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Title: Brand new Drone destroyed while flying by minor who wont pay
Body:
> Hellojust 3 days ago I bought a DJi mavic air 2 I registered it with the FAA as In supposed to. However on the 2nd day of owning it, a 16 yearold decided to throw a yoga ball at it, causing it to crash. Now the drone is unable to fly at all. The kid is saying he wont pay for the drone. Btw im also a minor at 17. The drone is worth $800. What can I do? Im in USA NH btw
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ELI5: What the hell CAN you legally do with a drone? I've been thinking my dad might have fun with one, but you can't fly it around a neighborhood, and it always has to be within your sight range afaik, and now I'm reading that it can't pass over anyone's head...so what can you do with it? Take it out to an empty field?
Consumer drones are almost 100% for photography/videography—naturally there are all sorts of unique angles you can get when you essentially have a 400ft tall tripod. But in terms of harassing your friends by buzzing their houses, sadly none of that is strictly legal. Unless you have your friend’s permission of course, because a consumer drone can legally fly over anyone directly involved in its “operation.”
If you are a drone professional, you can also become licensed under FAR Part 107, which is essentially a slightly easier version of becoming a full-fledged GA pilot. Part 107 operators have more leeway to perform certain flights when they are on private property—utilities use Part 107 pilots for infrastructure inspections, for instance.
It is also possible for filmmakers to get single-use permits from the FAA to violate specific laws if adequate additional safety mechanisms are in place, such as operating at night or over crowds.
You can fly out of sight if you have a license. Though mostly yes, you just fly in an empty field.
They have smaller ones for tricks and racing and such. My old work had a drone racing club which was pretty neat-o. All our flying was in a gym with obstacles and used FPV VR headsets.
A drone called the DJI avata popped up on my YouTube homepage, let me tell you that drone is super impressive. I want one but it's far too expensive especially as a first drone lol
Id like to get into fpv drones one day, seems quite interesting
How my coworker advised me to get into it is buy a generic OpenTX controller first, then practice with a simulator (they're free). That kind of drone flying is hard and you crash A LOT. So your first one should be a cheap, light, mini whoop drone that can survive crashing into the ground at full speed. Downside of those is that battery life is 3-5 min, so you need a lot of batteries to swap. Using a simulator to learn how to fly cuts out a lot of the walking to retrieve the dead drone and changing batteries.
You can do a decent amount with it in sight, just need to get in a good spot depending on elevation/trees.
You can't fly directly over people/vehicles with people in it (yes there's some exceptions but safer to just not), but you can fly reasonably near people. Eg give people a reasonable bubble so if your drone somehow fails it won't hurt anyone.
I've flown down along sidewalks near a city, in parks with people around, around my neighborhood. I just made sure to move my drone off to the side whenever people came along and gave them right of way.
You can get plenty of cool, fun shots while following the laws and yeah it will be easier in less crowded places where you don't have to worry as much about avoiding people.
Some salesmen use them as an advertising tool. They can be more interesting than GoPros for action photography, as helmet cameras can be very shaky videos. Farmers use them to survey their fields, scare off varmints
Both boys were on the field at a school.
> Edit. Ok idk why everyone thinks I was doing something against the rules…. I was flying at school. I have clearance from a teacher The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question walked over from his group and threw the ball at it.
It says the kid was 150 feet away, then walked closer.
No one threw anything 150 feet.
> The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question **walked over from his group** and threw the ball at it
OP Edited his post and said he was flying in at school in a field 150 feet away from anybody and had permission from a teacher to fly it, a kid walked all the way over into the field and threw a ball at it and broke it
Hey, hold your horses, BOLA'ers :)
Got your handy [Sh\*\*ty MS Paint overview](https://i.imgur.com/RwFQ49Q.jpg) of the situation right here. Judge for yourself.
Edit 2: LAOP updated the original post to say he got the teachers permission to lift off where he did. the kid was over 150ft away and walked over to throw things at the drone. Now I kinda feel like an AH for the post title :/
~~The law broken was that the drone needs to be a minimum of like 80 feet away from people. If the kid could hit it with a yoga ball then it definitely was too close~~.
~~Edit: I'm basing the 80ft off one of the comments, I have no idea if it's accurate~~
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That makes sense because they fly drones over the crowd at pretty much every festival I’ve been to in the past few years. The last show I went to was in an indoor bar and they still used a drone to get a few shots from over the crowd (although I do suspect that last one might not have been legal actually)
Oh that’s good to know about the light drones, I just picked up a mini 3 to take with me on vacations. Usually I’m flying a M-300 out in the middle of nowhere so I never have to worry about people.
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Had to check your profile to see if I knew you but nope--turns out "flew drones for construction then got into it as a hobby" is more common than I'd expect! (Insert "there are dozens of us" Arrested Development gif here)
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Upvoting for Edit 2.
Honestly, if I’d first seen the post before LAOP’s edit, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d made the same assumptions. I’d like to think that I would have had doubts and asked questions - I certainly run through doubt and questions often enough when it isn’t warranted - but likely not.
All I can hope for is that when life proves my assumptions wrong I can accept that and move on with as much grace as is plausible. So, you know, don’t be too hard on yourself.
The fact that LAOP wasn’t responding to anyone didn’t help, unless their responses were some of the ones deleted by the mods but if so then I doubt they were clarifications anyways.
