I’m going to preface this with the following: I have no intention of flying anywhere close to where an active emergency is. Lives may depend on the people doing their jobs without some idiot flying a drone nearby.
That said, does anyone have a good idea of exactly what constitutes “near” in this context? I ask because I had two fire trucks go by a park where I was flying. Full lights and sirens. I brought down my drone as soon as I saw them coming. They passed and kept going until I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore.
At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m okay to start flying again, but I wasn’t sure so I just packed up and went home. Didn’t matter, I only had another 5 minutes of battery anyway.
So, again, what constitutes “near”? Is it visual range? Auditory range? A mile buffer? I tried Google but didn’t come up with much information.
Pretty sure it just means don’t cause any obstructions. I don’t know for certain but it seems a little extreme to bring your drone back every time a vehicle with sirens and lights drives past.
Quite plainly just don’t fly over or orbit an active emergency.
In this context, ‘near’ should be considered to be a minimum of 400 yards. Even then, you should reduce your max height to under 100 feet within 1000 yards of an incident that may require a helicopter landing.
However you decide to respond, if your drone impacts a helicopter flight path or interferes with an emergency service drone flight, you will be the bad guy. No question, no excuse.
@Ashwin
The problem with that attitude is that if you are flying around a 6 car pileup or a fast moving brush fire being a lookieloo, emergency responders who see the drone will DIVERT medical or firefighting helos due to the danger of the drone taking out a tail rotor. So ask yourself, “Why the heck am I flying here anyway?” And if the answer is “To get some great clickable video,” just don’t do it.
@Oakley
I’m just trying to tell the guy he’s not going to be fined for flying. Be level headed about the situation at hand and be a good person. If I see emergency vehicles pass, I land, check the flight radar website for a good 10-15 minutes to make sure nothing happens.
@Ashwin
In an active emergency situation it is unlikely that you will have time to start checking apps for aircraft that may not even have working transponders.
Helicopters can arrive faster than you can think.
Take your 107 again. You weren’t paying attention the first time.
@Landry
Did I not clarify, LAND, and make decisions afterwards. It is a 1 in a trillion chance an emergency medical copter has a dysfunctional transponder because of current technology updates. I trust the government to tell us to stay out of their way efficiently.
@Landry
If you’re taking preparation that extreme then how do you ever fly anywhere? Surely the best preparation is to only fly indoors, just in case an emergency helicopter appears travelling at 2/3rds the speed of light, with no audio or visual warning.
This fearmongering is so uncalled for. Use some common sense, show some goodwill, and the rest will be fine.
@Landry
Yes, I realize that. In this case, there was no chopper. I don’t recall the local fire department using them even when we had a 5 alarm fire nearby.
If there’s a chopper nearby, I’m landing, period. Too much can go wrong too quickly.
Just always check your flight app, or a dedicated flight restriction app, and as long as you’re underneath the 400’ requirement you’re fine. Helicopters for emergencies stay at about 700’ to 1000’.
Ashwin said:
Just always check your flight app, or a dedicated flight restriction app, and as long as you’re underneath the 400’ requirement you’re fine. Helicopters for emergencies stay at about 700’ to 1000’.
This could not be further from the truth. Please use common sense.
I said I trust them to tell us to get the hell out of the way; they do a lot of times.