Shooting down UAVs

On Sunday, October 7, 2018 at 7:45:24 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, October 7, 2018 at 7:36:18 AM UTC-5, Bojack J4 wrote:
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.

In the late 90's I arranged to land my-24 at an RC Glider field near Fayetteville NC during one of their contests (had spoken with their CD prior). Couldn't find the field at first but then spotted the rather big models in the air. I joined their thermal from above and we circled for a while. I then set up a circuit from behind the modelers and landed within their well maintained 500' runway. They were thrilled to have me, never been photographed so much. They came up with silly ideas like putting their rc tow planes in front of my glider: "hey, I wonder if we could tow you back up". When my son came with the trailer they were all over that thing: "I'm going to build me one of these in miniature". I'm still an honorary club member, have the T-shirt to prove it.
Had a great time, no dilemmas.
Herb, J7

Funny, I landed a helicopter on a RC field once when I had a chip light and some vibrations, no one went out of their way to make me feel welcomed