abe
Second Officer
Flight distance : 524032 ft
United States
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This afternoon I was flying my Inspire over the San Francisco Bay along a quiet, park-like setting minding my own business when suddenly I heard a car horn blasting and a woman screaming. I turned around to see what the commotion was, and the woman turned out to be screaming at me, demanding I land that "thing." She said I should know it is illegal to fly that thing, and if I didn't land it immediately she would call the police. Of course, she was behind me and I was turned the other way trying to fly, so I just told her that I wasn't breaking any laws and that she was welcome to do whatever she wanted. She continued to scream at me for some time while I paid attention to "that thing," and she drove off screaming about how I was going to have it taken away from me.
By time she was gone, my battery was largely depleted so I landed, took my time putting everything away in the case and was standing next to my car ready to leave when a police car pulled up next to me. The policewoman inside asked if I had seen anyone flying a drone. I told her that as a matter of fact, I had -- it was me, at least until a screaming, horn-blowing woman interrupted my flight. I explained that I was being cautious, flying over the bay and not doing anything illegal, and she said that the woman had claimed I was causing a distraction. I had to laugh, since it was the woman that was causing the distraction, and the policewoman laughed with me and said, "those drones are pretty cool, I'm thinking of getting one."
Well, I immediately opened my trunk and showed her the Inspire, explained how it worked, showed her the app (including the flight path I'd just flown, proving without a doubt that I had not caused a distraction to anything but some fish), and to make a long story short, I'm pretty sure that policewoman is on DJI's website buying one right now -- albeit probably a Phantom as she was pretty disappointed to learn the price of the Inspire ;-)
Up until that moment I'd had nothing but positive experiences from people seeing me fly my Phantom or Inspire. Usually complete strangers come up to me and ask questions with child-like enthusiasm. I suppose there will always be haters out there, but I'm really hoping that woman never creates any offspring.
I suppose the upside is that I had the honor of educating a law enforcement officer on the fine qualities of flying a drone.
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