KY: Hillview man arrested for shooting down drone; cites right to privacy

[dennishoddy]

The pilot claims that telemetry shows his drone was at about 270 feet when it was shot.

Is that a reasonable range for birdshot? I'm not a shotgunner.

I would think bird shot would stretch that far at least to disable a drone, most are pretty fragile, even striking a flimsy tree limb usually breaks a rotor blade. It was interesting to read the drone was found crashed in a field nearby the property where the shooter lived, I wonder how far away from his property. I would also think if you disabled a drone with birdshot it would fall pretty much straight down, maybe a slight spiral. The story seems a little skeptical to me but not enough details.

270' is 90 yds, certainly not lethal range for bird shot on a human, but it will travel much further. I'm with 4play that a few shot may have brought it down. Unless the operator has some method to record and prove the distance he claims, its just his word that it wasn't closer.

If it were #2 or #4 buckshot, it would certainly have enough umphh at 90 yds to cause some serious damage.

 

[4play]

Drones are considered aircraft right? Isn't it a federal offense to shoot at, damage or destroy any aircraft in flight?

 

[dennishoddy]

Drones are considered aircraft right? Isn't it a federal offense to shoot at, damage or destroy any aircraft in flight?

There is a little conundrum about this. There was a hunt club somewhere in the NE that had some anti's send a drone over their hunt site. They shot it down, and a court fight ensued. The hunters won. Not because of privacy, but because of a law that doesn't allow harassment of a legal hunt or something.

Now the peeps that write the rules for aircraft are faced with a new issue that RC aircraft, now called drones have never been tightly controlled by them. As long as they didn't get into certain airspace, or exceed a certain air speed etc, they were good to go. Shooting from the cuff on this....pardon the pun.

 

[Dave70968]

270' is 90 yds, certainly not lethal range for bird shot on a human, but it will travel much further. I'm with 4play that a few shot may have brought it down. Unless the operator has some method to record and prove the distance he claims, its just his word that it wasn't closer.

If it were #2 or #4 buckshot, it would certainly have enough umphh at 90 yds to cause some serious damage.

I read that as 270' altitude (above ground level), not 270' range. Different beast entirely. As to proving the point, he claims it was based on telemetry (such things have all kinds of neat sensors; in fact, many of those sensors are the only reason they're flyable at all), so if he recorded the data stream (or the video; it's probably overlayed), then he would have good evidence.

I would think 90 yards vertical might be a bit much for shot to have any significant energy, but what do I know?

Drones are considered aircraft right? Isn't it a federal offense to shoot at, damage or destroy any aircraft in flight?

Depends on the aircraft. The little quadcopters most people have are not aircraft for federal purposes, they're models.

 

[doctorjj]

i keep wondering how people are going to feel when the idiot neighbor sends a bunch of birdshot and a disabled drone through their window.

How it'd fall would likely depend on the style drone, where it's hit (say clipping two of four rotors on a quadcopter), how badly it's damaged, etc. Either way, it can potentially be a relatively heavy object falling from a pretty good height over a populated area.

Privacy issues aside (which i'm still not convinced is a strong legal position given that your expectation of privacy from above is less protected), shooting down a drone could open you up to a lot of liability.

You're worried about falling birdshot hitting a window?

 

[Defnestor]

"I saw what seemed to be an ISIS flag dangling from it, and out of fear for my life, I shot."

 

[donner]

You're worried about falling birdshot hitting a window?

I'd be more worried about the falling drone in terms of projectiles. But then again, shooting into the air does carry risk. Nothing says your neighbor will do a good job of judging how far the drone is from your house when he/she shoots. I mean we have an entire thread on how one guy's neighbor didn't know what was beyond his target.

 

[rlongnt]

Drones are considered aircraft right? Isn't it a federal offense to shoot at, damage or destroy any aircraft in flight?

They don't have an N number so it is not registered as an aircraft. It's a toy

 

[RETOKSQUID]

Spud gun + tennis balls just to be on the safer side of things.

 

[dennishoddy]

Saw a drone on TV the other day that had a 9mm attached to it that fired electronically.
Air to air shoot down?