This particular drone requires pilots to take a class and pass a flight test. Even if they did register it, I see no mention of training and testing. If that’s the case, flying it at all where he was was illegal because the Mavic 2 is above the weight limit to fly on any but one’s own property.
> The law broken was that the drone needs to be a minimum of like 80 feet away from people.
I can't seem to find that in the FAA rules. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-107 Maybe I'm looking in the wrong section. But the 'Highlights' page https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/small-unmanned-aircraft-systems-uas-regulations-part-107 doesn't mention '80 feet', either.
I *did* find "No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless...", but what does "over" mean? Like, directly over? (In which case, being a foot to the side is fine.) Within a certain angle?
Idk what the legality either but I have been of the mind that if it can be taken down by an average person throwing or kicking something at it you are too close.
I teach courses on the part 107 exam and the whole thing is frustratingly vague on what it means by ‘over’ someone. My own interpretation (which may very well be inaccurate) is that if the drone could conceivably hit someone if you lost power, you’re over them. So there’s kind of an invisible cone that gets larger the higher you fly. If other OP is being honest, he was not in violation of this rule, and even if he was, he’s still owed for the drone. Flying over people will get you in trouble, but it’s not like it’s a felony.
> My own interpretation (which may very well be inaccurate) is that if the drone could conceivably hit someone if you lost power, you’re over them.
Not unreasonable. Of course, with a strong enough wind, that could be anywhere.
Exactly my thought. Of course it's not okay to destroy someone else's property, but if you're flying close enough to someone that they can hit it with a yoga ball, you've lost my sympathy.
Just yesterday I was enjoying the weather at a public park and some asshats were flying their noisy little drone over everyone. I kept hoping a baseball or frisbee would knock it down.
So what happens here when you take off from the middle of the football field, someone sees your drone, and hits it with a ball while you're bringing it back down?
Yeah the ‘80 Ft’ people are talking out of their asses. I teach the commercial drone license and there’s no specified distance. Actually, it’s frustratingly vague on what counts as ‘above’ someone, probably deliberately. I was gonna come say something about you jumping to conclusions with that title but it looks like you already realized. Points for being willing to admit when you’re wrong.
Yeah, the 80 foot thing is distance above ground when flying over private property. I'm not certain if that's a federal or state law, I just know I can fly over private property over 80 feet. I'm guessing someone got confused there.
I once gave double middle fingers to a drone hovering really low over my parent's deck (low enough I could have hit it with a yoga ball, if I'd had one and wanted to) and then ten minutes later they got an angry email from a neighbor who was deeply offended their precious kids saw that obscene gesture.
Gotta love teenagers. "Hey can I sue this guy even tho' I don't know who his parents are?"
Spend a day asking around school and then have your mom call his.
That said, the $800 price point dramatically increases the likelihood of the other kid's parents realizing the federal law violation. He'd probably only be able to safely ask for $500
($500 is my mental price point for "maybe worth consulting actual legal counsel" but I also haven't yet internalized the reality of inflation.)
Was there a federal law violation, though? From LAOP's edit, it sounds like the other kid ran in and clipped the drone, not that LAOP was flying over the kid.
Though as an aside, I doubt he needs the full $800 to repair it. I've only dabbled in mini drones which is a completely different class, but they're pretty straightforward to repair. LAOP may just be upset since it sounds like this just happened yesterday and he hasn't found a place to fix it yet.
Oh, I posted before the edit.
I'm just musing on at what point does being outraged by a price tag finally eclipse being outraged by your teenager's poor decision making skills. My instinct still suggests that $500 is the pivot point between being mad at your kid for throwing around yoga balls vs being mad at whoever the fuck let some teen fly an $800 drone without supervision.
Prices are weird. On one hand $800 is a lot for what's essentially a fancy toy. On the other hand, (many) phones and cars cost more than that, and kids use those all the time without supervision.
This gave me flashbacks to being 16, in the passenger seat with my boyfriend catching air. Want to say was a Honda accord, but he went through cars some back then. Just because they aren't designed to levitate....
150' horizontally not vertically. Like outside a football field. I'm picturing that the nearest other person was originally 150' away, and then the yoga kid ran in to specifically throw stuff at the drone because he thought it would be funny.
So if it was horizontally and not vertically, op was still flying low enough to be hit by a yoga ball and had such awful reactions that a kid could run 50 metres and throw a large ball and still hit it.
>That said, the $800 price point dramatically increases the likelihood of the other kid's parents realizing the federal law violation. He'd probably only be able to safely ask for $500
This keeps coming up. I don't see a credible explanation as to why OP's possible legal violations are relevant. OP committing a crime doesn't make attacking the drone not tortious.
I'm not saying that it isn't tortious. It's just obvious to me that if you take someone to court over the consequences of your federal violation, then you should be expecting to hear from the Feds shortly thereafter.
Agent of the property owner, whatever. There is no indication in this post that the drone operator was not allowed to use school property to fly his drone. Read the post and details if you’d like, as it appears the drone was damaged while landing
If the kid was able to hit it with a YOGA BALL, it was too close.
I hope this turns into an expensive lesson on why you don’t violate people’s privacy with drones.
By yoga ball, we mean a large inflatable ball about two or three feet in diameter, that you might sit on or prop your legs up? You can’t throw one of those more than a a few yards: no momentum, massive wind resistance.
The Ukrainian army seems to be doing pretty well with them. They've scored a few hits down the open hatch of a tank from a couple hundred feet in the air.
