calling the cops. The terrorists have won, we're all terrified of everything now.

Argh!

[Phoenix666]

What sheep Americans have become! A guy does a cool, harmless thing like fly a model airplane over the East River and suddenly everybody on this board is biting their fingernails about whether the government will *allow* us to do such a thing. The government does not *allow* us to do anything; in this country, it's what we, the People, allow the government to do that's important. We allow them do very specific, limited things at our sufferance. Everything else we do at our pleasure and the government can fuck off if it doesn't like it.

Re:Scary?

[Anubis350]

Heh, he apparently was flying from ~3 blocks from my house. The city's emergency command center is only a few blocks away too, on the site of the old red cross building, and of course there's the bridges and lots of traffic on them and the BQE and FDR, plus pedestrians and boats... so it's not surprising that an long range aerial display like this would at least be checked up on. They didn't stop them though, so I'm not really worried about authorities overstepping their boundaries in this case....

Re:Argh!

[Fantastic Lad]

I like your version of reality better than the one I live in. I'd sign up in a heartbeat if I felt you could deliver. :(

-FL

Re:DHS

[0123456]

Morons, sometimes we are saved because the idiot with an islamist terrorist idea is not that smart - like the timsquare bomber. This moron has made the perfect equipment for them and is now going to sell it as well. This is not so funny.

Absolutely. No-one should be allowed to sell anything that might be useful to a terrorist.

Like cars. Or gas canisters.

Or underwear.

Re:DHS

[PatPending]

Or box cutters. Or shoes.

Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome

[serbanp]

I don't mind them doing it, but this is insane, especially when doing it in an area highly sensitized to flying missiles/planes.

It only takes a few assholes in the government or the legislative to imagine such a plane flying with a dangerous payload (explosives, dirty rad material etc) to ban R/C flying planes, forcing me and so many others who enjoy this hobby to simply stop.

Think it can't happen? They did it already once with a whole class of model rockets...

Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome

[bigstrat2003]

That doesn't make this activity insane. That makes the governmental idiots insane.

"Harrowing?"

[AxeTheMax]

How was this incident "harrowing"? Was the land surface of Manhattan torn up to several inches deep? Were people's feelings deeply and permanently hurt by this flight? Or is this another journalist using a long word that he/she does not actually have any idea of the meaning of but thinks it makes them sound good?

See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harrow [reference.com]

Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome

[Eunuchswear]

No. It makes the electorate insane.

You get the government you want.

Re:Scary?

[Gordonjcp]

How do you know that they didn't show up because one of them is into RC models?

An over-reaction would have been arresting the guy and throwing him in the clink until they could figure out a way to interpret a law in such a way as to say he'd broken it. Simply going and having a look isn't an over-reaction. There are a lot of risks involved in flying model aircraft around a city, and even without "security theatre" it's probably worth checking out what's going on and making sure it's not some twat who's just bought a gigantic model aircraft off eBay and is trying to learn how to fly it in a crowded park ;-)

Re:Question

[wesleyjconnor]

TSA outside hobby stores, one step at a time...

Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

You are correct that the electorate is insane. As a result, we get the government that the media and the people with money shove down our throats.

Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome

[S.O.B.]

No. It makes the electorate insane.

You get the government you want.

The electorate doesn't matter. Regardless of who we vote for we get the government the corporations and lobbyists want.