Hey, now wouldn't it be great to start a thread with links to all the potential Drones and the operational parameters and potential uses? Currently I'm looking at the Vanguard Industries ShadowHawk as it seems to be the ones that police departments seem to be getting full grants for. Hell it can be equipped with a 12 gauge shotgun and a 40mm grenade launcher. http://kitup.military.com/2011/07/40-mike-mike-on-an-rc-helo-effective-entertainment.html Fly at 70 max mph (useful for calculating lead) operating at 700 ft (also useful for calculating lead) OAL is 7 feet Looks like main body less tail section is about 4.5 feet in length and a little over 2 feet high (useful when ranging) weight is 50# Flight time is 60 min turbine and 150 min piston engine and it looks like it might be able to be crashed if it looses comm with the controller. Police Drone Crashes into Police
Wonder how well protected the radio link is... Short range jammers are pretty widely available in about any frequency range or can be built fairly easily by someone with a basic knowledge of electronics.
I am sure the zoning compliance authorities, environmental authorities (burn bans, burn barrels, etc.) and other local governmental compliance agencies will use these extensively to generate revenue and enforce limited freedom. In Western Washington, all the green agenda stuff seems to be political/economically motivated by developers, the trash company which has a monopoly in my whole area, and the rest of governmental industrial complex.
There is some talk about putting drones and even armed drones over the US. That is a bit scary to think some angry drunk controller could take out his ex or competition by "accident". 1984 is looming ominously closer. These military drones can stay aloft and out of visual sight for over a day.
for the shadowhawk, 70Mph at 700 feet elevation, a quarter mile away, running at a right angle to you. the lead is 72.5 feet or a little over 10 whirly bird lengths. Coming straight at you. aim about 2 feet or 1 UAV height above it .. it will fly right into the pill (yeah, but hopefully you are running tracers, have a pre-ban mag and a quick finger to adjust on the fly) YMMWV lots of factors. But that said. We should be getting some practice in before too long. But once they start running Predators and Reapers on us, We are going to need some bigger guns, proximity fuses and whole lotta luck. The stand-off engagement distance is pretty great. Our Neighbors are gonna have to shoot it down before it gets us.
I expect the local tax man as well to use these to do property overflights and raise taxes and fine you for anything they can. Many local towns have been using Google Maps Satellite for this same purpose as well as code enforcement giving them the info to fine you for non-permitted structures, ECT.
Yard Dart, it's even worse than you can imagine. A large number of counties/tax assessing units are using very high quality aerial imagery (3" - 6" per pixel) to do that very thing right now. There are a number of companies offer these quasi governmental units (and governments) tools to measure, count, flash compare to previous flights. currently, about 85 percent of the 'Populated' areas are covered by these aircraft captured pictures. Some areas have over flights every 6-12 months for commercial use. Generally available satellite imagery really pales in comparison !
Some of the BEST aerial Pictures of Alaskan Terrain, were done by U-2 Training Flights, out of Kommiefornia, in the late 60s and early 70s. They were declassified in the early 80s and have been used for all kinds of purposes, since. ..... YMMV.....
Nice thing about your AO is that, due to the population density (more moose than people) there really isn't a reason nor monetary incentive for a commercial company to do a 2500 nor a 5000 foot fly-over of the inlet. I checked They are still covering your AO with some really old USGS satellite imagery. my AO? Yeah, I'm waiting for the over flight this fall. Need to get acres of camo net. Or put a empty field in the database
I am gonna get creative with my lawn mowing. Nothing like sending a big F*** YOU to Washington via pictures.