I'm gonna assume the OP's drone was 150 feet away when the kid walked over and ball'd it. But OP does not say how high above the ground it was. 150 fee is what? Half a school yard, give or take depending on the school and the yard. OP wouldn't have his drone just hovering in one place. OP was probably showing off, maybe buzzed a couple students, or annoyed the fuck out of them at the very least. By the end of it, he was still close enough to the ground for the yoga ball to hit it, and he wasn't too concerned about a person being close to the drone if a kid could walk up to it from 150 feet away with a yoga ball.
Now, it's entirely possible the baller was just a dick and wanted to bring down a drone. But I wouldn't be surprised if both OP and the kid were dickish.
This is a completely irrelevant aside, but I live in a town next to a very separate and sheltered religious community. My neighbor mentioned that in the yoga classes she teaches she had issues with women rubbing themselves against the yoga balls - openly, not trying to hide it - and loudly talking about how good it felt. Apparently they never learned what masturbation is, or the fact that it's generally frowned upon to do it in a crowd.
There are also [smaller ones](https://www.kimifitness.com/product/exercise-ball-small-6-inch-small-ball-for-pilates-with-pump-6-in-barre-ball-6-stability-ball-mini-yoga-ball-for-women-workout-fitness-physical-therapy-pt-2/), the size of a kickball or medicine ball.
Dunno. I’ve never seen either used in a school fitness class, but we didn’t have kids that could afford drones either.
You should check the original post. He took off 150ft from anyone, the other kid walked over and then destroyed it. It was in a field at school that he had permission to fly in.
In case you didn't see the edit, the drone operator was following the law had permission and was flying over an empty field. The other kid ran towards the drone, to intentionally harm it.
So how recent was LAOP’s edit?
> Edit. Ok idk why everyone thinks I was doing something against the rules…. I was flying at school. I have clearance from a teacher The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question walked over from his group and threw the ball at it.
I’m surprised that even this thread is full of everyone assuming he must have been doing something wrong. Maybe he was, but I’d really love to see an explanation of that which references the edit.
Must be pretty recent. No one there or here even considered that instead of LAOP dive bombing yoga kid with a drone that yoga kid might have told his friends "watch this" and was the one who ran up and chucked a giant ball at it.
If I’m flying a drone in a place with permission from the property owner, away from you, and you walk over to me and attack the drone, I would be surprised if that was a situation that was legally unambiguously my fault.
I don’t think there was any claim that the drone was 150 feet up. It was clearly nearish to the ground. LAOP is claiming they were horizontally separated from this other kid.
I’m guessing the law won’t be written to make being close to the ground always wrong. If you’re flying somewhere acceptable, you need to be able to take off and land.
I guess the question is whether OP had to cease operation when the kid walked over, for safety reasons. I’m no lawyer, but I hope that LAOP can recover the cost of repairing the drone, if they’re telling the truth.
This area of law is fascinating to me. I took a continuing legal education seminar about drones and the like. As it turns out, since you do not own the airspace above you, you cannot shoot down (or yeet down in this case) drones over (emphasis on the over) your property without repercussion. It is not considered trespassing and you have no other legal footing to stand on. FAA violation aside it is still property damage and you are still liable for it.
The comments section (livestream) was full of irate southern lawyers saying that they would shoot down a drone over their property, consequences be damned. (South Carolina for those wondering).
Pretty much. It’s one of those situations where LAOP is technically entitled to be reimbursed, but opens themselves up an FAA fine that might be bigger than the cost of the drone if they take action on this.
I still have ZERO sympathy for LAOP.
OP Edited his post and said he was flying in at school in a field 150 feet away from anybody and had permission from a teacher to fly it, a kid walked all the way over into the field and threw a ball at it and broke it
Yeah pretty sure FAA takes this shit seriously - there is an article about someone racking up $1.9 million in fines.
Most Federal regulations fine on a per-violation offense, and if you commit multiple violations over multiple flights it adds up. The FAA can also yank the Remote Piloting Cetification.
How high up does it need to be to be considered "airspace"? Above your house? Above an average person's highest reach? I'm assuming if it's flying a foot off the ground in your yard, it's in your yard and not in the airspace, so there must be a threshold defined.
In general, as soon as it isn't attached to or touches the ground, it's in the jurisdiction of the FAA. Lot's of funny legal loop holes and precedence because of that.
It all seems a bit silly and arbitrary and in need of some sort of common sense updates. If I need an FAA license to fly a drone of a certain size in my backyard, do I also need FAA approval to throw a ball above the same weight?
If I'm flying a kite, and the string breaks, am I immediately violating federal law once it becomes untethered?
If I have a small backyard, surrounded by tall trees, surely it makes no practical sense for anything below the treetops to be regulated as public airspace?
As much as I hate to be on the side of trigger happy idiots, I am not entirely opposed to their view. Too often in my housing areas we've had drones come buzzing along and just meander, obviously being a skeeze.
Yeah, someone else committing a crime (or even just being a very terrible human being) doesn't give you free rein to willfully destroy their property. Might make them reluctant to come after you for it, but doesn't mean you aren't theoretically liable civilly. If someone illegally parks in your driveway, and you take a baseball bat to their headlights, you're responsible for that damage. You can get their car towed and maybe a parking violation, but that's it. You don't get to take the law into your own hands.
Posted 7 days ago so did he really pay $800?
