Seen this? "Drone sparked a scare"

[billh117]

Drone sparked a scare BY ANDREW STRICKLER
andrew.strickler@newsday.com

August 23, 2008



A foreign-born engineer sparked a regional terrorism investigation when he tested a drone at the Calverton airfield, state and local officials said Friday.

The engineer built the several-foot-long model at a hangar he had leased there and conducted a test on the ground on the night of Jan. 31, 2007, according to Michael Balboni, New York State deputy secretary for public safety.

The nighttime activity on a largely unused airstrip caught the interest of a security guard, who contacted Suffolk police. They in turn contacted New York City police as part of a post-9/11 effort to share such information.

No threat was discovered, and the man was never charged. If it had worked, the drone would have been capable of carrying a large payload of explosives or hazardous material, officials said. The engineer had financial backers and had hoped to sell the model to the U.S. military, Balboni said.



Balboni was unable Friday to provide the man's name or nationality. WNBC identified the man as an Egyptian national who entered the country on a Sudanese passport. The engineer was later deported for reasons unrelated to the drone.

Balboni added that officials never believed the drone was capable of flight, comparing it to "an oversized model airplane."

"For a while it raised a lot of concern. There were a lot of eyes on this guy," he said. "Who was this guy, and why is he testing this at night?"

The FBI, Homeland Security, and New York State Police were also involved in the investigation, which took several months to complete.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said the department "was concerned about its potential misuse in proximity to the city." The drone has since been destroyed and the project abandoned.

Balboni emphasized the importance of security at airfields around New York City.

"The Mumbai, London, and Madrid attacks were all planned outside the cities ... and that's why Long Island is so crucial to the security of New York City," he said.


"an oversized model airplane" ??? That would never work!! :)

BTW: This was taken from this weeks AUVSI's Unmanned Systems eBrief - Issue #36

[Gary Mortimer]

Ban Hobby Lobby and all American RC aircraft flyers that's what I say.

Never fly a model aircraft if you have a tan.

Never tinker in your shed or garage at night with models that you should not have anyway.

That report is shocking actually, it identifies somebody by race, then says no crime was commited but goes on infer that something might have been going on and then links this activity to other crimes, then it says the chap was deported, for other reasons. Therefore he must be guilty!!!

I bet this is already being told as fact in the US of nasty foreign types using UAV's against the country.

Be a good idea to stop anyone over there having anything that might be used for improving farming or fire patrols.

Yep you've guessed it this half arsed reporting has made me mad!

Use any evidence however small to build a case against a person or state and attack, thats what I say.

[c_matt92]

I really wish the world would calm down a little bit on "robots". This report just goes to show you what an uninformed public is capable of doing when they get bits and pieces of facts. I am on a robotics team at college and we went one night to the local truckstop because they had lots of coffee and were working on our projects (they were all about 5"x5" in size). You wouldn't believe the amount of people that asked us if we could attack the police or something like that with them. Hopefully, as time goes by, we can educate the general public, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen any time soon.

[d_wheel]

I believe the "authorities" did the correct thing in this case. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy flying autonomous aircraft very much and have been doing so for years. However, it would be simple for the authorities to find out that I am no threat to national security. This gentleman, however, fits the profile very well. Regardless of how you feel about personal rights, there has to be a limit. In some cases it is "damned if you do, damned if you don't". This seems to be one of those cases. If this had been a legitimate threat and nothing was done about it, the authorities would have been "double damned" for just sitting by and watching. It has not been proven that it was NOT a threat, yet people are damning the fact that he was "harassed" because of his race, and the fact that he was testing at a time that can easily be conceived as one that might hide his efforts. These folks could have been faulted either way, it is good that they might have done so in the direction of caution. Many of us would have made the same decision.

Later;

D.W.

[Magician]

It might be a mistake to jump to any conclusions based on that one report. It may have been a legit UAV development effort like this one (http://www.americandynamics.us/Gallery.shtml?igid=10018) . This company was located at the Calverton, NY airport and their first outdoor ground runs happened on Feb 13, 2007. Perhaps the initial set-up was done the night of Jan. 31, 2007. Seems like quite a coincidence to have two "UAV development" efforts at the same airport within 2 weeks of each other.

Chris

[Unterhausen]

I sincerely hope that all the terrorists that attack this country from now on are going to try to develop model airplane sized UAVs from the ground up. I'll certainly feel safer knowing that they are too stupid to go rent a general aviation airplane and load it with the equivalent weight of 3 passengers worth explosives. I'm quavering in my boots to think of how much damage they can do with 5lbs of payload.

