I fully agree that the hobby-grade drones are too light weight to cause any damage to an air hose or other RR equipment. Although broken metal pieces of a drone (or camera) in the flangeways of a grade crossing might possibly cause trouble, but the weight of a railcar on each wheel would more likely simply mash it down further into the flangeway.
However -
If the drone happened to be as little as 2" or so above a double-stacked container car and it went through a high-wide detector, the crew would have no choice but to stop and inspect the train. As such, the drone operator would be guilty of interfering with interstate commerce…a federal offense!
If you watched the video to the end, you’ll notice that the fellow flying the drone was using a virtual reality helmet. Given the video that was presented, he was clearly not flying the drone in “visual line of sight” a good portion of the time. He was relying on what he saw in that helmet.
Also at the end, you can see him and his friends celebrating the flight.
It’s people like that who give other drone users a bad name.
The first time he’s flying that thing outside your teenage daughter’s bedroom window… “Hey, it was all in good fun…”
This is just the kind of reaction I expect from someone who has absolutely no idea what they are talking about!
Crashing and setting a handbrake! Ludicrous!!!
I think the conductor did the best thing when he closed the window. The drone operator was obviously looking for some type of reaction and the conductor refused to play the game.
In watching the clip, it’s pretty obvious that the operator was not within the required line of sight requirements, nor is it hard to figure out who he is since he is advertising himself and his videos. If UP were to file a complaint with the FCC, could the operator expect a knock on the door from a government official?
Oh, for sure. It’s already happened (young man flew his drone over two sunbathing teens - father took exception).
The problem is the attitude that “I can do it and get away with it, so it’s fine.”
UAVs have already caused problems at several wildfires when they interfered with aerial firefighting operations. But I’m sure the UAV operators “got their shot.”
There are devices available that will “shoot down” a UAV by interfering with the flight controls. And a 12 Guage will serve the same purpose (altho with a rather poor outcome for the UAV).
What is needed is for a few such cases to be made high-profile and be prosecuted. As long as UAV users can look at a video such as this and say “I can do that,” the problem will continue. Bust a few of them, with substantial penalties, and it might stem the tide a bit.
Nothing will truly happen until one of them causes a serious, loss-of-life incident.
[?] Did anyone see the chopper that was struck by a drone this past week? The chopper looked like a military. I just caught the tail end of a news cast on the tv. I wonder if men in black suits paid a visit to the drone operator?
when i got my drivers license my friend’s father reminded me that it was a “license to kill”. driving carelessly can kill someone
i hope all RC pilots realize that if they loose control, their aircraft can hurt people if it crashes into them. This is one reason the FAA wants RC to be flown away from crowds and remotely piloted vehicles flown near sports events to flown by pilots/operators with proper FAA ratings.
in a similar respect, jamming a signal or shooting down an object traveling at speed that can crash into a crowd is irresponsible.
If you hit an airbrake coupling at a decent clip, you could probably dislodge them and cause an emergency application. Yes drones are fragile, but that’s moreso the props than anything else. Sure they might break and become unflyable, but KE=.5m*v^2…in other words, a 5 lb drone going 30 mph is going to have the ability to impart some force on whatever it hits. And the batteries used are nice bricks of mass, to be sure.
While I doubt it’d ever be able to set a handbrake, I could see where a hit at the right angle and speed could potentially cause an undesired emergency application.
And anytime you’re potentially causing an emergency application for your hobby, you’re in the wrong.
I believe the devices that will disable a drone are targeted more at industry than individuals (ie, industrial espionage). If you’re out there trying to get a picture of the new Rolls Kanardly, odds are there’s no crowd involved.
Same thing if you’re disrupting firefighting efforts on a wildfire.
There are places (NY state parks, for one) where a permit is required, regardless of your registrations and certifications.
OTOH, while the fire service is starting to see the advantages of using UAVs for scene survey and evaluation, there are videos on-line of firefighters trying to shoot them down with hose streams…
The FAA has bigger fish to fry. A large fowl in the wild holds a better chance of damaging a freight train than that glorified plastic toy. In most encounters, locomotives and rolling stock hold a distinct advantage over other moving objects. Cans of spray paint being the exception.
No reason to believe otherwise. If you own and operate any sort of widget, and use it irresponsibly to injure or damage others, you’ve broken the law. Drones are just the new kid on the block.
A deer gave us electrical problems for a while on one locomotive… (It went under the pilot and hit a traction motor.)
I agree that physically, a UAV is no match for a train.
I think the distraction factor is a bigger risk.
And I believe what galls folks more than anything is that this UAV operator seemed to think that he was completely within his rights.
In some ways, he’s right. UP and FAA rules notwithstanding, until he flew around the lead locomotive, he was more in danger of losing his UAV than causing any issues with the train, or the surrounding countryside.
How many pictures have we seen of railfans climbing signal towers, etc? Doesn’t mean it’s right, only that such behavior predates UAV’s by several human generations…
It’s like anything else in society, when it becomes a big enough problem, lawmakers will react. Look how quick the prohibition of using cell phones while driving laws escalated.
For whatever reason, railfans seem to be more concerned about petty crime iss