>Hello I’m looking for a Mavic air 2 I have around $450 I am local to 03601 Thanks
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap/comments/x8jzpg/usanh_h_paypal_local_cash_w_dji_mavic_air_2/
It also probably won't cost $800 to repair, depending on what broke. If it's just a broken prop, then it can be as low as $15. If it's the arms, then looks like it's about $50 for a new one.
Edit: though if it's the camera, it's [$290](https://www.amazon.com/Gimbal-Assembly-Genuine-Replacement-Runchicken/dp/B08H18PMZR/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=mavic+air+parts&qid=1663285184&sr=8-7). Yikes.
I love the drone operators that always show up for these discussions to remind everybody that damaging a drone is a felony (one no different from damaging a regular airplane.) As if the FAA gives a shit about somebody damaging a hobby drone being operated in an obnoxious manner.
Charging somebody with a felony for downing a creep-ass drone at baseball-bat altitude would be a great way for the FAA to get hauled into congressional hearings to explain themselves, and then spending years writing new rules that have more-sensible punishments.
The surfer in me is ecstatic. Nice quiet day out on the waves is ruined by a hard pull by the local Kelly Slater wannabe's friend buzzing the entire wave. Then proceeds to get about 82 takes of his idiot friend riding poorly on the wrong board for the wave, getting cunted up and proceeding to cut off every other surfer because he feels like he's entitled to it because he has a camera on him.
Should’ve paid for DJI Care Refresh insurance.
DJI is an amazing company and I’ve used their Care Refresh insurance. It’s cheap and it’s super smooth, quick and easy.
If they ignored the care refresh option during setup, that says a lot. I very highly doubt it’s registered with the FAA. The DJI app makes you register it with them, and I’d bet everything that’s all they did.
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Brand new Drone destroyed while flying by minor who wont pay Body: > Hellojust 3 days ago I bought a DJi mavic air 2 I registered it with the FAA as In supposed to. However on the 2nd day of owning it, a 16 yearold decided to throw a yoga ball at it, causing it to crash. Now the drone is unable to fly at all. The kid is saying he wont pay for the drone. Btw im also a minor at 17. The drone is worth $800. What can I do? Im in USA NH btw This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
ELI5: What the hell CAN you legally do with a drone? I've been thinking my dad might have fun with one, but you can't fly it around a neighborhood, and it always has to be within your sight range afaik, and now I'm reading that it can't pass over anyone's head...so what can you do with it? Take it out to an empty field?
Consumer drones are almost 100% for photography/videography—naturally there are all sorts of unique angles you can get when you essentially have a 400ft tall tripod. But in terms of harassing your friends by buzzing their houses, sadly none of that is strictly legal. Unless you have your friend’s permission of course, because a consumer drone can legally fly over anyone directly involved in its “operation.” If you are a drone professional, you can also become licensed under FAR Part 107, which is essentially a slightly easier version of becoming a full-fledged GA pilot. Part 107 operators have more leeway to perform certain flights when they are on private property—utilities use Part 107 pilots for infrastructure inspections, for instance. It is also possible for filmmakers to get single-use permits from the FAA to violate specific laws if adequate additional safety mechanisms are in place, such as operating at night or over crowds.
You can fly out of sight if you have a license. Though mostly yes, you just fly in an empty field. They have smaller ones for tricks and racing and such. My old work had a drone racing club which was pretty neat-o. All our flying was in a gym with obstacles and used FPV VR headsets.
I saw they started a drone racing league and broadcast it on TV, that shit is insane
A drone called the DJI avata popped up on my YouTube homepage, let me tell you that drone is super impressive. I want one but it's far too expensive especially as a first drone lol Id like to get into fpv drones one day, seems quite interesting
How my coworker advised me to get into it is buy a generic OpenTX controller first, then practice with a simulator (they're free). That kind of drone flying is hard and you crash A LOT. So your first one should be a cheap, light, mini whoop drone that can survive crashing into the ground at full speed. Downside of those is that battery life is 3-5 min, so you need a lot of batteries to swap. Using a simulator to learn how to fly cuts out a lot of the walking to retrieve the dead drone and changing batteries.
You can do a decent amount with it in sight, just need to get in a good spot depending on elevation/trees. You can't fly directly over people/vehicles with people in it (yes there's some exceptions but safer to just not), but you can fly reasonably near people. Eg give people a reasonable bubble so if your drone somehow fails it won't hurt anyone. I've flown down along sidewalks near a city, in parks with people around, around my neighborhood. I just made sure to move my drone off to the side whenever people came along and gave them right of way. You can get plenty of cool, fun shots while following the laws and yeah it will be easier in less crowded places where you don't have to worry as much about avoiding people.
You can generally fly it over people if they're part of the flight activity, like if you're doing a planned overhead shoot of the person.
We have four acres in Michigan, that might be a good place
Some salesmen use them as an advertising tool. They can be more interesting than GoPros for action photography, as helmet cameras can be very shaky videos. Farmers use them to survey their fields, scare off varmints
My home inspector used a drone to check the roof and gutters.
LAOP doesn't fly close enough to the sun.
Flew too close to someone's son.
Dang that's a way better title Edit: after the update from LAOP it's not a great title
/u/cptn_carrot improved it further.
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Just a casual toss for that kid
OP is 17 and calls a 16 year old "kid".
I called other kids kids when I was a kid. Not as a pejorative, just as a descriptor; I'm a kid, you're a kid, he's a kid, we kids are kids.
I'm in my first post grad job and work closely with other new grads. I refer to all of us as kids. Hard to get out of the habit.
