Drone technology is advancing faster than laws can keep up, but as UAVs get better, so too do we get better at knocking them out of the sky. We started by simply punching, shooting, or grabbing them as they flew by, but quickly moved on to more outlandish countermeasures — specialized bazooka-esque launchers, trained eagles, and even bigger drones, co-opted to work against their brethren and armed with cute little nets. Now we've gone even further to assert our dominance over the drone — we're smashing them to bits with jet skis.
Is this a warning to other drones?
The clip above comes from Yamaha's Festival of Freeride, a ridiculous jet ski-centric event that makes N64 classic Wave Race look like a boring documentary. Most of the riders attending are happy simply launching into the sky on their wave-skimming steeds, but one rider in particular doesn't want to share the air with anything else, slamming his jet ski against a low-flying DJI Inspire drone. Amid a shower of propellers and parts, the UAV drops to the slate-gray sea below, where presumably it'll be torn apart by hungry jetski riders happy at a clean kill. The final shot of the video shows the drone's-eye view as it dips beneath the waves, the sky it once called its home disappearing behind cold water. A warning, perhaps, for other drones that might try to intrude on human privacy.
Still, despite the ostentatious approach, jet skis might not actually be the best way to destroy drones. In the battle of things that shouldn't really be in the sky, the watercraft has the weight advantage, but it's hard to imagine the world's police forces deploying fleets of jet skis around sensitive buildings. For one, where do you put all the water?