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 ...
This is affecting my pregnant niece and her husband. She posted about it on FB last night.
That stuff went out what, 15 years ago? Now using a few different technologies to prevent interference.
But manufacturers of spread spectrum (SS) radio systems are claiming that you need never worry about being shot down by other fliers and that all 2.4GHz systems can get along in harmony, despite apparently using the same frequencies....
The first and most common type is what we call Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS). This involves the transmitter and receiver staying within a fixed part of the 2.4GHz spectrum.
The second type is called Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and involves having the transmitter and receiver constantly changing their operating frequency within the allowed limits of the 2.4GHz band.
Not so easy (not a single set of frequencies) because of spread spectrum and illegal, also.
It is possible, what you say, that the drone was operated by another government agency.
“That stuff went out what, 15 years ago?”
LOL. Well - my son is 20 years old now, and he was just a little fella when we would go down to watch the planes!
So what your saying is they need to go with the sniper idea to stop these drones!?
The "drone", if it was hobbyist operated (I think it was government), was probably a First Person View (FPV) system. The model aircraft carries a video camera and the operator receives real time video visible on a screen or video goggles.
Somewhat home-brewed setup:
Reminds me of the tinfoil hat guy.
My gliders were flown in local small thermals only, just line-of-sight and a couple hundred feet.
From the net, one of the large wingspan slope soaring gliders:
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