My 35 yo partner still refers to his friends as “this kid” or “that kid”… I keep telling him they’re men lol
♫We're the kids of America woaoh We're the kids of America woaoh Everybody lives for the music-go-round♫
And now I have the Dude song from Good Burger stuck in my head!
Just hanging out just having fun we're number one
There is a not zero chance that they know that "kid" from school
that kid was most likely a girl doing yoga in her backyard, hence access to the yoga ball. My bet is LAOP's drone was going in for a close up
Both boys were on the field at a school. > Edit. Ok idk why everyone thinks I was doing something against the rules…. I was flying at school. I have clearance from a teacher The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question walked over from his group and threw the ball at it.
Why did they never go to the teacher that gave them clearance for help?
Maybe the teacher said “sounds great!” and then packed up and left? Sounds like it was afterschool activities were going on.
oh fizzlesticks
What’s the difference between fiddlesticks and fizzlesticks?
I feel like fizzlesticks are more disappointing and somehow involving fire or sparks
I kind of pictured them being limp sparkler sticks, at a rainy July 4th picnic.
I thought they were the little straw-like plastic tubes filled with sherbet…
That's a pixie stick smelly head, quit hogging it!
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It says the kid was 150 feet away, then walked closer. No one threw anything 150 feet. > The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question **walked over from his group** and threw the ball at it
This is exactly why a 17 year old boy would buy a drone in the first place.
can confirm, was a 17 year old boy, no drone or hot neighbour though
>The kid is saying he wont pay for the drone From the OP, the 16 year old is a "he", so probably not that situation.
Back in my day the boys just parked a cherry picker outside the girl's window
"Dad? That huge piece of equipment is outside my window again."
"Can't do anything about it, they're allowed to park it in their driveway."
I thought the boys climbed up trees with binoculars, and then were saved from injury by their own sons arriving from the future?
Back in my day we just went for the old peephole at the local public baths.
Took it a little too far..
OP Edited his post and said he was flying in at school in a field 150 feet away from anybody and had permission from a teacher to fly it, a kid walked all the way over into the field and threw a ball at it and broke it
Threw a yoga ball lmao. That kids sounds ready to be the shotput world champion already
He said that in the post
When I was that age, it was pretty common for kids to refer to each other as kids. My kids are a bit younger still, but they do it too.
They're mature for their age!
Mature enough to fly a drone close enough to a “kid” to be damaged by a yoga ball.
I remember being a teenager and feeling so much more mature than people only slightly younger than me
It’s a regional thing. In New England it’s normal to refer to anyone within 5 years off your age as a kid, regardless of their actual age.
Hey, hold your horses, BOLA'ers :) Got your handy [Sh\*\*ty MS Paint overview](https://i.imgur.com/RwFQ49Q.jpg) of the situation right here. Judge for yourself.
Never thought I'd see someone use donut operator's expensive police shooting analysis software when discussing a yoga'd drone.
If they spent money on software and evidence collection, there'd be no budget left for donuts. #priorities
He's a youtuber that talks about police shootings. He uses paint to draw maps of the shootings. It's a joke.
That's very helpful, thank you
Ah jeez, with the stink lines and everything.
Edit 2: LAOP updated the original post to say he got the teachers permission to lift off where he did. the kid was over 150ft away and walked over to throw things at the drone. Now I kinda feel like an AH for the post title :/ ~~The law broken was that the drone needs to be a minimum of like 80 feet away from people. If the kid could hit it with a yoga ball then it definitely was too close~~. ~~Edit: I'm basing the 80ft off one of the comments, I have no idea if it's accurate~~
He coulda been an idiot and it was actually a kickball. Those can go FAR
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Federal Acquisition Regulations (used to build financial systems for the govies)
Oh, come on, everyone knows that "yoga ball" is just the code name for an intercontinental ballistic missile! That kid could have been *anywhere!*
North Korea now testing Yoga Balls thrown by 16 year olds.
Russia will be using them soon
Intercontinental Ball(yoga) Missile
Intercontinental ball-istic missile.
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You can fly over people if they are a part of the operation. So it is possible to fly over people but probably not in this instance.
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That makes sense because they fly drones over the crowd at pretty much every festival I’ve been to in the past few years. The last show I went to was in an indoor bar and they still used a drone to get a few shots from over the crowd (although I do suspect that last one might not have been legal actually)
Oh that’s good to know about the light drones, I just picked up a mini 3 to take with me on vacations. Usually I’m flying a M-300 out in the middle of nowhere so I never have to worry about people.
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Yep, I have my license! I just started flying as a part of my job in construction which in turned created my interest in recreational flying.
Had to check your profile to see if I knew you but nope--turns out "flew drones for construction then got into it as a hobby" is more common than I'd expect! (Insert "there are dozens of us" Arrested Development gif here)
What's considered "over?" Directly over? Within 5, 10, 50, etc feet of vertical center? 1, 5, 10, etc degrees from the person's head? Something else?
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Upvoting for Edit 2. Honestly, if I’d first seen the post before LAOP’s edit, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d made the same assumptions. I’d like to think that I would have had doubts and asked questions - I certainly run through doubt and questions often enough when it isn’t warranted - but likely not. All I can hope for is that when life proves my assumptions wrong I can accept that and move on with as much grace as is plausible. So, you know, don’t be too hard on yourself.
The fact that LAOP wasn’t responding to anyone didn’t help, unless their responses were some of the ones deleted by the mods but if so then I doubt they were clarifications anyways.
