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OK so maybe the title is a bit OTT, but maybe not.
Today I was in the local park in Woodley with the family. Plenty of people out enjoying the sun and my wife walked over to the town while I stayed with my 4 YO son and 1 YO daughter as my son had another go at driving his RC truck ( not very well won't listen to a word I tell him. )
Anyway there was a chap turned up, on his own, with a DJI Phantom ( had to look it up tonight ) and immediately flew it the length of the park over some trees and clearly unsighted and flew for a bit using the screen he had on the controller. Over a period of 10 minutes or so I watched him flying this thing over the park, several times hovering it right above our heads at height. Then he flew it around lower, at one point flying it around a guy walking over the park at around head height. Never once looking at the model, only looking and focusing on his screen, so probably had no idea how close he was to the guy. Throughout this whole time I was getting more and more annoyed at him flying around recklessly. But then the final straw when he ended up hovering it about 2 to 3 FEET above my 4 YO sons head. I got my son to come over to me and then once he'd landed and it was safe for everyone went over to the guy. I say landed but he hovered it at about shoulder height and then grabbed it by the skids to retrieve it.
I asked him if he was in the BMFA and he immediately said yes, When I then asked him if he'd read the handbook on flight safety he seemed puzzled ( hmmmm yeah so that's a no to the BMFA membership after all then. ) I pointed out several of the ways he'd broken various rules, and asked if he even knew who the CAA were and what rules they enforced? When I quizzed him about why it was acceptable to hover only a couple of feet above my sons head he reacted quizzically as if he didn't even realise how low he was. He'd probably been focused so closely on the screen over most of his flight that he had no idea how close he was getting to other people in the park. He then quickly packed up, put the quad in the boot of his MPV and drove away. Funnily enough I had two people then ask me if I knew him, and on telling them I didn't and I'd just had a chat with him about how dangerous what he'd done was they thanked me. Actually they were more worried about the fact that he could have been filming there kids than the dangers of these things.
My thought is, that people buying and flying these things without any thought to the dangers involved are a very serious threat to our hobby.
Having looked them up this DJI Quad isn't exactly cheap, the guy was ( at a guess ) in his late 40's early 50's and looked like a respectable guy so should know better. Anyone can go online, buy something like this, and then off they go.
Other than going and having a chat with anyone we see flying these things dangerously, what else can we, and/or the retailers, do to prevent this causing problems for the rest of us in the hobby?
Today I was in the local park in Woodley with the family. Plenty of people out enjoying the sun and my wife walked over to the town while I stayed with my 4 YO son and 1 YO daughter as my son had another go at driving his RC truck ( not very well won't listen to a word I tell him. )
Anyway there was a chap turned up, on his own, with a DJI Phantom ( had to look it up tonight ) and immediately flew it the length of the park over some trees and clearly unsighted and flew for a bit using the screen he had on the controller. Over a period of 10 minutes or so I watched him flying this thing over the park, several times hovering it right above our heads at height. Then he flew it around lower, at one point flying it around a guy walking over the park at around head height. Never once looking at the model, only looking and focusing on his screen, so probably had no idea how close he was to the guy. Throughout this whole time I was getting more and more annoyed at him flying around recklessly. But then the final straw when he ended up hovering it about 2 to 3 FEET above my 4 YO sons head. I got my son to come over to me and then once he'd landed and it was safe for everyone went over to the guy. I say landed but he hovered it at about shoulder height and then grabbed it by the skids to retrieve it.
I asked him if he was in the BMFA and he immediately said yes, When I then asked him if he'd read the handbook on flight safety he seemed puzzled ( hmmmm yeah so that's a no to the BMFA membership after all then. ) I pointed out several of the ways he'd broken various rules, and asked if he even knew who the CAA were and what rules they enforced? When I quizzed him about why it was acceptable to hover only a couple of feet above my sons head he reacted quizzically as if he didn't even realise how low he was. He'd probably been focused so closely on the screen over most of his flight that he had no idea how close he was getting to other people in the park. He then quickly packed up, put the quad in the boot of his MPV and drove away. Funnily enough I had two people then ask me if I knew him, and on telling them I didn't and I'd just had a chat with him about how dangerous what he'd done was they thanked me. Actually they were more worried about the fact that he could have been filming there kids than the dangers of these things.
My thought is, that people buying and flying these things without any thought to the dangers involved are a very serious threat to our hobby.
Having looked them up this DJI Quad isn't exactly cheap, the guy was ( at a guess ) in his late 40's early 50's and looked like a respectable guy so should know better. Anyone can go online, buy something like this, and then off they go.
Other than going and having a chat with anyone we see flying these things dangerously, what else can we, and/or the retailers, do to prevent this causing problems for the rest of us in the hobby?
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