I once coordinated fire fighting aircraft bombing West Australian rural fires (quite large ones) due to being a local fire volunteer with a background in low level geophysical grid flying.<p>This really pisses me off - it has the hallmarks of idiot small operator | content creator | journalist | etc. rubbernecking an operation they should have stayed well clear off.<p><pre><code> “We hit a drone this afternoon — first one,” said L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone. “Our Super Scooper hit a small drone.”
He said the incident occurred over the Palisades fire Thursday. He didn’t have details on who was flying the drone, but said the drone was destroyed and the Super Scooper — a massive fixed-wing plane that can drop large amounts of water — was damaged.
“It put a hole in the wing,” he said. “It’s grounded now.”
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And now they're down a tanker bomber .. f'fecks sake.
> Marrone said the FBI is now planning to come to the area with what he called “aerial armor” to make sure no further drones can fly in the firefighting area.<p>Thank goodness. Maybe they have some way to track emissions back to the source too, every one of these doofuses needs arresting.