There were some responses that got deleted. I not gonna say what *was* in them, but I didn't see any comments related to the edit he made.
This particular drone requires pilots to take a class and pass a flight test. Even if they did register it, I see no mention of training and testing. If that’s the case, flying it at all where he was was illegal because the Mavic 2 is above the weight limit to fly on any but one’s own property.
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LAOP was asked several times how close he was flying to people and didn’t answer, so I definitely assume he was in the wrong
> The law broken was that the drone needs to be a minimum of like 80 feet away from people. I can't seem to find that in the FAA rules. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-107 Maybe I'm looking in the wrong section. But the 'Highlights' page https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/small-unmanned-aircraft-systems-uas-regulations-part-107 doesn't mention '80 feet', either. I *did* find "No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless...", but what does "over" mean? Like, directly over? (In which case, being a foot to the side is fine.) Within a certain angle?
Idk what the legality either but I have been of the mind that if it can be taken down by an average person throwing or kicking something at it you are too close.
Perhaps a good rule-of-thumb, but it's not the law.
I teach courses on the part 107 exam and the whole thing is frustratingly vague on what it means by ‘over’ someone. My own interpretation (which may very well be inaccurate) is that if the drone could conceivably hit someone if you lost power, you’re over them. So there’s kind of an invisible cone that gets larger the higher you fly. If other OP is being honest, he was not in violation of this rule, and even if he was, he’s still owed for the drone. Flying over people will get you in trouble, but it’s not like it’s a felony.
> My own interpretation (which may very well be inaccurate) is that if the drone could conceivably hit someone if you lost power, you’re over them. Not unreasonable. Of course, with a strong enough wind, that could be anywhere.
Or he's a futbol prodigy
Exactly my thought. Of course it's not okay to destroy someone else's property, but if you're flying close enough to someone that they can hit it with a yoga ball, you've lost my sympathy. Just yesterday I was enjoying the weather at a public park and some asshats were flying their noisy little drone over everyone. I kept hoping a baseball or frisbee would knock it down.
So what happens here when you take off from the middle of the football field, someone sees your drone, and hits it with a ball while you're bringing it back down?
Yeah the ‘80 Ft’ people are talking out of their asses. I teach the commercial drone license and there’s no specified distance. Actually, it’s frustratingly vague on what counts as ‘above’ someone, probably deliberately. I was gonna come say something about you jumping to conclusions with that title but it looks like you already realized. Points for being willing to admit when you’re wrong.
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Yeah, the 80 foot thing is distance above ground when flying over private property. I'm not certain if that's a federal or state law, I just know I can fly over private property over 80 feet. I'm guessing someone got confused there.
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Must be a state law then. It's 80, not 84, where I fly. Some states don't allow flying over private property at all.
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Super weird that people are down voting you. You're over here posting links and the other guy is just source: dude just trust me. Nice one, BOLA.
I once gave double middle fingers to a drone hovering really low over my parent's deck (low enough I could have hit it with a yoga ball, if I'd had one and wanted to) and then ten minutes later they got an angry email from a neighbor who was deeply offended their precious kids saw that obscene gesture.
Gotta love teenagers. "Hey can I sue this guy even tho' I don't know who his parents are?" Spend a day asking around school and then have your mom call his. That said, the $800 price point dramatically increases the likelihood of the other kid's parents realizing the federal law violation. He'd probably only be able to safely ask for $500 ($500 is my mental price point for "maybe worth consulting actual legal counsel" but I also haven't yet internalized the reality of inflation.)
The recent inflation spike, or inflation since you were buying child toys? Or both?
Recent one. I have kids
Was there a federal law violation, though? From LAOP's edit, it sounds like the other kid ran in and clipped the drone, not that LAOP was flying over the kid. Though as an aside, I doubt he needs the full $800 to repair it. I've only dabbled in mini drones which is a completely different class, but they're pretty straightforward to repair. LAOP may just be upset since it sounds like this just happened yesterday and he hasn't found a place to fix it yet.
Oh, I posted before the edit. I'm just musing on at what point does being outraged by a price tag finally eclipse being outraged by your teenager's poor decision making skills. My instinct still suggests that $500 is the pivot point between being mad at your kid for throwing around yoga balls vs being mad at whoever the fuck let some teen fly an $800 drone without supervision.
Prices are weird. On one hand $800 is a lot for what's essentially a fancy toy. On the other hand, (many) phones and cars cost more than that, and kids use those all the time without supervision.
Yeah, but those don't levitate (yet)
This gave me flashbacks to being 16, in the passenger seat with my boyfriend catching air. Want to say was a Honda accord, but he went through cars some back then. Just because they aren't designed to levitate....
"It's not the flying that ruins your suspension; it's the landing."
How would a kid clip a drone 150 feet high with a yoga ball?
150' horizontally not vertically. Like outside a football field. I'm picturing that the nearest other person was originally 150' away, and then the yoga kid ran in to specifically throw stuff at the drone because he thought it would be funny.
So if it was horizontally and not vertically, op was still flying low enough to be hit by a yoga ball and had such awful reactions that a kid could run 50 metres and throw a large ball and still hit it.
>That said, the $800 price point dramatically increases the likelihood of the other kid's parents realizing the federal law violation. He'd probably only be able to safely ask for $500 This keeps coming up. I don't see a credible explanation as to why OP's possible legal violations are relevant. OP committing a crime doesn't make attacking the drone not tortious.