[shanghai_fool]

That would depend entirely on what the 5 lbs was. I can think of a few things of which 5 lbs or less could do significant damage. A lot of things can be dangerous in the wrong hands. A small unmanned drone can be extremely dangerous. This is a great hobby and its a lot of fun to see what we can do with inexpensive parts but don't forget, there are monsters out there and would use whatever they can to inflict casualities. Remember, you are not paraniod if there really is someone out to get you.

[Gary Mortimer]

The folks that reacted did fine, its the linking together of no story afterwards that is at fault.

Could that security guard not just have asked in the first place??

The authorities went through the motions and found no fault, the media have then spun up the story.

That sort of thing can start wars you know!

Anyhow I'm not talking about what I should be here!!!

Lets face it, UAV/FPV whatever, its all an excuse for most of us to buy more expensive toys and tinker with RC aircraft now we are grown up! (Well hopefully not too grown up)

I can think of lots of examples in the Ham radio world where shed tinklers have developed cutting edge out of the box stuff I bet the same applies in this field.

Happy flying all.

[lvspark]

It might be a mistake to jump to any conclusions based on that one report. It may have been a legit UAV development effort like this one (http://www.americandynamics.us/Gallery.shtml?igid=10018) . This company was located at the Calverton, NY airport and their first outdoor ground runs happened on Feb 13, 2007. Perhaps the initial set-up was done the night of Jan. 31, 2007. Seems like quite a coincidence to have two "UAV development" efforts at the same airport within 2 weeks of each other.

Chris

It's the same one, and it is a bit more than a model aircraft with 5lb payload. It was being designed for 600lb payload and 8-10 hour flight duration. Upon investigation, the man behind the project was an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. on a Sudanese passport. It was investigated by several agencies and his "project" was a total unknown. Testing a turbine powered 600lb payload capable UAV at night at a small rural airport does not sem odd you folks??? I am glad they checked him out.

http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=287130

http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=287019

[Jack Crossfire]

What do U know. It is an AD-150. Yes, U need to do initial flight tests at night. The reason is the winds are lightest, there are less people to crash into, & it's the only time your not doing your day job. It also looks like Mr. "American Dynamics Flight Systems" has no idea what he's doing.
Suspect the media didn't give out the whole story with this one and there were other reasons for the controversy.

[lvspark]

What do U know.

I know there is one less questionable operation and visitor that we the people of this country and those sworn to protect it have to be concerned with. ;)

[Unterhausen]

the company is still there though, so things really did check out. Lots of these little companies that are surviving with SBIR funding are staffed by foreign nationals under H1B visas -- that's who is available for hire. I see nothing particularly suspicious about this at all. Once someone makes a UAV that size and gets it flying to the degree that anyone can fly it, then we have something to worry about. Developing airframes is a particularly difficult and long-term project that doesn't suggest terrorism to me at all.

[macboffin]

the company is still there though, so things really did check out. Lots of these little companies that are surviving with SBIR funding are staffed by foreign nationals under H1B visas -- that's who is available for hire. I see nothing particularly suspicious about this at all. Once someone makes a UAV that size and gets it flying to the degree that anyone can fly it, then we have something to worry about. Developing airframes is a particularly difficult and long-term project that doesn't suggest terrorism to me at all. "Once someone" ( someone being a well funded and staffed outfit) makes a UAV that size which anyone can fly". Anyone? Anyone who can afford the training programme, let alone the cost of the UAV and it's associated support and ground control facilities.Anyone can fly a Predator? "Drone sparked a scare"? No, imperfectly heard runours were seized upon by some dumb clucks as a career enhancing opportunity.

[macboffin]

I know there is one less questionable operation and visitor that we the people of this country and those sworn to protect it have to be concerned with. ;) The questionable people in the country are the descendants of those who stole the country from it's inhabitants (the native Indians) and conducted genocide against them when they complained, herding the rest onto "reservations" like cattle. Being a Christian nation, they conduct operations like "special rendition" and torture of their victims, and wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like them! Got any non knee-jerk comments on that?

[lvspark]

Oh Boy... and who did the native americans steal it from? Ever hear of Kennewick man macboffin?

I disagree about your "rest of the world" comment, we have plenty of friends and if you personally don't like the policies of the USA thats fine, but you should take it to the political forum rather than here.

If you are a non citizen in the USA ( or anywhere really) building a turbine powered robotic aircraft and your actions warrant the attention of several federal agencies to the point you are busted and shipped out, you screwed up! It is the builders fault, not the policies of the USA. There are plenty of foreign people here doing UAV and other great work that get along just fine.. Why was this one singled out?

[BushmanLA]

"No threat was discovered, and the man was never charged. If it had worked, the drone would have been capable of carrying a large payload of explosives or hazardous material, officials said. The engineer had financial backers and had hoped to sell the model to the U.S. military, Balboni said."


