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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday October 24 2015, @01:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the get-off-my-lawn dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:24PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:24PM (#254092) Journal

    I could be wrong, but I don't think the drone is large enough to short two wires together. It MIGHT be large enough to short one line to the tower, but I don't see that as likely. Those birds don't short lines to towers, nor do squirrels. The possibility exists, the probability is exceedingly slim. A vehicle that weighs between 20 and 50 pounds isn't going to damage a high tension line by striking it. It's just going to bounce off.

    Smaller, lighter, local neighborhood electric lines might be damaged by a 50 pound vehicle, but again, it's not really likely. The likelihood of shorting two lines together increases, with those lower voltage lines - but I've seen that happen for real. Lights flicker, breakers trip, and transformers can pop. We see that kind of thing when an automobile hits a phone pole. Or, some idiot in a truck backs into a pole.

    Prosecuting attorneys would agree with you. They have a habit of piling on charges until some simple infraction carries a life sentence. Personally, I can't see any real hazard presented by operating small drones near high tension lines.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:32PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:32PM (#254114) Journal

    I could be wrong, but I don't think the drone is large enough to short two wires together.

    My thinking here is that the wires could be very close to arcing with the drone making the final drop in resistance or introduction of ionized particles between high voltage lines to start damaging arcs. Birds at least don't conduct well and don't have electrical motors and other parts which can generate ionized particles.

    Also, a drone could damage an insulator. Those tend to be fragile though from the video, the drone was attacked by the osprey before it could get close enough to fall on an insulator.

    Prosecuting attorneys would agree with you. They have a habit of piling on charges until some simple infraction carries a life sentence. Personally, I can't see any real hazard presented by operating small drones near high tension lines.

    We should care not because these power lines happen to be under tension, but because shorting them happens to cause a lot of pricey problems.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 25 2015, @04:41AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 25 2015, @04:41AM (#254239) Journal

      Alright - I'll give you your first point. Tension lines do strange things sometimes. We had an ice storm here some years back. A lot of electrical crews were brought in from all over the country. One crew of two was on the highline, inspecting the lines. It was raining fairly hard that day. One of them heard the call of nature, stepped out of his truck, looked up and down the clear cut for spectators, unzipped, and cut loose. That was his last act in this life. One of those lines arced out, and burnt him where he stood.

      There was simply no reason for that line to arc to ground, a distance of about 25 feet. No reason for it to strike a man below the line. No reason for a urinating man to be struck. Stuff happens. His partner was very clear that it was NOT lightning that struck the man, he saw the arc jump from a tension wire to his partner's head.