Rc device used to drop prizes over crowds of people?

So a couple days ago I heard through some friends that in a couple weeks during a upcoming very popular festival there will be a man with some sort of rc helicopter to drop ping pong balls filled with prizes over a possible crowd of people being 500 to 3000. I immediately did some digging, and found out it was true and the local girl involved with marketing the village told me" we need to bring back numbers to the festival , and since our last idea was reported to the FAA after a couple years of success, we want to try this. "" they hired a local helicopter pilot to hover 20 feet over the city block with three story buildings on each side and a plethora of power lines , while a dood scooped balls out the open door. So a few years went by and they had devices that air powered the balls out and they used the city's brand new 90 foot 1 million dollar ladder truck to deliver it. For some reason they need a helicopter. I assured her this is not a safe idea AT ALL .

The air powered devices worked perfectly by the way and everyone crowded the streets, the year the helo was reported they flew in at least 25 mph and the helo was extremely shaken and almost took out power lines and trees . It scared several people , and resulted in a random phone call to the FAA .

I'm buds with all the EMS, FIRE, Police up here since I was a EMT-p . Should I mention it to more of them, I don't want to effect my business either. It's a very small community in fact island. I can't find any info of this man or his device, she made it sound like a multirotor and capable of GPS . He is not getting paid according to her. I have a wedding that day to film so I cannot attend . How much further should I go? If it does go down I will make sure it is filmed including the pilots face and I will post it everywhere! Any advice.

Goes down meaning "if it happens" I'll have a buddy or two film it with iPhones for me
 
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DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Yeah, thats the concern, raising the red flag for ALL rc helis. This stuff is cumulative. I still think the best thing is to talk to the guy flying it and just make sure he knows what he is getting into. Send him to this link here so we can all talk him out of doing something potentially stupid.
 

Efliernz

Pete
In my younger days, I did my works kids Christmas party lolly-drop from a Trex600. I removed the camera and made a tray (out of foamboard) that I could carry 2Kg of toffees at a time. My camera operator tilted the tray when required...
I flew in at 50' @ 20mph in case I had a flame-out and needed to get away from the 100 kids. 3 sorties for a 5kg bag. Apparently they stung when they hit but that didn't matter. The kids and parents said it was the most awesome lolly scramble ever!

Now I'm more mature (and have had 3 JR/Spektrum lockouts on AP ships before changing to Futaba) I think it may have been borderline on stupid... It had risks but I believe I still acted as safe as possible.

Pete
 

yeah thats what im thinking , stopping where im at. ive made a pretty big deal so far on facebook wall and had SEVERAL shares from the post. Im at a wedding that day so im going to throw a cuple buddies 20 bucks each to film few mintues of flying and the other film a minute or two of the guy. or take his picture..
 


haha i already thought of that,

and then i googled radio jammers to not let it take off and that was a bad idea! prison time and fines. yikes...
 

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