Here’s my thoughts on people harassing others (Or critters) with drones.
I can certainly see their benefit for scouting runs or routes or just for the photography, but harass me or critters and I may try to find a safe means to bring it down.
I see how drones could be very handy to have, and used “positively” by search and rescue teams. I base this on my experience as a search and rescue team member.
I’m sure there are many other “positive” uses.
However, I view the usage of drones by people I don’t know, as intrusive, and an invasion of my privacy; when they are above or on “my private property”. 6 shots of bird shot from one of my 12 gauges may be my response. I don’t see the difference between someone flying a drone above and around my home talking pictures of me or my family, and someone walking onto my private property with a camera and filming me. NOT prudent!
I don’t have any issue with someone flying one a safe distance from me if I’m paddling. I have nothing to hide. However when it becomes a safety concern to me; I will do whatever I can to alleviate my concern for my own personal safety.
Just because you have the money to buy a drone, and can get it airborne does NOT mean you have any skill in using one. And people who intentionally use them to harass people are just your typical, run of the mill asses.
I am not much concerned with FAA rules.
BOB
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With the development of drone swarm technology with drones capable of independent decision making and partnering with other drones to accomplish goals we’ll soon be thankful for the good old days when we could identify a drone visually and think about swatting it or shooting it down. The future may make Hitchcock’s The Birds look like a Disney movie.
I love that passage 
I can only dream of reading a river that well.
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I’ve thought it might be useful to video myself while practicing different things and trying to refine my technique. I’d like to come home and evaluate how well this or that tweak affected what I was trying to do. For the same reason, I’ve also thought it would be handy to have my wife join me at the local lake if I could find some vantage from which she could get some useful video. I feel like it would be less of an imposition on the drone though and I could get some better overhead perspective.
Love it! “The Thing” --Since some operators aren’t considerate enough to ask permission, your paddle and the other “techniques” are self-empowered “release forms”;-
As to the Abbey passage, one can “read” the water just fine–But sometimes it don’t make no difference.
BOB, I’m with Search and Rescue in my very small town, pop. 600 – The budget’s so small, we can’t afford a drone, unless we pony up as individuals to buy one. In fact, I’m considered “the Navy.”
But I agree, I see them as no different as any other “peeping Tom” (with apologies to anyone named Tom here.) Last weekend’s paddle on the Susquehanna(pictured at start of thread, above) I knew the operator. They didn’t ask permission of any one, but we all thought it pretty much harmless as it was basically a benign recreational paddle.
Practical private usage for one’s own personal improvement/enjoyment, is always acceptable.
Not apt to get drone delivery in this heavily forested area. They are neat though when they take video footage from above a race and we get to see it later. In a wilderness trip no way would I be so amenable to them though. Rec paddling with a group for the day… well I want a copy of the footage.
I watched a PBS special the other night where the party of six was descending an unexplored part of a river in Surinam… Jungle country. They knew the length of the segment they were exploring, they knew the difference between start and finish altitudes and they were within three or 4 km of the end and still had some 100 meters to descend… Something was fishy… A rumble; they got out with machetes to investigate and found a brand new (known to man )waterfall… They were so excited to find this 90 meter cascade that had never yet been found. Likely with a jungle canopy a drone would not have helped.
Now if I could get a drone that would fly low around the tree trunks and get the water bottle I left at home on the counter and bring it to me on the lake…
I am sure glad Lewis and Clark had their trusty drones with them, or they never would have made it to the Pacific Ocean.
I encounter drones filming in the surf zone every so often, I don’t mind if someone looks like a professional and keeps the drone well out of the way of people in the water. The problem is people are flying the drones very close to surfers and breaking waves trying to get good photos/video. It’s very disconcerting to drop into a large wave that requires about all the skill, strength and balancing you can muster to maneuver and there is a three foot wide thing with propellers whirring 20 feet in front of you. Also when I am hiking or flat water paddling, I come to be with nature not whining motors. And this week I experienced remote controlled jet aircraft flying over the surf just a few feet above my head and making passes back and forth like I was being straffed. I flown drones with my sons and they are fun, but stay out of other people’s space and outdoor experience. In Iceland at many of the most scenic points there are signs now that say “Absolutely No Drones” in English.
Yeah, they had the latest, most advanced state-of-the-art model at that time–It was called Sacagawea!(Even had a baby, as I recall.)
And the surf zone is disconcerting enough, at least whenever I’ve tried to catch a rider or two…
I’ve seen a few at canoe races, and think they are an interesting toy, but otherwise would have no direct use for one, other than to get in trouble with the neighbors. My son, however, a retired Air force pilot and now an Airline pilot has a pretty nice one. He has for years been a video amateur, and is using his to make some very nice promotional videos for the local high school sports teams where his kids play. He is looking for a niche where he can eventually make some bucks from the hobby.
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I fly drones professionally for construction documentation and real estate marketing. I haven’t done any kayaking with them, because they are work tools. But now that I have an upgrade. I plan on flying one of my older drones from the kayak
Be sure to post the result here!
Is there a drone with the technology to silence loud speakers of power boats? Asking for a friend.
Tell your friend the technology to silence inconsiderate a-holes has not been, and may never be, successfully invented.
A vaccine for Covid-19 should come along well before that.
Or as Jim White reminds me, per my many misreadings into fish studies:
Ten years ago I might have joined in,
but don’t time change those inclined,
to think less of what is written,
than what’s wrote between the lines?
Everything I think I know is just static on the river flow…sort of.
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The less we invade nature, the better. Leave the drones at home when paddling in areas that are still natural. And with it, leave your blue tooth speakers with it too.
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Perhaps I was hasty in my judgement… I still think those quadcopter drones are are artless as far as model aircraft flying is concerned, but there’s a guy here locally who has been putting one to a pretty artful use and doesn’t seem to be unduly affecting wildlife or pestering anyone. His drone videos just put me on to a possible paddling location that’s practically in my own back yard and which I have never explored. Check this out - it ain’t so bad…
What’s more, he did a pretty decent video of some locals paddling about the only stretch of water that is left to me that I can do solo without a shuttle and maintaining social distancing. (The Olsen Rd. to Cramer St. section) Just a hike (~ 3miles) back to my car at the end. I’ve done it five times this week. If I get a sunrise start, I can do it without seeing another person. It ain’t much, but its paddling on moving water (~8’/mi gradient) and the hike back is decent exercise for an old guy.
Before anyone cries out in anguish, yes, of course I noticed the lack of PFDs. (And they aren’t running lines like a real whitewater paddler would either.) I don’t really approve either, of course, but acknowledge that IF there was anywhere where PFDs could be done without, its in streams that have only a couple spots over anyone’s head, are known to be devoid of strainers, and are less than 30’wide. These guys are just “messing about in boats.” Hot fun in the summertime. As JJ Cale would say, “It ain’t heavy, don’t take it that way.”
There’s a place in the paddling world for this, I think. And the drone sure shows it for exactly what it is. (But don’t get me wrong, I still long for some “real” paddling.)
But maybe this drone stuff isn’t actually evil after all… just reconsidering.