Beijing From Above, aka How I was police detained for flying a Quadcopter

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2014/06/19/dji-quadcopter-china-detention/

by zhte415 • 12 years ago

104 52 12 years ago

stuckincustoms.com

Cookingboy• 12 years ago

The story was definitely interesting, and the Chinese authority actually acted very leniently.

Additionally, the footage was amazing, sometimes I forget how beautiful that city is on days with little smog :)

annnnd• 12 years ago

I wonder why second group stopped by, the explanation doesn't seem plausible to me... did you check the quadcopter for any signs of tampering? Anyway, nice shots!

servowire• 12 years ago

Well, you are flying a semi-toy without proper safety near people, buildings, above roads, cars, etc on a tourist site. An arrest might be slightly over the top, but this should not be allowed.

I'm a model RC pilot for 20 years and these kind of "stunts" are hurting the hobby. At least ask for permission next time.

A phantom only has 4 motors, and the quality is "meh" - there is hardly any 2nd control (fa I have tripple recievers in my jets, if one RC system fails I still regain control over another radio).

It has a "failsafe" - i=even if it works it's still not really good in an urban area. GPS signals might be weak (flyaway danger) and it's only flies to 25 meters when returning to home. It could fly into a tower or even not reach proper 25 meter when the 3D GPS lock is weak or disengaged.

My 2 cents. Sorry. Please people, don't fly above crowded areas. I've seen a Phantom hit a car it's almost 1KG of deadweight when it comes down. It's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.

dirktheman6• 12 years ago

As an avid RC/quadcopter enthousiast I second this. Do not fly over populated areas. Imagine flying a 2 pound brick with 4 sharp, spinning blades at 25 mph. With a camera attached. Sounds safe? You're right, they're not. I've seen a quadcopter crash through the windshield of a car without any trouble.

Flying over urban areas is asking for trouble, and will hurt the RC hobby gravely. It's people like these who will cause a legal ban on RC models.

chiph• 12 years ago

There have been photos published on Reddit from people who were seriously cut up by the spinning propeller blades - both from RC helicopters and commercial quadcopters.

Not something I want happening to me, or being responsible for.

Florin_Andrei2• 12 years ago

Imagine flying a 2 pound brick with 4 sharp, spinning blades at 25 mph.

With 4 sharp blades spinning at potentially over 10k RPM.

The quad I'm building now has a foam shield all around the rotors. And it's a mini. It's gonna be slow, but safe(r).

jgrahamc2• 12 years ago

Part of the problem with these devices is accessibility. It's been common for a long time for people doing RC to get involved in clubs, build their own aircraft, understand how the aircraft works (how it flies, its engine, its radio components).

Quadcopters seem totally 'plug and play'.

I'm involved (somewhat) in high-altitude balloon flights and we have a similar problem. People want to be able to buy a kit of everything they need to launch a balloon into the stratosphere. There's been a lot of resistance in the UKHAS because we want people to learn about the entire process (and that includes safety).

dirktheman6• 12 years ago

Accessibility is an issue. Technology that was military-grade only 1 decade ago (UAV's, powerful model rockets which can be converted to guided missiles) is available for anyone to buy online today.

With great buying power comes great responsibiliy.

andygates• 12 years ago

It's Eternal September for model fliers (yes, I stuck a Parrot drone in a very tall tree).

cjrp• 12 years ago

Out of interest, do you have to contact NATS and get a NOTAM put out for balloon launches?

airassault2• 12 years ago

What are the punishments for "taking down a quadcopter? Ever since seeing Bezos on 60 minutes, i keep thinking that this would be a good hobby. If the copter was just re-routed to a different locations and not harmed, would this still be a crime. Most likely.

I assume taking control of the machine with out permission would not be easy, but possible. Also a game show where the copters fight to the death would fill the void of "Robot Wars" being of TV.

icebraining• 12 years ago

Right now taking control is not that hard[1], since most quadcopters are unprotected, but I suspect more autonomous versions (which are supposed to fly without line-of-sight by the operator) will probably only accept encrypted and authenticated packets.

[1] http://samy.pl/skyjack/

jobigoud• 12 years ago

1. Get four quadcopters.

2. Stretch a net between them.

3. Catch the passing freight quadcopter.

4. Get the package, get the parts.

5. Profit.

But now the other bandits are doing it too. Add automated defense mechanisms. Intercept competitors. Degenerates into fully unmanned airborne war.

spyder• 12 years ago

Yea, here is a video about an injury caused by DJI Phantom 2 with carbon fiber blades (warning: some blood dripping):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji3Hii_LZOc

Sure the propeller is not the original, but it shows that quadcopters can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

dirktheman6• 12 years ago

That top comment: "I catch by hand all the time"...

A stiff carbon blade rotating at 35,000 RPM causing injury? Who would've guessed!

drdaeman• 12 years ago

Just curious. Are there RC multirotors that employ some other emergency measures than GPS-based navigation in case of lost connectivity, but can also survive fairly severe power, rotor or engine failures?

