Hobby Drone Flying Over Active Forest Fire Forces Grounding of Firefighting Planes

[tallsteve]

I'm all for drones but, I can see this becoming more and more of a problem:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Additional-Evacuations-Ordered-Lake-Fire-Grows-309664161.html

[Sombeech]

Hmmm, sounds like an airplane model with a 4 foot fixed wingspan.

If it were a little quadcopter flying up there, and they decided to stay grounded for that, I'd say they didn't have their priorities right. Birds will do more damage to aircraft than a small quadcopter.

I agree, it's going to become more of a problem. Officials won't be able to rely on public announcements asking the drones to stay out of the area. The laws just simply need to catch up, and when these laws are broken, because they will be, they need some other counter action.

What if the drone stayed up there? Of course the battery runs out on the average drone after 15 minutes, but what if it had a super battery and just didn't land for hours? What could the firefighters do?

I think education is necessary on both parts. Knowing that the battery will run out in a few minutes would keep the firefighters from being grounded for hours.

[Iceaxe]

Drones are like everything else... a few asshats lacking commonsense and/or courtesy will force those in power to adopt strict rules everyone will have to follow.