Aerial Video Footage of New York Taken By RC Plane 208
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."
I did this in Hong Kong :) (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a danger to it, as this video illustrate but that's before I got my 2.4GHz Tx.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtN1AtShkk0 [youtube.com]
Here's one closer to buildings :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrWyOJmEvY4 [youtube.com]
I don't do FPV either, too scary not seeing the plane :) I fly it until it's a pixel in the sky, and before I do that I made sure I master orientation of a pixel object in the simulator first.
Re:More Details here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:DHS (Score:4, Interesting)
How about "engaging in activities which might someday possibly give someone an idea about engaging in an activity which could lead to someone imagining they could use the information to sort of create a rumor of potential terrorist activity". Let me translate, it means "we have to do something to show that the obscene budget of our department and the pork we shovel to the security companies we contract with is justified in the face of budget cuts." HTH HAND.
F*(K the panic do something awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Scary? (Score:4, Interesting)
A pound of Semtex and the fun begins. Cheap missiles to kill politicians always gets the cops running.
Re:More Details here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, people have been killed by RC planes and helicopters. They may look like toys, but except for the ones that are literally sold as children's toys they should always be flown with caution.
Cool, however... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cops having a look and checking things out! Where will it end!
Re:Scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I live, everybody feels safe because the cops park in front of a statue next to a local college in the middle of downtown. What the cops are actually doing is getting on the school's wi-fi and checking out the college girls coming and going.
Cops are people too and often they're looking for a way to fuck off and make it look like they're working. They probably just thought the RC plane was cool and talked to the guy about it because of that.
Re:Scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite honestly, I'm surprised this didn't cause some sort of panic...
Well, if it had been done with this RC plane [youtube.com], I think it certainly would have!
Re:how long will *that* hobby last? (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to know what you're talking about. And yes, no danger to society, but it is a danger to people. Don't let people think they can just fly model planes in population dense areas. Without thinking about it.
I fly model glides myself, balsa wood is found in the cheaper range (that I fly). But in the 'sport' range you have carbon fiber planes, which can reach speeds well over 100km/h. And these are gliders we are talking about, you won't hear them till they hit you. With 2kg of carbon going at 100km you can hospitalize someone with ease.
Also, I envy you Americans at this point. They regulated the hell out of the model flying sport here, making photographing a city like that most likely illegal.
Re:F*(K the panic do something awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
"I don't mind them doing it, but this is insane, especially when doing it in an area highly sensitized to flying missiles/planes."
As a New Yorker, can I just say: stop assuming shit about how we feel about 9/11 and 9/11 related things. As a community, we got over the terrorist attack years and years and fucking YEARS ago; it's people from not-here who keep this crap up.
We're fine with RC geeks. We don't cringe every time a plane flies overhead. We're totally, completely fine with Muslims. Stop, please, just stop making assumptions and taking actions based on how you think we think about something that happened a decade ago, and let it GO, already. Find somebody else's banner to carry.
Re:Scary? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are not correct that AIRCRAFT need to stay 500 feet above the bridge. Helicopters (which are a kind of aircraft) have no specific minimum altitude limits. The pilot needs to be sure that his flight isn't going to endanger people or property on the ground.
I have done photography jobs in NYC that required very low altitude flying. I doubt I would be able to see and avoid an RC aircraft of this size. We generally can identify when a field is being used for RC flying (the people and their equipment has a generally identifiable signature). It's very very difficult to see the RC aircraft themselves because of their size, so a FPV RC aircraft being flown from a remote location is probably a collision hazard.
I'm not sure whether an RC aircraft of this size would go through a canopy or not. If the helicopter were at speed and you had a head on with an RC plane flying at 80 mph, I think there is a fair chance the RC plane could go through the bubble (it's just a piece of plastic, after all). I'm CERTAIN it would take out my tail rotor, and that could certainly lead to a fatal accident.
I guess I have the same worries about this sort of thing as I do about UAVs - the person on the ground is taking no personal risk at all, but is putting the helicopter crew and their passengers at risk for their lives. It's not a big worry right now because these things are pretty rare, but what should we do if it becomes commonplace?