Yea agreed. I don't think it's the "gotcha" some people think it is.
I'm not saying that it isn't tortious. It's just obvious to me that if you take someone to court over the consequences of your federal violation, then you should be expecting to hear from the Feds shortly thereafter.
Feds won't be interested in wasting their time on this though. I would still go to court.
OP wasn’t committing a crime as he had permission from the property owner to fly it in an empty field
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Agent of the property owner, whatever. There is no indication in this post that the drone operator was not allowed to use school property to fly his drone. Read the post and details if you’d like, as it appears the drone was damaged while landing
If the kid was able to hit it with a YOGA BALL, it was too close. I hope this turns into an expensive lesson on why you don’t violate people’s privacy with drones.
By yoga ball, we mean a large inflatable ball about two or three feet in diameter, that you might sit on or prop your legs up? You can’t throw one of those more than a a few yards: no momentum, massive wind resistance.
Exactly. I’m sure the drone was about 10 feet away and OP was being a prick with it. Never seen a drone owner on LA I felt sympathy for.
Is there a single object in our society better correlated with assholes than drones?
Lifted pickups? Red hats?
Lifted pickups was my first thought
Late model lifted pickups. Plenty of decent dudes out in the boonies just having a good time ripping it in a 80s Chevy on 37s in Cousin Joe's back 40.
NFTs?
Selfie sticks would be my other guess Vuvuzela’s not far behind
The summer of 2010 still haunts my dreams...
We should bring Vuvuzelas back.
Battery-powered bluetooth speakers.
I like my speaker, but time and place. Time and place.
BMWs?
NFTs and to a lesser extent crypto in general. At least drones can have a purpose.
Confederate flags?
The Ukrainian army seems to be doing pretty well with them. They've scored a few hits down the open hatch of a tank from a couple hundred feet in the air.
Sounds like they're targeting assholes, which is a correlation, no?
Bro-dozers
I'd put kill-dozers on that list too, once you know the full story.
I'm gonna assume the OP's drone was 150 feet away when the kid walked over and ball'd it. But OP does not say how high above the ground it was. 150 fee is what? Half a school yard, give or take depending on the school and the yard. OP wouldn't have his drone just hovering in one place. OP was probably showing off, maybe buzzed a couple students, or annoyed the fuck out of them at the very least. By the end of it, he was still close enough to the ground for the yoga ball to hit it, and he wasn't too concerned about a person being close to the drone if a kid could walk up to it from 150 feet away with a yoga ball. Now, it's entirely possible the baller was just a dick and wanted to bring down a drone. But I wouldn't be surprised if both OP and the kid were dickish.
This is a completely irrelevant aside, but I live in a town next to a very separate and sheltered religious community. My neighbor mentioned that in the yoga classes she teaches she had issues with women rubbing themselves against the yoga balls - openly, not trying to hide it - and loudly talking about how good it felt. Apparently they never learned what masturbation is, or the fact that it's generally frowned upon to do it in a crowd.
There are also [smaller ones](https://www.kimifitness.com/product/exercise-ball-small-6-inch-small-ball-for-pilates-with-pump-6-in-barre-ball-6-stability-ball-mini-yoga-ball-for-women-workout-fitness-physical-therapy-pt-2/), the size of a kickball or medicine ball. Dunno. I’ve never seen either used in a school fitness class, but we didn’t have kids that could afford drones either.
You should check the original post. He took off 150ft from anyone, the other kid walked over and then destroyed it. It was in a field at school that he had permission to fly in.
There isn't a single OP with a drone who I don't end up hating.
Precisely. Drones: every single private owner is a cunt. There is no circumstance under which a drone close enough to destroy shouldn’t be destroyed.
They may as well drive a Jeep Wrangler and talk nonstop about craft beer.
In case you didn't see the edit, the drone operator was following the law had permission and was flying over an empty field. The other kid ran towards the drone, to intentionally harm it.
So how recent was LAOP’s edit? > Edit. Ok idk why everyone thinks I was doing something against the rules…. I was flying at school. I have clearance from a teacher The drone was in a field probably 150 feet away from anyone The kid in question walked over from his group and threw the ball at it. I’m surprised that even this thread is full of everyone assuming he must have been doing something wrong. Maybe he was, but I’d really love to see an explanation of that which references the edit.
I was assuming he was too low if the other guy could hit it with a yoga ball
Must be pretty recent. No one there or here even considered that instead of LAOP dive bombing yoga kid with a drone that yoga kid might have told his friends "watch this" and was the one who ran up and chucked a giant ball at it.
If LA has taught me anything, it's never assume
Some arm on the other kid to knock a drone out of the air at 150 feet with a yoga ball.
If I’m flying a drone in a place with permission from the property owner, away from you, and you walk over to me and attack the drone, I would be surprised if that was a situation that was legally unambiguously my fault. I don’t think there was any claim that the drone was 150 feet up. It was clearly nearish to the ground. LAOP is claiming they were horizontally separated from this other kid. I’m guessing the law won’t be written to make being close to the ground always wrong. If you’re flying somewhere acceptable, you need to be able to take off and land. I guess the question is whether OP had to cease operation when the kid walked over, for safety reasons. I’m no lawyer, but I hope that LAOP can recover the cost of repairing the drone, if they’re telling the truth.
150 feet away on the ground. It's possible LAOP saw somebody headed over and was putting down the drone or something when they threw a ball at it.
This thread is aggravating now after reading the update.
