Can someone explain how the large drones, described in this story at ABC News, are not the work of some foreign government?
Some of the drones are apparently quite large, the size of a car or larger. Those drones cost upwards of $300,000.
Can someone explain how the large drones, described in this story at ABC News, are not the work of some foreign government?
Some of the drones are apparently quite large, the size of a car or larger. Those drones cost upwards of $300,000.
I doubt they are actually “large drones” and many don’t seem to be drones at all, but manned aircraft flying normally. There’s a lot of hysteria on this, a lot of fake/CGI info, and not much solid evidence.
“There’s a lot of hysteria on this, a lot of fake/CGI info, and not much solid evidence.”
You may be correct, Andy, but then why the lack of transparency? Let’s stipulate for a second that they are hobbyists, and maybe not even drones.
They are flying low level over residential areas. WTF. There are specific flight patterns over dinky little airports. I think you are wrong about size. They appear to be significant. Are we to understand one can simply fly, or fly a drone, willy nilly wherever one wants, and no one knows who or what you are? Not a chance, especially after this has become an issue. This isn’t some real estate agent taking aerial photos of a house.
To throw gas on the fire…………. We were lied to, period, full stop about the Chinese balloon.
I fly a drone. It’s a mini so I dont need to register it and I am not supposed to fly it above, IIRC, 400 ft. However, there is no one monitoring me. If I fly over 400 ft who would know? You are supposed to register the larger drones but AFAICT there isn’t much enforcement and I dont know the compliance rate. I suspect drone owners dont like big govt telling them what to do. (They are very easy to fly now. I have had the grandkids fly mine., ages 5-8.) My favorite drone at link. You can buy commercial drones designed to deliver packages that cost about $20,000 that are about 11×12 feet.
https://throwflame.com/tf-19-wasp/
Steve
Smugglers whether it cigarettes, fentanyl, or genuine french foie gras, there are always folks looking to supply the demand. Other possibles depend on your degree of paranoia (e.g testing overhead constant surveillance), folks gathering blackmail, drones gone wild footage, etc.
Television footage showed suspected drones with visible red, green, and white lights in compliance with FAA regulations.
If these were drones they were not hiding.
The lack of concern by the military is enough for me to conclude that the drones are theirs or are at least not a threat.
I wouldn’t recommend shooting at them either. But I’ll bet it’s being done.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDf7jc1JqRH/?igsh=NXJhd3hmNHV4bm1w
On drones.
What about Big Foot assessing his next sighting location, or it could be space aliens scouting for their next crop circle location.
The simplest explanation is Trump locating sights for the Russian invasion. Unless he has spent all his money on lawyers, it should be chump change.
MD governor Hogan just misidentified the stars in the Orion constellation as drones.
Steve
https://www.mediaite.com/tech/ex-gop-governor-posts-video-of-drones-he-personally-witnessed-over-maryland-slams-unacceptable-govt-response/
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a good point on the talking heads programs yesterday. The federal and state governments need to get out ahead of this drone story quickly. Otherwise we are likely to start seeing “drone vigilantism”, i.e. if the government won’t take these drones down we’ll do it ourselves.
“Otherwise we are likely to start seeing “drone vigilantism”, i.e. if the government won’t take these drones down we’ll do it ourselves.”
An individual from New Jersey might have attempted so already. He sent up one of his drones to track and perhaps collide with one of the drones sighted, but his shut down when it got close as it was over FAA restricted airspace. So, either these are operated by the government and/or they’re not using commercial off-the-shelf software.
“You may be correct, Andy, but then why the lack of transparency? Let’s stipulate for a second that they are hobbyists, and maybe not even drones. ”
What lack of transparency? If there’s nothing unusual (in fact) going on, then government agencies are not going to have (and therefore can’t hide) any special knowledge.
“The federal and state governments need to get out ahead of this drone story quickly. ”
How? If this is hysteria, you can’t prove a negative. If there are actually military drones that are part of this (doubtful IMO), then how do you get ahead of this story? Say some of the sightings are military drones? Brings up more questions than it answers and the usual suspects will be, “aha, look, they are hiding something from us.”
It’s also important to note that the military/government doesn’t have the kind of comprehensive air surveillance as depicted in movies. Most aircraft are tracked via transponder, not active radar. The military defense of the US is focused on the borders – detecting incoming bombers and missiles, not small, low-RCS, potentially low-flying aircraft in the interior of the country.
If people want high-fidelity aerial surveillance of the country outside DC and a few other areas, then that is going to take a lot of money, manning, and equipment.
Americans tend to trust their government less than, say, the Germans or the French. There’s a reason for that: our government isn’t particularly trustworthy. That is manifest in the large number of times officials lie to us or withhold information. That Americans pay more for every foot of bridge or highway and every weapons system does.
One of the ways to counter that is for our government to trust the American people more than it does. Being a liberal democracy bears risks that authoritarian governments do not share.
We just had a trial run for this with the Chinese balloons. It started with “nothing to worry about” and ended with shooting them down. “Nothing to worry about” should not have been the first reaction.