Pumavic
 lvl.3
United States
Offline
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As a beginner, living in a beach town, I'm really mindful I don't go to areas crowded with people, etc...and so far, not even a dozen flights, my experience has been pretty good around other people. Nobody yet, has become agitated and the few people that talked with me were generally curious and were friendly and we would chat briefly and part ways.
Yesterday I had it all at once. I was in an Authorization zone, got it Unlocked and was stoked to fly close to home where I can jump on my bike and cruise to a bunch of places. So I'm on top of a bluff with a lot of trails that overlook the ocean. I do a round and I'm returning to home, and as I lower to a hover about 8' I notice a woman coming down the trail, she has headphones on so at least she's not going to be annoyed by the hovering sound. I'm about 50' off the trail, but as she walks by she says, "Hey that's pretty cool! Is it just a hobby or for work?" I tell her for now it's just a hobby. She goes on to say that the reason she was convinced to move from North Carolina was because of drone footage of the area she lives at now in town. Wow, that's pretty cool, we chat a bit more and she goes on down the trail.
Then as I wrap everything up I feel a weird vibe, look over my shoulder and there's some other woman standing there staring at me with a deadpan face...for 5 solid minutes!? Eventually she comes around because she has to pass me to go down the trail. She starts our conversation with, "Do you know what the FAA rules are for flying that thing around an airport!?" I was taken aback and replied, "Hi, how are you doing? Uh, who are you?" She replies, "I'm a concerned citizen and I want to know if you know the FAA rules!" I tell her, yep, I sure do know the rules and said if she didn't know what they were to go find out herself. She continues and wants to know if I live in the area, yep right across the street, and if I fly at night? I ask her if she walks her dog at night? Finally she gives up and says, "You know what no problem, I'll be seeing you around." Then points at me like shooting a pistol. So I shoot my finger pistol back at her and say, "Yep, see ya around". WTF!?
I know it's inevitable that the longer you fly eventually you're gonna come across some yahoo that has nothing better to do than to bust your chops. This was just really interesting because just moments before I had a really cool interaction. And the whole thing about the "concerned citizen" was: I never flew anywhere near the airport. Max height was 100'. My entire 10-15 min. flight I didn't see anyone around the whole area I was flying. It wasn't like I buzzed her and scared her or her dog, nothing for her to be alarmed about, she turned a corner and saw it hovering for a minute before I brought it down. Anyway, I guess this is the ups and downs of flying.
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