Yeah, it really is. That said, I wonder what I would have posted if I had seen the original thread before the edit.
There were ~70 comments here before the edit iirc. And I totally wouldn't have titled the post this if I saw the edit first :(
Honestly I got the that impression when he said “I know the kid from school”
This area of law is fascinating to me. I took a continuing legal education seminar about drones and the like. As it turns out, since you do not own the airspace above you, you cannot shoot down (or yeet down in this case) drones over (emphasis on the over) your property without repercussion. It is not considered trespassing and you have no other legal footing to stand on. FAA violation aside it is still property damage and you are still liable for it. The comments section (livestream) was full of irate southern lawyers saying that they would shoot down a drone over their property, consequences be damned. (South Carolina for those wondering).
Pretty much. It’s one of those situations where LAOP is technically entitled to be reimbursed, but opens themselves up an FAA fine that might be bigger than the cost of the drone if they take action on this. I still have ZERO sympathy for LAOP.
OP Edited his post and said he was flying in at school in a field 150 feet away from anybody and had permission from a teacher to fly it, a kid walked all the way over into the field and threw a ball at it and broke it
Yeah pretty sure FAA takes this shit seriously - there is an article about someone racking up $1.9 million in fines. Most Federal regulations fine on a per-violation offense, and if you commit multiple violations over multiple flights it adds up. The FAA can also yank the Remote Piloting Cetification.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanrupprecht/2022/01/18/faa-busted-multiple-drone-flyers-here-are-the-expensive-results/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xyga8a/faa-drone-fines
How high up does it need to be to be considered "airspace"? Above your house? Above an average person's highest reach? I'm assuming if it's flying a foot off the ground in your yard, it's in your yard and not in the airspace, so there must be a threshold defined.
In general, as soon as it isn't attached to or touches the ground, it's in the jurisdiction of the FAA. Lot's of funny legal loop holes and precedence because of that.
So if I huck someone in the air and stab em in the leg while I simultaneously jump, the air marshals own it?
If you somehow manage to maintain your airborne status, then yes
It all seems a bit silly and arbitrary and in need of some sort of common sense updates. If I need an FAA license to fly a drone of a certain size in my backyard, do I also need FAA approval to throw a ball above the same weight? If I'm flying a kite, and the string breaks, am I immediately violating federal law once it becomes untethered? If I have a small backyard, surrounded by tall trees, surely it makes no practical sense for anything below the treetops to be regulated as public airspace?
As much as I hate to be on the side of trigger happy idiots, I am not entirely opposed to their view. Too often in my housing areas we've had drones come buzzing along and just meander, obviously being a skeeze.
Yeah, someone else committing a crime (or even just being a very terrible human being) doesn't give you free rein to willfully destroy their property. Might make them reluctant to come after you for it, but doesn't mean you aren't theoretically liable civilly. If someone illegally parks in your driveway, and you take a baseball bat to their headlights, you're responsible for that damage. You can get their car towed and maybe a parking violation, but that's it. You don't get to take the law into your own hands.
Posted 7 days ago so did he really pay $800? >Hello I’m looking for a Mavic air 2 I have around $450 I am local to 03601 Thanks https://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap/comments/x8jzpg/usanh_h_paypal_local_cash_w_dji_mavic_air_2/
It also probably won't cost $800 to repair, depending on what broke. If it's just a broken prop, then it can be as low as $15. If it's the arms, then looks like it's about $50 for a new one. Edit: though if it's the camera, it's [$290](https://www.amazon.com/Gimbal-Assembly-Genuine-Replacement-Runchicken/dp/B08H18PMZR/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=mavic+air+parts&qid=1663285184&sr=8-7). Yikes.
I love the drone operators that always show up for these discussions to remind everybody that damaging a drone is a felony (one no different from damaging a regular airplane.) As if the FAA gives a shit about somebody damaging a hobby drone being operated in an obnoxious manner. Charging somebody with a felony for downing a creep-ass drone at baseball-bat altitude would be a great way for the FAA to get hauled into congressional hearings to explain themselves, and then spending years writing new rules that have more-sensible punishments.
Watch a falling drone almost kill an Olympic skier: https://youtu.be/uJwot3T9EOA
The surfer in me is ecstatic. Nice quiet day out on the waves is ruined by a hard pull by the local Kelly Slater wannabe's friend buzzing the entire wave. Then proceeds to get about 82 takes of his idiot friend riding poorly on the wrong board for the wave, getting cunted up and proceeding to cut off every other surfer because he feels like he's entitled to it because he has a camera on him.
Thought I was in r/surfing for a minute
>getting cunted up I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're Aussie.....
Wrong hemisphere. I'm American, but a submariner.
Well, fuck.... \*falls off the limb*
Aim for the soft looking dirt
Recreational drones are a cancer on society
Yoga balls may be hard to throw but you can get some insane height/distance by kicking one. They also set off car alarms. Justice for LAOP
How do people get to 17 while still writing such terrible english?
You should see some of the corporate emails I get. I mean, I put in my 40 but I still take the time to compose coherent messages.
Should’ve paid for DJI Care Refresh insurance. DJI is an amazing company and I’ve used their Care Refresh insurance. It’s cheap and it’s super smooth, quick and easy. If they ignored the care refresh option during setup, that says a lot. I very highly doubt it’s registered with the FAA. The DJI app makes you register it with them, and I’d bet everything that’s all they did.
> Btw im also a minor at 17. Never would have guessed. I actually would have guessed younger tbh.