Duck Hunter Kills Hexacopter Drone
I wrote this article for my dronesandotherspystuff.com blog and thought you all might get a kick out of it.
An interesting thing happened to a handmade drone late last year when a hexacopter drone was blown out of the sky with a shotgun. It was an innocent mistake. The neighbor who blasted it thought it was a CIA surveillance aircraft. God bless America.
The problem, of course, is that it was not a government spy craft (although it certainly could have been) but a neighbor's hexacopter drone he happened to be flying over his parent's property. You can imagine the surprised look on his face as he saw it fluttering to the ground like a wounded duck. It landed in pieces next to his driveway. The neighbor quickly called out to see if his shot hit the mark. After meeting face to face with the neighbor and discussing what happened, both men shuffled away to their own homes.
Although the copter was in shambles, the young man managed to salvage a good part of it but half of it had been blasted to smithereens. He contacted the neighbor via email. He began his email by congratulating his neighbor on his marksmanship but indicated he was a little bummed he had only had about three and one-half minutes of flying time after building the drone before seeing it disintegrate before his eyes. He continued to say the good news was he managed to salvage many of the parts but there was an outstanding balance of about $700 that would have to be replaced and he respectfully requested his neighbor pay this.
The neighbor was taken aback with the outstanding cost, indicated it seemed a little excessive and he would be willing to split the cost and would be sending a check that afternoon. He emailed his response and was ready to submit the check when another email was received from the young man.
This message contained more specific information as to why the young man was remaining adamant about receiving full payment per his initial email.
"I must insist on full payment for the equipment you damaged, as you shot it when it was above my property. The aircraft's GPS data positions show it was clearly above our orchard."
He went on to reiterated the hexacopter crashed next to their driveway over 200' from the dirt road that separates their properties. He continued with additional details substantiating his position indicating the hexacopter had no camera or the cost would have been over $300 more than the $1,500 he had invested in building it and, if necessary, he would be happy to discuss it further.
The neighbor basically told the young man to pound sand after which the young man decided he had no choice but to take his neighbor to Small Claim's Court. The court found in the young man's favor and awarded him $850 with the following admonishment:
"(The) Court finds that (The neighbor) acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not."
As far as we know, the young man has yet to collect his $850 although he did threaten further legal action if necessary. As for the neighbor, chances are he will not be shooting any more aircraft out of the sky. We also wonder what he thought the CIA would do to him if it were one of their drones. We will, however, award him an A for marksmanship but an F for stupidity.
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Great story!