Just saw my first non military surveillance drone plane in Port Orange Florida.

Serious folks, it really suprised me. This isnt the type of area I would expect one of those ...YET. There it was though 3:10 PM New Years Eve. Flying North from the New Smyrna area, stopped and circled over the Annandale area about 6 times where the big buzzards got curious and flew in to take a look. Then it moved on to Port Orange area really fast, MUCH faster than any bird, and started circling again about 6 times before moving on to the South Daytona area. This was all along the Rt 1 / Ridgewood corridor. I was looking through my binoculars but it was so high up I couldnt get a lot of definition, but I can say this... I have NEVER seen a bird reflect sunlight like metal does and I have also NEVER seen a bird fly that fast unless it was diving into the water. This was a plane and it was WAY to small for a passenger. Through the binoculars it was only a little bigger than the buzzards. I will keep watching and if I find it possible to get a picture at any time I will post it for all to see.

I guess if they are here folks its not going to be long before they are everywhere. I would have expected them in Miami or Tampa/St Pete or maybe even Jacksonville, but New Smryna / Daytona? Big brother is taking large steps these days folks.
God Bless and have a happy, fruitfull and peacefull New Year folks.
Chris

reply to post by candcantiques


How do you know it was non military? Also from the description it sounds like it COULD be a RC plane, those can go pretty fast, and would certainly circle about alot (they usually do).

Other than that, interesting find!

reply to post by NeoVain


I am not sure why anyone would fly an RC so high. Maybe if you had some type of strap on binoculars you might be able to enjoy watching it fly so high but if I hadnt seen the glint of the sunlight coming off of it I never would have seen it because it was so high. This was flying at about twice the height that the single engines planes do, and there are a lot of those around here. I see them all the time. We have 2 airports for single engine airplanes then we have two communities that are called fly ins that have their own airport so I am used to single engine planes and this was flying quite a bit higher.

While it has been about twenty years, I have flown RC planes before, I SERIOUSLY doubt this was an RC. As I stated above you would have to have strap on binoculars that stayed over your eyes all by themselves to be able to watch it flying because it was so high.

It could have been military but I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that the military would have had a drone that didnt reflect sunlight and give itself away so I would lean towards it being a police department or state police drone.

I will keep a watch out and as I said If possible I will get a pic and post it here.

So I got one question:

Why didn't you shoot it down?

reply to post by NeoVain


Went to MSN maps and plugged in the RD to RD point from where I first saw it to where I last saw it, approximately of course, and MSN maps came back with 4.2 miles. I know there are some serious RC planes out there that can hold quite a bit of fuel but that seems like a fairly advanced plane to me to fly so high and so far without running out of fuel and for an RC enthusiast to fly a plane built for a hobby so far... it just doesnt seem to make sense to me.

If there is something that advanced in RC please let me know.

reply to post by NeoVain


Just spoke to a friend of mine that is going to college for his Bachelors in criminal justice and he said that Volusia county was just allocated X many millions to buy 20 drone planes for drug sting operations. Thats a lot of money for around here with VERY little return. They certainly arent going to make any money around here on confiscating personal property of those that are in the drug trade. Only the retired northern snowbirds have any money around here.