The international ski federation on Wednesday banned camera drones from its World Cup races, a day after one of the flying objects crashed and nearly hit the Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher during a slalom race in Italy.

see links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/2 ... arcel-hirscher.html

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ ... ocid=ansmsnsports11

This does not help us AT ALL!!
Large camera drone nearly hits Marcel Hirscher during his downhill run. The second link has the video showing the near miss.....

Post your comments

Rich

So a commercial outfit that films sporting events screws up and crashes a non-DJI UAV onto the ski run.
It was a heavy lift X8, nothing like the Inspire.

Where is the relevance to this forum?

Farn, the relevance is about pilots making bad decisions which demonstrates that the entire uav/drone industry will have to be further (and more tightly) regulated because apparently even professionals continue to break the rules.  Seriously, isnt it kind of obvious why Rich posted this?   

Apparently the company who was filming the event had permission from the FIC (equiv of the FAA in the States) to operate the  drone, but were instructed to not fly directly over the course and to maintain a 50 ft distance from the skiers.  But as we can see, the company decided to ignore the rules and they had a very near miss...   As of Today, the FIC has now banned all uses of drones at these skiing events.  No doubt there will be further fallout from this heavily publicized event.  Not unlike SkyPan International, it seems there are lots of professionals who are happy to ignore the rules and permissions which only serves to demonstrate how no one can be trusted to operate their drone in a safe and responsible manner.   The FAA will no doubt parade this event around are a reason to maintain stiff requirements (and stiff penalties) for for hobbyist and commercial drone users alike.   What drone type was used is irrelevant...

It could have been a lot worse

JasonA Posted at 2015-12-24 06:06
Farn, the relevance is about pilots making bad decisions which demonstrates that the entire uav/dron ...

Jason

Nice reply and this is exactly why I posted this situation. It does not matter what brand of the UAV (drone), it is the negative publicity they get when safety is thrown out the window. Granted, some type of failure can occur with any UAV,  but I am sure they could have taken the video from the side of the course and not from directly overhead,

People are wondering why the FAA has stepped in and introduced regulations and sign up... here is why.
The next step is mandatory training, written exams and licensing, not unlike the full scale pilots have to do

Rich

Well, actually you don't know that they were not staying 50' away. You have no idea what happened. The drone may have been outside the course, they lost control and it flew into th course. yes, it looks like it dropped strait down but from a tight shot like that there is simply no way to tell exactly what happened.  We will have to wait and see. The fact is there will always be a chance for an accident like this regardless of how many precautions you take. The only way to avoid it is just not to allow it in the first place. I am sure at some point they will become so reliable that it would be as rare as commercial airliner crashing but until then, the simple fact of the matter is there will always be a certain amount a risk involved.

Aw, seriously. If I was not an RC guy, and read all this news, I would definitely think that the drones are a most evil things ever

The media beat up whenever a UAV fails or is stupidly operated is bad enough without us getting caught up as well.
All we can do is fly safely, manage risk and be positive examples of how UAV can be operated appropriately.

houston Posted at 2015-12-24 15:57
Well, actually you don't know that they were not staying 50' away. You have no idea what happened. T ...

Houston

I agree that we do not know what happened and this product has risk associated with it. We just do not need this bad publicity..... if you want to keep being allowed to use our UAVs. The next thing you know is they want to ban all of them

Rich

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-12-25 05:18
The media beat up whenever a UAV fails or is stupidly operated is bad enough without us getting caug ...

http://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y

pluigi Posted at 2015-12-24 22:26
http://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y

nice recap, but my German is rusty ...

Rich