given that flying is regulated by the FAA there might be federal laws that are more important that local laws in the case of the balloon .
Well, at least it wasn’t dropped like this:
[quote=“bump, post:22, topic:823468”]
Well, at least it wasn’t dropped like this:
[/QUOTE] That guy is way too excited about a failed drop. I imagine he is also the guy who sits overlooking a slippery corner on the first snowfall and watches cars slide through and crash repeatedly while laughing hysterically.Stranger
Like an arsonist cheering while he films the burning house. The failed drop in that video was due to deliberate sabotage. One person was convicted of Destruction of Government Property. The laughing film-maker was only given a letter of reprimand for unprofessional conduct since it could not be proven that he had prior knowledge of the incident or was otherwise involved. Things are hard to prove, I guess.
What a pig-fucker. It is one thing to play practical jokes, and minor vandalism is a common occurrence that just happens when you have bored people sitting around, but mucking up anything involved with load rigging and especially airdrop ought to be a court martial offense even if no one is hurt or ostensibly put in harm’s way.
Stranger
the guy who made the video was also Army or AF and from the same unit? or the same base?
All in the Army. They were in different units. The guy who cut the straps was a cavalry scout stationed at a nearby base. His unit was there for a training exercise. The guy who filmed the drop was stationed at the training base, possibly an Observer Coach Trainer, OPFOR or support personnel.
It was at a festival; it wasn’t our balloon, but it was the balloon of friends. We knew they landed, we knew about where they landed. It was getting later & later & they still weren’t back yet. A phone call was made & we found out the basics of what was going on; later on we got the full details.
We have ‘red zone’ maps of places we can’t land; working animal farms, curmudgeonly people (most people want you to land on their property), etc. This property was not on those maps; that was changed before the flight the next morning!. It was a gated & security-patrolled property of the CEO of a company that any American Doper, & many of our international Dopers, would know, though.
One can prevent people from entering your property; however, preventing recovery of an aircraft becomes a form of hijacking (IANAL; don’t ask me the finer points of this). Local PD were called; the deal that was brokered was the LPD would be allowed to enter the property & pack up the balloon & bring it out. I don’t remember the details of why they were [del]suckered into[/del] nice enough to do manual labor.
One time my father in law had a Jose Cuervo balloon land on his property. As soon as he started “negotiating” for some tequila in exchange for permission to retrieve it, the truck drove up and they handed him a bottle. Apparently that’s a pretty standard request from property owners.
A truck? Pfft, amateurs.
When I was little we lived near a bombing range. (Just outside of town was “Bombing Range Road”!) We’d get supersonic dogfights and such.
Things got dropped in the wrong place quite a big. I’ve got a newspaper clipping about a dummy bomb taking out a guy’s well in the next town over. The article mentions it was the second such accident in recent weeks. The graveyard got hit by that one. Got a few more like that. Not all are reported.
Dummy bombs of course. Still could ruin your day (or well or grandma’s grave) if it hit you.
But they also tested missiles. One day one went off track and hit east of town. I large convoy of vehicles hightailing out to the tullies went thru town. A rocket with fuel still in it would ruin your day even more.
They also released weather balloons and such, so quite a few UFO reports.
It’s traditional, since the second-ever balloon flight, to give the landowners champagne. I guess they modify that a bit.