Shooting down UAVs
When they sell inexpensive drones at the shopping mall like toys, what do we expect? These kids/people who buy them are in "play with my toy" mode.....not "responsible FAA licensed pilot" mode.
As a former r/c glider pilot (LSF level 4), I've had many high altitude flights and unintentionally gotten sucked up into clouds and lost the sailplane (20+lbs 180 inch wingspans) Yikes! Never really considered the dangers in that at the time. Google the cross country competitions like the Great Race held near Joliet Illinois. Fortunately we were a relatively small in numbers and expensive hobby compared to the numerous and cheap drones of today, and we flew them out away from populated areas (mostly).
To this day it amazes me that r/c sailplanes often get flown at our full-sized sailplane contests right over millions of dollars worth of assembled gliders. But it's an airport environment, right? Never mind battery failure, radio control interference...etc.
Sometimes even FAA pilots don't use their heads while flying their remote control toys. What should we expect from a 15 y.o. boy then?
What a dilemma.
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