Attack of the Drones

The article in the latest Steam Railway mag gives food for thought, main drawback currently seems to be only a commercial size one (with the obvious extra cost and regulations) is currently capable of taking a a decent DSLR like camera.

Thoughts ?.

 

Just deploy ECM and then see the fun develop. AM CB should do the trick.

 

Or even worse than damage to property, injury to people. Over the years there have been a number of people injured by out of control model aircraft.

Chris

 

For the state-of-the-art in control:



Tom

 

Don't know why people are getting so worked up about drones. Just another type of radio controlled aircraft and there's lots of them out there, some big ones at that. All capable of causing damage but seldom do.

 

Should be interesting, visibility impaired by swarms of drones. At least they wont bite like midges do.

 

I doubt we would. I presume radio controlled models will have been used as camera ships at some point.

 

They're a bit more accessible than before. Bearing in mind the drama when people stand in front of other people's photos, imagine the reaction when someone's state of the art drone and SLR gets swiped out of the sky by a teenager with a GoPro and Maplin's £25 quadcopter…

Simon

 

i'm half expecting some teenager planting his drone in the air right in front of the train before it departs…
getting all excited at his video of the train as it comes towards him..
and the driver blowing his whistle furiously thinking "what the"… as the loco crunches through it.

 

Kirkby Stephen East got the drone treatment...

 

Time for "counter-measures"?!?



Steven

 

Certainly interesting times ahead. It is a fact that to anyone with the knowledge of radio counter measures, it is far easier to down a flying object than it is to fly it safely.

Chris

 

Fair game for a catapult, I'd say!!

 

Don't even need the knowledge. Anyone still using an old AM CB rig could cause havoc

 

That's me and my missus (in the green top) sat on the platform bench (at 18 secs). The guy with the bald head, stood in front of us, is a certain well-known gricer who hails from Baxenden!
We had called in in between northbound and southbound S&C steam photting. (The home-made cake in the LNER buffet car is well-worth the visit ... even if the motive power on the trains is not to everyone's taste!)
We did wonder just who was playing with toy planes .....

 

What you suggest is very simplistic, which for several reasons is unlikely to work.

Chris

 

I presume there is no way one of these drone's could cause "down draft" problems similar to full sized helicopters? They must be light enough for a loco's blast to blow them out of the way if they were directly above the chimney.

Steven