Sparks could fly: Drones and fireworks a potentially explosive combination
One popular YouTube video is at once fascinating and scary: It shows a drone flying into the middle of a big Fourth of July fireworks show, capturing the artistic beauty of destructive explosions.
But flying a drone into fireworks not only might break aviation laws, it’s also an invitation to disaster.
“We feel it’s inevitable. We just hope it doesn’t happen,” said Jeff Thomas of Pyro Spectaculars by Souza, which is producing dozens of big Fourth of July fireworks shows throughout the Bay Area this week. The biggest one is San Francisco’s extravaganza Tuesday night.
“When someone calls me to ask can we fly a drone near fireworks, I just say no, and it’s all based on safety,” he said.
Some communities around the country ban drones from firework events, though that’s not the case in San Francisco. The Federal Aviation Administration is worried enough that it issued an advisory Friday warning drone operators not to fly “in or near fireworks” or over people.
City and law enforcement officials said there haven’t been problems with drones invading fireworks shows in the past, and they weren’t anticipating trouble this year.
But Thomas and drone experts say it might only be a matter of time, especially with the growing popularity of easy-to-fly consumer drones.
The FAA expects the number of unmanned aerial systems — a term that mostly refers to drones — to rise from 2.5 million in 2016 to 7 million in 2020, the majority belonging to hobbyists.
“One of our biggest concerns is if a drone went up and fireworks hit it, it would blow
the heck out of that drone,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.
Tennessee enacted a law in 2015 prohibiting drones over fireworks shows after one man flew his drone into Nashville’s Fourth of July show the previous year and posted the video on YouTube.
A 2014 YouTube video showed a West Palm Beach, Fla., Fourth of July fireworks show up close and personal, with the drone soaring through smoke, sparks and explosions while somehow avoiding being hit. That video, set to a song by classical music tenor Andrea Bocelli, has been viewed more than 15 million times.
Arthur Holland Michel, co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York, uses that video in his lectures because it presents two sides of drones.
The video gives viewers a look at exploding fireworks that wasn’t technically possible before, since no sane person in a plane or helicopter would ever get that close to the inside of a show, he said. But it’s also lucky the drone didn’t get hit, he said.
“In that single video, you see the entire spectrum of the drone issue,” said Holland Michel, whose center tracks and studies the uses of commercial, consumer and military unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. “They’re cool, they’re amazing, but they can be dangerous.”
But the advent of smaller, cheaper, fourpropeller craft have made drones popular among average consumers.
They became even more popular when their owners started outfitting them with high-resolution cameras like those from San Mateo’s GoPro. Drone manufacturers like market leader DJI and rivals like Parrott have seized on that trend and now offer products that are, in effect, flying cameras.
Although there are YouTube videos purporting to show fireworks hitting drones, and some showing drone owners trying to attach fireworks to their craft, Holland Michel hasn’t heard of any major fireworks-versus-drone incidents.
The risk of losing a $1,000 or more craft might be enough of a deterrent for most people, he said. But he said he’s wondered “what sort of danger it might pose” if a rocket banged into a drone.
“Would the drone fall on someone’s head?” Holland Michel said. “It could catch on fire and fall into the crowd. If it fell straight down, it would still be dangerous for the people who light those fireworks. We won’t know until it actually happens. What we do know for sure is no one wants to find out what happens.”
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said there are no specific rules about flying drones close to a fireworks display. However, pilots are still responsible for adhering to other general safety rules to avoid becoming a hazard to people or property on the ground, he said.
“If someone flew a drone too close to fireworks, the fireworks could potentially damage the aircraft and cause it to crash,” he said.
A tiny drone would be no match for a rocket; those that will be shot off a barge in San Francisco Bay on Tuesday night weigh as much as 200 pounds, said Pyro Spectaculars’ Jeff Thomas.
Moreover, the FAA prohibits drones from flying higher than 400 feet. Fireworks in some shows rise an average of 500 to 600 feet, and Thomas said his biggest ones go up to 1,000 feet, so soaring above the show could be illegal in itself.
One local drone operator shot a 4K video of Pyro Spectaculars’ 2017 New Year’s Eve show in San Francisco that impressed even Thomas, who understands it’s just “human nature” to want to get as close to the action as possible.
The video didn’t show the drone getting into the middle of the rocket fire, which proves “you can get nice photos of fireworks from a safe distance,” Thomas said. “It’s not rocket science.”
However, Thomas turned down the owner’s request to work with Pyro Spectaculars on this year’s Fourth of July show, one of about 400 the company planned for the holiday weekend. (The drone operator, who posted the video on YouTube under the name Parallax, did not return a message seeking comment.)
“Our company is still scratching our heads over this,” Thomas said. “We don’t understand all the parameters and restrictions of drones. It’s not that we won’t, but you’ve got to take baby steps.”
Could drones replace fireworks in the future? Santa Clara chipmaker Intel is developing a synchronized squadron of up to 500 drones with lights that CEO Brian Krzanich has said might eventually make fireworks shows a “thing of the past.”
Meanwhile, Disney Enterprises filed a patent for “air delivered special effects.” A drawing filed with the patent shows a six-propeller drone-style craft delivering pyrotechnics, water features or other effects over a crowd of people. It’s unclear whether Disney has used the system, but the company has worked with Intel to produce a drone show at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
Intel hasn’t disclosed how much its custommade drones cost and whether an all-drone show could compete with the tried-and-true method of standard firework rockets. A community Fourth of July fireworks show costs from $10,000 to as much as $1 million, Thomas said.
For hobbyist drone operators, the most important thing is to keep in mind safe flying rules and avoid becoming infamous for causing a major accident, DJI spokesman Michael Oldenburg said.
“Don’t be that guy who ruins it for the rest of us,” Oldenburg said.