• Sheriff Buys a $300,000 Drone - It Crashes into the SWAT Team
    25 replies, posted
[url="http://gizmodo.com/5890507/police-drone-crashes-into-police"]Gizmodo[/url] [quote]As the sheriff's SWAT team suited up with lots of firepower and their armored vehicle known as the "Bearcat," a prototype drone from Vanguard Defense Industries took off for pictures of all the police action. It was basically a photo opportunity, according to those in attendance. [The] prototype drone was flying about 18-feet off the ground when it lost contact with the controller's console on the ground. It's designed to go into an auto shutdown mode...but when it was coming down the drone crashed into the SWAT team's armored vehicle.[/quote] [img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17fibikvdqfk9jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg[/img] Bearcat > Drone
Better to have it hit an armoured vehicle rather than crash into a bunch of people when they're trying to use it for real.
Good thing it hit the vehicle and not the people. It would have sucked to get swatted by that thing.
"Look guys! I bought a $300,000 dollar RC helicopter! Isn't it cool?"
[QUOTE=dass;40638124]"Look guys! I bought a $300,000 dollar RC helicopter! Isn't it cool?"[/QUOTE] It's one which can, by design in certain versions, carry a shotgun or 40mm grenade launchers, if I remember correctly. It can also follow vehicles autonomously and other rad stuff. I totally want one, although I would prefer multicopter design over this classical one.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;40638144]It's one which can, by design in certain versions, [b]carry a shotgun or 40mm grenade launchers,[/b] if I remember correctly..[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk[/media] Soon...
Hmm. That's a pretty dumb thing to do in case it lost contact. You'd think they'd at least implement an auto hover mode for a couple minutes for it to try to regain contact before it lowered itself to the ground. Unless that timespan had run out...
[IMG]http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/300W/i/2012/301/5/a/tf2_vs_mlp__heavy_weapons_guy_victory_quotes_by_jellymaycry-d5j6yyv.png[/IMG] [B][I]It costs $300,000 to fly this drone, for 12 seconds.[/I][/B]
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;40638151][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk[/media] Soon...[/QUOTE] Those things sound like mozzies from hell. Hold me.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;40638144]It's one which can, by design in certain versions, carry a shotgun or 40mm grenade launchers, if I remember correctly. It can also follow vehicles autonomously and other rad stuff. I totally want one, although I would prefer multicopter design over this classical one.[/QUOTE] Probably more stable with a multicopter when you're mounting a massive gun on it. The recoil would play Hell with stability
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;40638151][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk[/media] Soon...[/QUOTE] That's so cool, I'd love to make a bunch of these that just fly to a random destination until they run out of battery, let them loose in a city.
SNIP I WAS BEAT TO THE JOKE
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;40638151][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk[/media][/QUOTE] Manhacks when?
Why didn't it have an auto stabilizer? Seen plenty of RC aircraft with autopilots that stabilize and return the aircraft to it's launch point, and they didn't cost $300,000 either.
Good ol' Murrican engineering.
Rule #1 of RC choppers: Don't hit shit. Rule #2 of RC choppers: Stay in fucking range. I mean c'mon, I wouldn't trust this guy with my polystyrene indoor chopper! Let alone the chucklefuck chopper 2013 edition over here.
[QUOTE=Reshy;40640058]Good ol' Murrican Law Enforcement.[/QUOTE] FTFY.
so was the "auto shut down mode" just a "gently descend until it lands" function? Because they say "as it was coming down it hit the vehicle", not "and it fucking fell out of the sky and burst into flames on our windshield"
imagine the auto shut down on a plane. HALT ENGINES FULL No but really, a DRONE that doesn't have proper signal. What is up with that?
[QUOTE=daijitsu;40640359]so was the "auto shut down mode" just a "gently descend until it lands" function? Because they say "as it was coming down it hit the vehicle", not "and it fucking fell out of the sky and burst into flames on our windshield"[/QUOTE] Most receivers these days will cut the throttle on an aircraft and zero out all the controls when it looses contact, as opposed to everything being locked into whatever position it was in when it lost contact so it doesn't just plow into stuff. There's lots of cheap stabilizers and even autopilots out there though, seen a demonstration of an autopilot when a guy had a plane out 3km, a train went under the plane and disrupted the signal so the plane automatically leveled out then turned around and headed back to where it was launched from till he was able to regain contact.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;40638151][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk[/media] Soon...[/QUOTE] manhacks, can't wait to die by those things
[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;40638348]Hmm. That's a pretty dumb thing to do in case it lost contact. You'd think they'd at least implement an auto hover mode for a couple minutes for it to try to regain contact before it lowered itself to the ground. Unless that timespan had run out...[/QUOTE] I was walking along the street one day, saw a guy with a remote, and he asked if I'd seen a yellow RC helicopter. He'd put it at full throttle and it'd gone up and up and up until it was out of range and just kept going I guess. Sad part was, it wasn't a cheap one either, it was one with an engine and everything :c
If your hobby multicopter comes with automatic stabilizers, path flying and auto-home features as well as crash detectors, why can't an expensive "drone" do it?
If it's a drone with military (Or possibly LE, I guess) purposes in mind, I can see not having it return to the launch point should it lose contact. The only thing worse than your drone crashing into you is a bunch of pissed off bad guys who followed it back as well. That said, I'm curious if by crashed they mean "Tried to land on the Bearcat," or, "Shattered into a thousand piece while careening wildly," since it might shed some light on Facepunch's burning drone questions.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;40637522] [img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17fibikvdqfk9jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg[/img] [/QUOTE] [IMG]https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTbXQHadZM10yHi5gXI2cfVGOU9CFxkLDMILapfLsr5205GOhsV[/IMG] ???
[QUOTE=SEKCobra;40648489]If your hobby multicopter comes with automatic stabilizers, path flying and auto-home features as well as crash detectors, why can't an expensive "drone" do it?[/QUOTE] It has all that and more. It can follow cars by visual clue and god knows what all. I just presume the person using it turned it to full manual, fucked up, and blamed the thing for losing signal.
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