did you not notice all the references to the footage being provided by a DRONE ?
Yes, and there are also reports saying it is a helicopter. I think the drone reports are jumping to a conclusion.
You have to get pretty low for ground wash to kick up snow, well within the zoom capabilities of the FBIs optics.
The main reason I believe it was a helicopter was how it maneuvered the first traffic stop. The overall camera angle was lower than drones are operated as they circled the truck. But as importantly was how the camera speed matched the fleeing truck. You don’t really do that in a drone because you’re flying much higher looking down through a straw. Very easy to do in a helicopter, and did you notice how the camera angle handled the approach of the truck to the curve and the roadblock? That’s a pilot looking at everything, not someone flying a drone in my opinion.
Drones are great, but a helicopter with eyes onboard is superior, and is was planned and you have the best assets on hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a drone at 10k ft too. But I see this as camera footage from a helicopter.
You’re correct on FLIR, there’s a name for that ball camera (that has all of the above), and I can’t think of it. I remember reading about the fight to get the IR helicopter footage from Waco released (to show if the Feds where shooting while the building burned).
The various references I have found have said it was:
An FBI PLANE
A Helicopter
An FBI Drone
Man, if you can’t trust reporters, who can you trust anymore? : )
Were it not for the inclusion in this article/thread the consistent statement that it was a drone, I would be inclined to agree with you that it could just as well have come from a helicopter. The downwash theory doesn’t hold up as a helo wouldn’t hover exactly above the blockade. Doing so would cause a problem for the helo filming anything and for the guys on the ground. As far as the distance (altitude) of a drone, it depends on the size of the drone. Since it is unlikely it was a freaking PREDATOR DRONE, it could have been a small one. Even very small. Even if it was at a high altitude, those cameras can zoom, switch lenses to jump magnification, etc. So... I don’t think any of the items you or others mentioned is convincing proof one way or the other.
I apologize for insisting you were completely wrong. It is actually more likely it was from a helicopter. Maybe there was a helicopter, a drone, and a plane. You never know since there were multiple LEO agencies involved.
I did notice that the camera panned AHEAD, way AHEAD, as they were approaching the roadblock, actually panning NOT on the road, but off it (to the side where the swat guy came out of the woods, and there were vehicle tracks in the snow leading off into the woods somewhere). I don’t know if a drone could pan ‘ahead’ like that. Another quirk was the sudden ‘jostling’ of the camera itself. That wouldn’t happen with a drone, unless the drone was flying low enough to hit a tree limb, or maybe a bird.