Drone gone wild over LV Strip ...

A California tourist is in hot water with the FAA for letting a drone get out of control and drift into McCarran airspace. He's in hotter water for failing to respond to any of the FAA's nastygrams.

Surf here: https://petapixel.com/2019/11/21/man-fined-nearly-20000-after-his-runaway-drone-flew-over-las-vegas-and-landed-at-an-airport/

The video in the item shows some clips from the recovered drone.

 

Well, I hope they slam him as an example, but the story says he's "facing" $20K in fines.

Every news story carries the line "...If convicted on all charges, the suspect could be sentenced to 75 years in prison..."

They never are.

 

In this case, there is no trial. A fine of about ~$15,000 was imposed by the FAA and with late fees he now owes close to $20,000 according to the news report. You can appeal an FAA decision, but they can impose a fine on you without any sort of trial similar to a police officer writing you a speeding ticket. Also according to the report, he did not appeal within the allotted time frame so approximately 20k in debt has been turned over to US Treasury dept and they can garnish his money. So he is actually facing 20k in fines, not facing trial that might impose fines.

 

Arrogant and stupid never work well together.

 

I'm having a hard time understanding (buying) his excuse. How does a drone do that? Was it hacked? Is he full of crap?

 

I could imagine something like this happening on one of the super-windy days we get here, but "lost its GPS connection" and "'started acting all weird and just took off'" sounds like BS. And as noted, his bigger problem is ignoring the violations and failing to appeal; if there really was something that went wrong from a technical perspective, he had his chance to correct it and just didn't care.

 

he did not drift into airspace, he had what is called a fly-away and it has happened many many times...my drone, video signal cuts before controller signal, if you lose connection, the drone automatically returns to the last known controller location, there is also a switch if you lose video and get scared, it returns to you

with the fly-away, you lose connection and instead of it returning to the controller, it just starts flying in the location it is pointing. once the battery gets low enough, it will stop and automatically land wherever...no way to prevent this and no way to stop it once it flys away.

on the other hand, you are not supposed to fly within a 5 mile radius of any major airport and with software you can fly up to 100ft away but are limited to i think its 35ft. to fly any closer you need to take a course and get your Part 107 certification, then you contact the tower and get approval to fly inside that zone


a friend of mine was flying his DJI drone near harrahs new orleans, he was by the river and it just flew off, he never found it

if he submits the telemetry data, it will show if he had a fly-away or done it himself

 

Losing GPS is not uncommon. Most drones have a return to home function that is automatic but they don't always work correctly especially the cheaper the drone is. I purchased one about a year ago and one of the first things I read while researching them is people complaining that their drone just flew off never to be seen again. Mine has not done this thankfully but it is greatly affected by wind. If you get caught in a crosswind the only thing you can do is an orchestrated crash landing otherwise it will be blown away.

 

i have never had a fly away but one time it lost signal, thankfully over my yard. it just sat there, couldnt control it. finally battery got low and it slowly landed missing the roof by about a foot and I had to hand catch it because it was lowering into a bush. no issues ever after that

ive had mine in winds up to 15mph, not recommended but it works flawlessly .

with gps on, it holds steady, if it blows around, it returns to the original spot

with the software in mine, it will warn you if you are getting close to a no fly zone and if you keep going it will stop flying at the border...if you are in the no fly zone, it wont let you start the rotors

 

Thanks for explaining it. I truly know nothing about drones so it was an honest question. I knew somebody would be able to explain it to me.

 

Your drone is probably way better than mine. This is the first one I purchased so I didn't want to spend a ton of money until I was sure I would continue to use it. After dealing with wind I now realize a better drone is needed. Mine is so light you have to have almost perfect conditions to fly. I am currently in the market for a water proof drone that I want to use along the coast.

 

One real common problem with DJIs and consumer drones of similar character is they auto return to home if signal is lost, and people don't read the instructions. Then they go to a new place, pop in a battery, turn it on, and start flying. It takes a little bit for the thing to get a good GPS lock on enough satellites to have an accurate idea of where it is. Depending on firmware version, it sets 'home's to where it thinks it is when it takes off. Now if you travel and fly from a different place, it can take several minutes for it to find and lock enough satellites to get a good 3D location lock. In other firmware you need to manually set home an various ways. I suspect home wasn't set properly, and it never lost GPS lock. He either took off without a full lock when it thought it was at the airport (very likely considering the distance between take off and landing and that being a reasonable distance of error for a GPS with satellites but not enough of them), or he didnt follow the procedure to reset the 'home' location at all, and it was heading for his house in socal. Either of those is exponentially more likely than "it lost GPS" and the scenario described above is responsible for hundreds of Christmas day flyaways every year. RTFM.

 

I have a Yuneec Typhoon H, its old now but with a big package of case, extra batteries, blades ect, I spent $1,700, with exception of one issue, it has been flawless, now I dont know how waterproof it is, I have seen videos of it floating in water and taking off, mine, I have flown in sprinkling rain and no issues

GPS lock is a must, I will let mine sit till at least 17 satellites lock on, during flight it will continue to add satellites, I dont think ive had more than 24 but thats plenty

 

Don't the newer drones from DJI prevent you from flying in controlled airspace unless you specifically go through an unlock process?

I've always been surprised there haven't been any real big issues with drones on the strip yet just given the endless parade of helicopters

 

Yes, they attempt to in some airspace, but it's relatively simple to hack and override that feature.