I always thought that something falling to earth initially accelerated at 32ft per second squared, in a vacuum though ( air resistance slows this down in the real world )
It doesn’t work like that, Chris. A ton of feathers and a ton of pianos weighs the same, though the feathers hit terminal velocity sooner because they present a greater area per ton to atmospheric resistance. Much less difference between pianos and drones, though.
Not for long they weren’t; the ones that were falling were ‘flying’ vertically downwards…
1 Like
Looking at that, it would have been impossible for a falling drone(s) from the display to get anywhere near the crowd. But one hit a kid in this case, so something wasn’t done right!
It was a malfunction of the drone, it was a fly away
Didn’t realise that. Would a flyaway continue on whatever course and climb/losing height it was on when it lost signal or fly straight & level until the battery ran out? The cheapo drone I lost in this way back in April flew straight(ish, it had no GPS) and level for as long as I could track it visually.
If this is correct, the kid it hit must have been in an elevated position to be in it’s way. A lot of questions I’ll prolly never find an answer to, as by this time everybody has finalised their own story that supports or at least does not contradict it’s legsl position.
As I posted above the firmware is OS and they were using a fork that has shown the same faulty characteristics before in Australia
When the firmware tipsover! anything can happen
It looks like the esc’s went full-on, the drones ignored the geo-fence and could have ended up anywhere on any flight path
Some of them failsafed, drones can and do go wrong
Hopefully, the logs will pinpoint the issue
Unsurprisingly, Sky Elements have had their Part 107 waiver suspended by the FAA.
Most of their planned shows are now cancelled or suspended.
1 Like
Sky Elements released a statement to CNN after the incident, saying it “wants to extend our sincere hope for a full and speedy recovery to those impacted at our Lake Eola show in Orlando on Saturday, Dec. 21.”
“We are diligently working with the FAA and City of Orlando officials to determine the cause and are committed to establishing a clear picture of what transpired,” Sky Elements said in its statement. “Millions of people see our shows annually, and we are committed to maintaining the highest safety regulations set forth by the FAA.”
Source:
There’s literally a video of the incident in the first post of this thread… 
1 Like
yip, just like the swarm wasn’t flying “over” the crowd, and the geo fencing didn’t work, and the gps didn’t work. But hey, we have a ton of feathers and a ton of piano, and some chocolate brownies from somewhere in dutchland, and someone that can’t actually be bothered to read anything or clink on the links, or even bother to do a little digging before…
I’m giving up before I get a warning 
3 Likes
The “Drone Stuff This Week” YouTube show had an interesting discussion and analysis on this event last week:
1 Like
“@SparkyFPV wins the comments” 
2 Likes
Just been reading about this, the preliminary report seems to show significant failings.
The whole show was off by seven degrees, not all drones were loaded with the flight plan data, safety buffers were reduced and more.
Sky Elements remain grounded.
More analysis here: Orlando drone show tragedy: NTSB report reveals what went wrong
1 Like
More analysis:
3 Likes
Holy crap! That puts new context to the “Drone Stuff This Week” discussion. Seems pretty much all the risk mitigations they talked about were either missing, wrongly implemented, or plain ignored. It being the US, there’s almost certainly a hefty lawsuit being drafted as we type.