I see nothing wrong with this guy getting investigated. If you look at the pics you will see that this was a BIG jet powered aircraft, not some little .40 glow trainer.

DHS wouldn't be doing its job if they weren't checking on something like this.

He wasn't charged, etc. So no big deal.

[kbosak]

The questionable people in the country are the descendants of those who stole the country from it's inhabitants (the native Indians) and conducted genocide against them when they complained, herding the rest onto "reservations" like cattle. Being a Christian nation, they conduct operations like "special rendition" and torture of their victims, and wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like them! Got any non knee-jerk comments on that?
Something went wrong, this would have been historically named "cowardly French point of view". Apparently we have strong pro-US censorship in Poland that ppl are afraid saying this loud.

But to make a bottom line, in all this craze, they are shooting themselves in the foot by banning UAV exports. This is a chance for EU, and UAV is likely to spread into public use as spectacularly as computers did (this time in much smaller numbers however).

[Psionic001]

Just found this thread.

Good post macboffin :)



The questionable people in the country are the descendants of those who stole the country from it's inhabitants (the native Indians) and conducted genocide against them when they complained, herding the rest onto "reservations" like cattle. Being a Christian nation, they conduct operations like "special rendition" and torture of their victims, and wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like them! Got any non knee-jerk comments on that?

[lvspark]

Yes, his post was almost as simple and on topic as yours, and has little or nothing to do with a 600lb turbine powered unmanned aircraft and builder that was investigated.

If history was only as simple as macboffins post...

Bringing up Native Americans, and saying the questionable people are the descendants of the people that stole the country from them??? Whatttttttt? So a HUGE population of the USA is considered questionable in macboffins and I guess your mind because why? Because of something that their ancestor might have done 200years ago? Makes sense to me, we should be watching these people. :confused:
Now that I think about it... I have bit of Indian in me..., and I am also a descendant of early settlers.. I don't know what to think of myself! A fair description might be our national motto "E Pluribus Unum"
If your really interested in Native Americans you can read more here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States)


Now onto the Christian nation comment.. It is true that a majority of US citizens are Christians, but there are many US citizens that are not. Our population is very diverse. How does this relate to "special rendition" and why the world does not like us? Does the world not like Christians or does the world not like special rendition?

Speaking of special rendition, I tend to agree with Al Gore on this one..Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his :censored: .'
Knowing that some Native American Indians are also Christians and serve proudly and honorably in the military and other government places, does this also put Native Americans into the questionable people category? Hmmmm.....
Good reading on this millitary site. (http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/nativeamerican01/aiintro.html)

After contemplating macboffins post and your endorsement and trying to decide what the meaning of his post was, I believe his post was just expressing his dis-like for America. That is ok for him to dis-like my country but bringing Native Americans, descendants of early settlers, immigrants, religion, and US Policy into the UAV forum to support his position, not only opens up a huge can of worms debate that has gone on for years, but also is inappropriate to say the least.

Guess you can be glad you don't live here, I am glad I do.

[airmcn_3]

Yes, his post was almost as simple and on topic as yours, and has little or nothing to do with a 600lb turbine powered unmanned aircraft and builder that was investigated.

If history was only as simple as macboffins post...

Bringing up Native Americans, and saying the questionable people are the descendants of the people that stole the country from them??? Whatttttttt? So a HUGE population of the USA is considered questionable in macboffins and I guess your mind because why? Because of something that their ancestor might have done 200years ago? Makes sense to me, we should be watching these people. :confused:
Now that I think about it... I have bit of Indian in me..., and I am also a descendant of early settlers.. I don't know what to think of myself! A fair description might be our national motto "E Pluribus Unum"
If your really interested in Native Americans you can read more here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States)


Now onto the Christian nation comment.. It is true that a majority of US citizens are Christians, but there are many US citizens that are not. Our population is very diverse. How does this relate to "special rendition" and why the world does not like us? Does the world not like Christians or does the world not like special rendition?

Speaking of special rendition, I tend to agree with Al Gore on this one..
Knowing that some Native American Indians are also Christians and serve proudly and honorably in the military and other government places, does this also put Native Americans into the questionable people category? Hmmmm.....
Good reading on this millitary site. (http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/nativeamerican01/aiintro.html)

After contemplating macboffins post and your endorsement and trying to decide what the meaning of his post was, I believe his post was just expressing his dis-like for America. That is ok for him to dis-like my country but bringing Native Americans, descendants of early settlers, immigrants, religion, and US Policy into the UAV forum to support his position, not only opens up a huge can of worms debate that has gone on for years, but also is inappropriate to say the least.

Guess you can be glad you don't live here, I am glad I do.

Great post! I love the USA too!! Never a dull moment over here......

Now back to the big a$$ turbine.... Did he give up on the project?