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Chances are you’ve never seen New York from these angles (unless you’re Sean Tucker in an invisible plane). A group of technophiles that calls itself Team Black Sheep launched a video-camera-equipped RC aircraft from Brooklyn Bridge Park and buzzed many of the New York’s most famous landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty. The image was transmitted to an operator’s console and a second video camera recorded the image off that screen. Still, it’s pretty good quality and the perspectives gathered would be impossible to get from a full-sized aircraft, notwithstanding what the official response to such a flight would be. While the Ritewing Zephyr casts a much smaller shadow than a manned aircraft, its flight did not go unnoticed by New York’s understandably twitchy law enforcement and security organizations.
Team Black Sheep spokesman “Trappy” told the Daily Mail the police and TSA eventually figured out where the aircraft was being controlled from and paid a visit. He said they were more curious than confrontational and, in the video, they appear to ask him to demonstrate the aircraft. “They asked me what I was doing and I told them I’d land [and] explain it to them,” Trappy told the newspaper. “After that we got talking and I showed them how it all works, what I’m doing and so on.” He said he checked local laws before the flight and he must have flown through the right loopholes because there were no charges laid.
