Posted on 06/25/2015 7:46:59 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The drone was spotted about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday flying between two fixed-wing aircraft battling the massive wildfire burning south of Big Bear Lake, according to Mike Eaton, forest aviation officer for the San Bernardino National Forest.
The sighting of the illegal aircraft prompted authorities to recall all aircraft battling the fire.
“We don’t want to deal with unknown aircraft in our airspace,” Eaton said. “They’ve got enough on their mind already … difficult terrain, difficult weather, winds and other things. They don’t need to be worrying about model airplanes or drones.”
Authorities could not figure out who was flying the drone or where it returned to. It was a fixed-wing type of plane, described as orange or red and about 4 feet wide.
The drone was flying at about 11,000 feet, some 800 or 900 feet above the ground, Eaton said. Drones are not permitted above 400 feet, he said.
Further, Eaton said, the drone was illegally in an area under a federal temporary flight restriction due to the firefighting work.
“If you fly, we can’t,” Eaton said. “It’s breaking the law.”
A second drone over Lake Arrowhead was also spotted Wednesday by a firefighting pilot returning from a mission, he said.
The air operations shutdown brought an immediate halt to the delivery of some 5,000 gallons of fire retardant and stopped other missions that were planned that night, according to Eaton.
“We had to shut down subsequent missions that could have contained — possibly — that south side of the fire,” Eaton said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Check the local & national TV news crews.
So the state that has been quite properly mocked by other states for decades because they can’t figure out how to maintain proper fire breaks is just stupid all around about fire control priorities.
No surprise.
One of those water bombers should have dropped a load on it. No more drone problem.
Is that real?
Nice!
Stupid officials. Key the planes flying and have a chopper with a sharpshooter down the drone.
Our officials. If there is a problem, screw the victim/problem, just retreat from it.
Where I come from this is called professional cowardice and incompetence, and is a firing offense.
I think you might be overestimating the fire service’s tactical capabilities. They probably don’t have sharpshooters.
the fire service’s tactical capabilities. They probably don’t have sharpshooters. —
Then they are the only ones that don’t.
Call in Dept of Ed.
They could take off and nuke the drone from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
By most accounts it is faked.
A four foot drome is a bit larger than a home user sized aircraft, flying a lot higher. Bet it was another part of the Massive Californica Goobermint. So much Goobermint there they commonly stumble over each other.
now they own the sky too
what a weird headline too
Most RC aircraft operate on the 2.4 MHz band. I would think they could jam the signal rather easily, or use a radio direction finder to locate the operator.
I recall watching the planes at a local model airplane field with my son. One of the planes started flying erratically and they all started yelling at the newcomer. Seemed he had turned on his remote on the same frequency as one in the air.
They had a board with tags showing which freqs were in use. They could probably use something like that - but not sure how well it would work. These firefighters don’t need to be worrying about some jerk flying a model airplane in their way.
Good thing it wasn’t a hippo drome.
That would have been my solution
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