For the past Month or so, there has been excited/panicked talk about Drone sightings in New Jersey and surrounding states in the North-eastern portion of the USA. I live in a completely different part of the country but I’ve caught my co-workers talking about it and debating how serious it is and “who could be behind it”. Many major US news networks have also excitedly jumped on the story and repeated rumours (or made new ones) almost daily for a while, maybe starting to slow a bit now. Actual Government agencies on both a State and National level have dedicated serious resources to “investigating” and working on detection/countermeasures…and of course our incoming new President has jumped in to fan the flames as well.
Over the past week or so, the FAA caved in and re-routed the majority of commercial airline routes away from the area to reduce false reports from people calling in every airplane they saw and presumably make it easier to spot any actual drones in the airspace. Reports have dropped drastically since this change was made – which most people are interpreting as proof that people are morons and forgot what airplanes are…but of course others are taking it as proof that the conspiracy runs deeper than we realized.
Additionally, as the reports of “drones” have dropped off, people are starting to fixate on poor quality videos of unidentifiable blobs of light…the vast majority of which are still pretty easily recognizable as street lights, air traffic lights, stars, or drops of rain/smudges on camera lenses.
Silly as all of this is – I’m not actually that interested in the phenomenon of people interpreting everyday things as drones – so lets disregard that. Lets assume, for purposes of this ramble, that a significant portion of reported sightings really are drones. Lets further assume that of those actual drones, some of them are actually as big as cars.
Keeping those assumptions in mind – there is still 1 thought I can’t seem to get out of my head regarding these drones…
So what?
Remotely controlled aircraft have been a real technology in the real world accessible not just to governments and militaries but also to casual hobbyists for almost 100 years. It got popular enough that the amateur band of radio control was allocated by the FCC (in the USA) all the way back in 1946. At first it was mostly airplanes and helicopters in the air – but the modern drone 4+ rotor format got pretty popular ~20+ years ago. And they keep developing the technology year after year, I haven’t even seen 1/10th of the drone types available today I’m sure – despite being familiar with dozens of types and having seen hundreds more.
For the past several years, prices have also been falling. There are literally fully functional drones designed to be operated by young children which cost less than $10, can fly at least 20-30 feet high, and have 10-20 minute battery life. They tend to be colorful with lots of strange shapes and lights. I have to imagine they are a pretty popular Christmas gift this year.
And that is just the ultra-cheap market.
Drones capable of mounting a camera and flying for 30+ minutes capturing cool aerial shots can be found as cheap as $100. Well within the budget of many families with Teenagers interested in the hobby. They can go over 100 feet in the air, and some have ranges measured in miles.
Then there is the adult/professional market..
There are drones in all shapes and sizes, directly controlled or pre-programmed. They can have cameras, lights, or anything else you can imagine to put onto them. I mean seriously – one of the most popular acts on America’s Got Talent this year consists of hundreds of pre-programmed drones with multi-colored LED lighting that literally animate scenes in the air above the crowd – visible for miles around the facility. And they film wider angled shots with even more drones.. And imagine the thousands of hours of practice and fine tuning they had to put in around their home city preparing for those performances and ensuring everything was dialed in…
There is no real size limit on them either – drones carrying larger/heavier equipment need to be bigger, with larger rotors. Lots of the ones used for scientific applications are significantly larger than the ones designed to just fly a small camera around.
Specifically addressing the “car sized drones” claims… Flying cars are a thing now. Over the last year or so they’ve been going through final testing in REAL cities and have started hitting the consumer market. The prices are only in the hundreds of thousands of dollars as well – which is well beyond my price range but well within the price range of people interested in unique cars. Indeed they are cheaper than a lot of high end sports cars! And you know what people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new flying car are going to want to do? USE IT. In their city! Where people can SEE THEM!
Frankly, at this point, I’d be more shocked if there was a major city that DIDN’T have a bunch of drones of dozens of different sizes flying around most nights.
Sure. Military drones exist too. Both for spying and for combat operations. But you won’t see those. If they were easily spot-able it would entirely defeat the purpose.
So – if you spot a drone in the sky – congratulate whoever got it for Christmas and move on with your life.
If you are jealous, go get your own drone.
This may be hypocritical given my chosen pen name – but stop being crazy just for the sake of being crazy. Normal things are normal, and you are going to see them where they are normally found. For drones – that is the sky, in the areas where the people who own them live.
What will the next big news story be? A suspicious amount of ice houses appearing in Minnesota as the lakes freeze over? Clearly a Canadian Invasion!