OT Drone shoot in Colorado.

[harryagain]

Colorado citizens considering a bounty for shooting down a drone.

Jist thought you'd like to know. :-)

[Gordon Shumway]

That should be an excellent way to hone your hand/eye coordination!

[Kurt Ullman]

And most likely get arrested for any number of federal violations let alone getting sued for the damages to the drone.

[EXT]

What if the drone shoots back!!!!

[Gordon Shumway]

Not all drones are operated by the feds. Some are privately owned. The privately owned drones may be fair game over your property even without the law.

[gregz]

It's not easy to shoot down drones. Low, they tend to go fast. High, well you know. I was in a drone battery in the army 70-71 . It was rare for a bunch of vulcans, firing 100 rounds per second, to hit a target. On some demo's someone would hit the Shute button, to make it look good.

Greg

[Kurt Ullman]

My guess is it would not make any difference since they are operating under the authority of the FAA and subject to them. Thus you have limited airspace where they can operate. I don't know of any reason you could destroy someone else's property. It is well established that the FAA has sole jurisdiction over the airways in the US and has exclusive authorization on the use of the airways. It also has already stated that it is taking that jurisdiction over drones of any an all kinds.

the Supreme Court has recognized that a landowner had property rights in the lower reaches of the airspace above their property. The law, in balancing the public interest in using the airspace for air navigation against the landowner's rights, declared that a landowner owns only so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land. In other words, a person's real property ownership includes a reasonable amount of the airspace above the property. But they also went on to say that a landowner can't arbitrarily try to prevent aircraft from overflying their land by erecting "spite poles," for example. While probably not exactly on point, it would tend to make the argument that you also couldn't shoot down drones.

[nestork]

Aww, Geez.

Now the NRA is gonna lobby for the legalization of Stinger antiaircraft missiles.

After all, the only protection against a crazy drone bent on doing harm is a public citizenry well armed with modern surface to air missiles.

[Wes Groleau]

Much as I dislike government (or anyone else) spying with drones, this proposal is STUPID. How many cows, sheep, tractors, _people_ get shot at during deer hunting season?

Anyone that thinks drone hunting season will fare better is INCREDIBLY ignorant of what humans are like.

[Kurt Ullman]

Tom may have to change the song a little...

[Robert Green]

You can be arrested and prosecuted for even shining a bright laser at an airplane. Let's have Gordon shoot down an FAA approved drone, especially a military one, and tell us what happens. My hunch is the outcome will not be good and it will very expensive since Predator drones retail for four million dollars and up, depending on the "option package."

More importantly, they are designed to absorb a significant amount of small arms fire and still function. Maybe a Vulcan minigun could do the trick but I don't see any listed on Ebay . . .

[Ralph Mowery]

Look here around the 2:50 mark for practice for shooting down drones.

[Robert Green]

That probably means that at least a few people on both sides of the issue are taking it seriously. Especially those who don't know what the word "symbolic" means. Sadly you don't need to take an IQ test to either vote or own a gun. I'd support both.

I haven't followed the story closely enough to know whether the declaration of symbolism was right from the start or made after-the-fact in response to cries of "you can't do that!" The FAA rules the skies with impugnity and they've prosecuted more than a few helium balloon/lawn chair fliers on various charges.

I'm sure that now the idea has been planted, they're primed to prosecute the daylights out of anyone stupid enough to shoot down a recon drone that's sending home pictures of itself being attacked. Or, as others have pointed out, it could turn out the drone decides to stand its ground and starts shooting back. If corporations are people, why not robots and drones? You just know that when humanoid robots get realistic enough, *someone* is going to want to marry one and will want it to share its employment benefits.

I'm sure in a year or two you'll be able to buy anti-drone drones from China, probably on E-bay, that you can use to protect your airspace. Or train a falcon to attack them. I just know that somewhere out there some evil genius kid is modifying his model rocket as a drone interceptor. It's the American way. (-:

[Gordon Shumway]

Sadly, you have proven you didn't have to pass an IQ test to post.

[The Daring Dufas]

I seem to recall small blimps in the air over London during WWII to tangle up low flying enemy aircraft. You could claim to be a ham radio operator and use big balloons to string wire above your property keeping it below the altitude that maned aircraft are required to maintain over homes and cities. I found this on line:

***********************************************************************

Low Flying Rules in the US

In the US, Part 91 (specifically 91.119[4]) of the Federal Aviation Regulations controls the minimum safe altitudes by which aircraft can be operated in the National Airspace System.

500 ft rule An aircraft must maintain an altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

1000 ft rule An aircraft must maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons.

Other aircraft, such as helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft, are not required to meet the FAR 91 minimums, so long as their operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface.

************************************************************************

TDD

[Robert Green]

A barrage balloon is a large balloon tethered with metal cables, used to defend against low-level aircraft attack by damaging the aircraft on collision with the cables, or at least making the attacker's approach more difficult. Some versions carried small explosive charges that would be pulled up against the aircraft to ensure its destruction.* Barrage balloons were only employed against low-flying aircraft; the weight of the longer cable made them impractical for higher altitudes.

*That had to be a nasty sound, when the aircrew heard the cable snag and then "twang" until the bang.

[gregz]

I was driving in the desert, actually govt. land. F4 buzzed me. Scared the shit.

Greg

[Robert Green]

Oh, look! Little Gordy is trying to stand on his hind legs like a human being!!! How cute!

Does anyone have a Milkbone for his reward? Make sure it's a plain white one 'cause I don't think he likes the colored ones very much. (-:

Such a cute little doggie, trying to insult my intelligence when he doesn't even know that a "not guilty" verdict doesn't mean "innocent." Now "sit" Gordy. Good boy! Now roll over.

[Robert Green]

I was driving under a C5A Galaxy just after they had enlarged a runaway at Andrews AFB to accommodate them. The pilot was coming in too low and had to go to full thrust for a go-round. Holy mother of God. The sky went dark and my teeth started rattling. The only thing that even approached that was when a flight of six Hueys passed low overhead. Good thing the Seals didn't have to try to sneak up on Osama in a formation of Hueys.

I remember watching the helicopter assault scene in Apocalypse Now and thinking to myself that they failed to capture the earth-shaking awesomeness of the UH-1s arriving in force. A lot of guys, including some I know, owe their lives to the Huey medevac helicopters and the outrageously bold pilots who would tilt their choppers at an angle and use their rotor blades to clear enough vegatation to land if there wasn't a clear LZ. The VC had a nasty habit of studding out any potential LZ or previously used one with sharpened ten foot poles.

[gonjah]

Gotta admire the cleaver little bastards.