Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Melvin Franklin controls the gyroscopic camera
on the Vanguard Defense Industries Shadowhawk UAV purchased by the Montgomery County
Sheriff’s Office following a press conference in March.
Posted on 04/26/2014 6:36:57 AM PDT by servantboy777
MCSO DRONE CRASHES INTO LAKE CONROE Friday morning, during training exercises with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Drone, something went wrong and it crashed into Lake Conroe. Divers from the Montgomery County Precinct 1 Dive Team spent much of the day searching the bottom of Lake Conroe for the almost $300,000 drone helicopter.
The drone which was purchased by Montgomery County in 2011 was almost entirely funded by Homeland Security Grants which were specifically designated for the purchase of drones.
Big government Homeland Security grants and giveaways of surplus armored vehicles are turning local cops into bad copies of Army special forces. Local law enforcement should be about knowing your community and appropriate threat response, not coming in like the WWII Soviet Army.
About the drone, they should have asked a 12 year old kid to train the cop pilot as most kids do very well with those radio controlled flying toys and race cars sold at Toys R Us.
That picture shows an actual helicopter, not the kind with the four or six propellers which will deliver UPS or pizza.
As a former helicopter pilot, I’m going to guess that a successful operator of a helicopter drone has to be highly, highly trained. The multipropeller drones are much easier to fly & lack the potential to instantly go out of control & crash. FWIW, I don’t think my pilot skills give me any advantage controlling something I wasn’t actually seated in.
A helicopter with a variable thrust tail rotor and a swashplate pitch & lift main rotor (your typical chopper) can be safely flown only within very narrow control parameters. If you overcontrol & go outside those parameters, and your instructor pilot isn’t right there to take the controls & stabilize the aircraft very quickly, it’s going to crash, often described as “dynamic rollover”, or, “helicopter rolls over and beats itself to death”.
I’ll bet having seen the photo that the helicopter drone (both of them, now) wasn’t hacked, it had an inexperienced idiot at the controls.
And I don’t wish the po-po success either with their drones or their MRAPs. Police need to be reminded that they’re civilians, too.
(Though Inmarsat’s triangulation of separately transmitted engine data to the southern Indian Ocean is the best ‘physical’ produced thus far. If you have another theory, backed with evidence, I for one would like to be made aware of it.)
“...And you can build your own....”
Naaa...its way much more fun to just shoot them and watch them crash into a lake.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Melvin Franklin controls the gyroscopic camera
on the Vanguard Defense Industries Shadowhawk UAV purchased by the Montgomery County
Sheriff’s Office following a press conference in March.
What’s with the USMC master gunnery sergeant stripes!!!?
EGO
And now the second of their $300,000 toy helicopters is at the bottom of Lake Conroy. Shouldn’t be too hard to find it in that mud hole.
You mean the kevin brady whose proudest achievement in life is membership in the buffalo snot universities lambda chi fraternity? The one whose portfolio includes being president of the Conroy, Texas chamber of commerce (wow)? The same kevin brady who only comes alive at election time and who you have to hold a mirror to his face the rest of the time to see if he can fog the mirror indicating he is still breathing?
You’d think that an area like Conroy could find a better candidate or want to.
Can anyone explain to me why we need Constables, Sheriff and Police? The seem to run in packs over here in SW Montgomery County but I see them doing very little.
BTW, did they shut down the online scanner access to cover their tracks or what?
Look Martha, there’s the MCSO helicopter drone. Pull!
And then my property taxes go up another Grand a year.
“Police need to be reminded that they’re civilians, too.”
Indentify their home and drop by to compliment them on their beautiful family.
“$300,000 drone helicopter”
How much is a real one. Maybe they could contract one out with a real pilot. What a waste of money.
Ever since those 19 Saudis/illegal immigrants allegedly pulled off 9-11, the government, surveillance, law enforcement, military complex have made fortunes while spying and putting American citizens under their thumb all at our expense. We citizens were not the problem then; we are not the problem now. Why are they spying on us?
The surveillance and spying would be better served if it was directed to the corrupt politicians and powers that be.
It’s hard to understand why Montgomery County would even need drone helicopter.
Other that getting it for nothing from the DHS what is the pressing issue there?
Those donut munchers have a BMI higher than mine and that is saying something!
Note the extended capacity magazine on the NUG.
Ah, the Vanguard Defense Industries Gonad 5000 Shadow surveillance helicopter drone. The finest technology that money could buy 10 years ago. It can all be yours for the low, low price of $300,000 in extorted taxpayer money and there will be even more where that came from now that you can peer into backyards all across the county.
Only the Shadow knows.
Now they have crashed two of these. $600,000 worth of spare parts now. Maybe they should get some practice with paper airplanes or something less expensive first? Nah. There is pleny more money where that first bucket load came from. We’ll just turn those taxpayer chumps upside down and shake the money out of them.
Montgomery County is one over from where my in-laws live.
Question is....was it A) pilot error, B) drone malfunction, or C) a pissed-off patriot hidden in the woods with a scope and a high-powered rifle?
Pigs can’t fly...
Tomball crashed their gyrocopter. Yes, Tomball has a gyrocopter. I wondered for months who the retard was flying that death trap around over houses and neighborhoods. Turns out it was the local oinkers have a penchant for expensive toys.
Really?! They look more like jackbooted storm troopers than law enforcement or peace officers.
Lake Cornhole? Who named it THAT, Kemosabe?
I prefer my roof in tact. ....If you don’t killed, wouldn’t you like a AL GORE house on your present site with taxes paid forever? I think ObamaGovernment would do that?
Depends, I suppose, how willing one is to accept at face value the various conflicting stories we’ve been given.
That’s pretty funny.
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