Judging from YouTube videos, autorotation doesn't seem to cut it - it's still falling too fast, but maybe something like deploying an emergency parachute - if altitude allows for it, or maybe (not sure if that's a sane thought) some inflatable wings to glide and thus not gain much vertical speed. Anything so it won't fall down like a brick.

rtkwe• 12 years ago

You can't pull autorotation with fixed pitch blades, at least not in any meaningful manner. Light quads can fall pretty slowly with pinwheeling motors but that's not actually autorotation. The way a helicopter is able to autorotate is to pull negative pitch, which spins the rotors using the fall energy of the copter, then shortly before crashing pulling back to positive pitch and using the still spinning blades to slow down to a controlled landing.

For motor failure ETH Zurich has some research out there about recovering to normal(ish) flight after a prop loss. The quad goes into a pretty rapid spin but it's still controllable, link below to an outside the lab test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs

Varcht• 12 years ago

There is indeed some work going on with failsafe parachute deployment and one or two commercially available solutions. So far they are not very popular from what I have seen being very much involved in the hobby.

belorn• 12 years ago

It seems there should be a nice market for improve safety. Making hard objects slow down or crash safely is not a total unexplored area.

Has there been any experiments with airbags? I did find experiments with parachutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhrZbiK0T0), so safety seems to be a work-in-progress in order render that 1KG of deadweight into something more manageable.

Last, I must ask since this is a security issue, what is the statistics on this problem? Is a person flying a 1KG quadcopter in a crowded areas more dangerous than a person using bicycle in a city? The comparison is not perfect, but it would be nice to have some comparisons to other recreational activities performed in crowded areas.

nznd-yyt• 12 years ago

No zuo no die why you try?

KhalPanda2• 12 years ago

"Police detained"? Aka "arrested"?

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

I'm bothered by all the extreme political correctness to the absurd trends lately.

RobAley2• 12 years ago

Er, depending on your country, they are different things. In the UK, you can be detained by police for a short period of time (e.g. during a stop-check or search on the street), but it isn't an arrest, you're "just" prevented from leaving whereever you are for a short period of time. If you are arrested, it means you are taken to a police station where a whole lot of rights/procedures/paperwork kicks in. Different countries have different points where they hit the dividing line between detaining and arresting.

danieldrehmer• 12 years ago

once I was astronaut detained

pnngndclsng• 12 years ago

TL;DR --> no jail

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

The shots are beautiful, totally worth it. I also forget how great Beijing can be in clean air.

hexagonc• 12 years ago

The views were beautiful but the scene transitions in the video got irritating. I stopped watching after a while.

zo1• 12 years ago

Why do I get the impression that this guy was really, really, really lucky? Certainly more lucky than I'd imagine him being if he did a similar thing in the USA next to some FBI/CIA buildings.

clamprecht• 12 years ago

That was my thought exactly. Scary to think that we now consider the US more harsh than China. Amazing what can happen in 20 years.

AlisdairSH• 12 years ago

I had the same thought. Not so much that he'd be treated worse in the US, but that the Chinese police seemed perfectly reasonable given the newness/strangeness of the "offense".

I was also pleasantly surprised he got the copter and camera back at the end.

westiseast• 12 years ago

I second the thought that the "newness" of the crime, the fact that he's a foreigner, and that he was very friendly and open when they questioned him was the saving grace. I've never been in really serious trouble with the police in China, but by-and-large they tend to be quite nice (assuming you're cooperating and plead idiocy).

Northern/Beijing police are also famous for their sense of humour.

contingencies• 12 years ago

I've been nabbed by police in China for walking in the wrong area with a camera. It's not the end of the world when it happens, they just have to make sure you're not some smart-ass intelligence agent trying to pull one over them. They're generally quite nice and just doing their job. I suspect the US and UK would be less lenient. China's actually surprisingly relaxed as long as you're a little bit adaptable.

baby2• 12 years ago

He's lucky it was in China and not in the US and that he was not a chinese. I've had friends doing a strip tease in front of a group of cops, other smoke weed not far from a police station, and a lot of other stupid crap. The fact that you're a foreigner they will allow a lot of things.

Actually I had my fair share of police encounters in France as well and it never went bad. The last I remember was asking cops to take me in their cars to a club (I was completely drunk), they told me they were not a taxi company. I then told them they had to take me because I was inebriated, they just laughed at me and left.

In 2 weeks in the US I got arrested twice. Once for eating a sandwich 5meters from people drinking alcohol in the street. Then the second time, while I was going to court for that stupid shit I got arrested for going through the subway gate twice in less than 15 minutes even though I had an unlimited pass.

/rant over. Cops are cool in a lot of places. Not in the US.

doctorKrieger3• 12 years ago

whats wrong with going twice through the subway gate? Also since when you can get arrested for eating a sandwich?

CraigJPerry• 12 years ago

Worst "I have a dji phantom" blog post ever :-)

dalore2• 12 years ago

What device is a Samsung Nexus Android (S4)?

kalleboo• 12 years ago

http://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_nexus_i9250-4219.php

dalore2• 12 years ago

Thanks. Tried googling it at all I got was Samsung Galaxy S4 vs the Nexus.

Although that link says known as the samsung galaxy nexus 3.

mkesper• 12 years ago

For a second I thought he was tortured with cupping glasses, but no, that seems to have been self-inflicted torture...

justicezyx• 12 years ago

Well, Chinese sky space is tightly regulated. If you are a law-abiding citizen, just try to learn them first, then post some article with less-misleading titles...

Beijing From Above, aka How I was police detained for flying a Quadcopter

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