Breitbart-
A Canadian “Super Scooper” aircraft fighting the Palisades fire in Los Angeles had to be grounded Thursday after it hit a civilian drone in the smoke-filled skies above the blaze, local fire department officials said.
CNN reports the specifically designed CL-415 firefighting planes are used to scoop up more than 1,500 gallons of ocean water to drop on active fires. Two have been leased by L.A. County to help current operations.
The plane in question, Quebec 1, “sustained wing damage and remains grounded and out of service,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Erik Scott said, adding there were no reported injuries.
The weaponization of Drones is going to be very problematic.
This is a very serious problem.
Weaponization aside, it is almost always “the nut behind the wheel” that is the problem. Whether said nut was aware of the flight operations is another subject. Having been present near known fire and invasive pest control spraying, it was still startling when the aircraft zoom overhead nearby.”way over there” can becom “right here” in a second or two.
Fucking IDIOTS flying their personal drones just trying to get “Scoop” pics to post on their Social Network site to raise their status when there is a massive operation going on to try to stop the progress of these fires.
If the Dipshit in the White House had at least 2 brain cells to rub together he would already have the Army Corp of Engineers there with heavy equipment pumper and tanker trucks to bring water in even from longer distances wher there is water available. Those large fuel tankers could also be used to bring water in from all over the country and dump water on these fires over large areas or to soak areas not yet burned plus land at accessible airports to fill transport tankers.
@POGO This was not a toy personal drone. It was an upscale drone used by a news reporter that was trying to get a scoop story. They ignored FAA no-fly status and did not file a flight plan required for reporting drones.
WAIT! Wut? I thought they couldn’t use ocean water because of the effects of the saline on the soil!!!
Watching Ukraine war porn I see Russia developed an anti-drone drone. 2 open-barrel shotguns underneath. No recoil. Shot goes out the front, shell goes out the back, enemy drone goes splat. THAT’S what we need in the fire zone. This being a deep blue area, they’d only have to shoot down a dozen or so before drone operators get the message.
Seems like just last week that everybody in the media had their knickers in a twist about phantom “drone swarms”, supposed “gravitic drones”, Iranian “motherships” off the East Coast, Chinese “motherships off the West Coast, and now it turns out that the only damage done by drones—other than psychological damage to excitable morons—is being done with actual drones, operated by the same cretinous journos who were were trying to freak us out about a bunch of phony “drone” nonsense.
And these stenographer clowns like to refer to themselves as “firefighters”. The irony is palpable. I can only take the “news” in small doses, heavily diluted by skepticism. Journos are not good for our nation.
Hmmm, instead of the Complicit, Bought & Paid For, Knee-Pad Media trying to grab “scoop pictures” of the fire and destruction, maybe they could focus on a lesbian fire department more interested in fighting Toxic Masculinity than the fukin fires!!
Maybe if the city of LA wasn’t slashing the FD budget by $18 million, and paying its incompetent, unqualified, overweight administrative staff $700,000+ salaries, they could afford a fleet of these planes.
A ‘civilian’ drone, eh?
Any chance that drone was owned and operated by a Chinese national, or a generic “asylum seeker” or unknown origin??
Let no one pretend anyone can honestly answer that question.