On a sunny morning in October 2014, Christopher Schmidt strolled onto the grassy fields of Magazine Beach, a public park along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. To get a better view of the fall scenery, he launched his drone, a DJI Phantom quadcopter equipped with a camera.
Then he saw it: a juvenile red-tailed hawk circling nearby. Within seconds, it swooped down — wings outstretched, tail flared, talons open — and flipped the drone midair. Mr. Schmidt cut the propellers, and the bird flew off, apparently uninjured. The drone dropped to the ground, undamaged except for a slight bend in its plastic landing gear.
Mr. Schmidt, a 31-year-old software developer, posted a drone's eye video of the encounter on YouTube. It has been viewed about five million times. And it is hardly the only evidence of conflict between animals and so-called unmanned aerial vehicles.
In other videos, ospreys, magpies, sea gulls and geese pursue and attack drones in flight. With a hop and punch, a kangaroo knocks one to the ground. A cheetah chases, leaps and swipes at one. A pugnacious ram head-butts a drone that hovers too low. And a particularly defiant chimpanzee at a zoo in the Netherlands whacks a buzzing intruder out of the sky with a branch.
Drones do seem to trigger a primal reaction, and not just in humans. Why?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Kell on Saturday October 24 2015, @01:28AM
so-called unmanned aerial vehicles
Why "so-called"? They are unmanned; they are vehicles; they fly. They are literally unmanned aerial vehicles.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 24 2015, @02:17AM
Most are manned remotely. And oddly enough, every drone pilot I've ever seen has been a man.
Manned:
adjective
1. carrying or operated by one or more persons:
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @02:25AM
Most are manned remotely.
Which is unmanned, remote control. If it isn't carrying someone, it isn't manned.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 24 2015, @02:58AM
Apparently you disagree with the dictionary.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manned [thefreedictionary.com]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/manned [reference.com]
and several others...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 24 2015, @06:42AM
So you can do a manned space flight by sending a remote-controlled robot to space?
Actually satellites are human-controlled, too (sure, they do some things automatically, but so does the typical quadcopter; most people would not be able to fly a truly manually controlled quadcopter), So I get satellite missions are manned space flight missions?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:28AM
Awwwwwwwwwww..... you beat me to it :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @05:12PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Saturday October 24 2015, @02:28AM
They used the so-called prefix to not offend the UAV. Otherwise the UAV might get angry, strap explosives to itself and commit a terrorist attack.
Basically the same reason BBC refers to islamic state as so-called.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:30AM
Although in this case it is rather because 'Islamic State' isn't a recognised state. It is nothing more than a large group of extremist who currently control a certain area. So the BBC uses, quite correctly in my view, the phrase 'so called'.