Drone footage of 05-17-2019 McCook, NE tornado YT video

[Matthew Sweet]

Also, why does it frustrate you that he's trying to fly a drone into a tornado? What is wrong with that?

This. Not everything has to have scientific value in order to be valuable to someone. The personal gratification alone is enough. So what if he wants to build a brand around it and cash in? What better way to fund a hobby than sharing the fruits of labor with a community of like-minded individuals?

I once built a makeshift bicycle ramp and launched my Dyno Compe Air GT off of it. The jump itself was badass as I estimated about 50 feet of air, but the landing was poorly executed; leaving me with a broken arm and a bruised rib. Not only was I limited to writing left-handed most of the school year, but I couldn't laugh or lay down or sit up or do anything functional for the next 3 weeks. There wasn't much scientific value to be had, but damned if I didn't get a few phone numbers and some pretty girls carrying my books for me. Worth it based on the experience alone. Looking back, my only regret was that YouTube wasn't invented yet and I wasn't smart enough to have my JVC camcorder rolling.

I'm with Stu, give the kid a break.

 

[Todd Lemery]

I’ll just add my personal motivation for wanting to fly a drone into a tornado. It’s roughly why I storm chase. It’s fun and a challenge. It’s not for science and it’s not for You Tube views. In the end if all I had on tape was a dark and blurry mess of a video that makes little sense, that would be just fine. It’s just for me anyway. If someone else doesn’t think it makes any sense, then I’m OK with that too. There’s probably less than a one percent chance I’ll ever be successful doing that, but I’ll only fail if I don’t try.
I love the young man’s enthusiasm and wish him well.

 

[James Wilson]

Wow a lot of feelings for a random guy flying a drone lol. I do not know who this is but decent video just the same.

I have thought for years about getting a drone but this video is a great example why I decided not to. The time we all take away from just ENJOYING WHAT WE ARE WATCHING is always taken away to various degrees because we are looking through lenses or trying to get stuff working to film it. I make a point now to just STOP and watch the tornado or what have you with my EYES. Too many distraction spoil the complete enjoyment to me of some amazing moments chasing that are just too few and in between. In this video you see that with him trying to get the drone working then missing tornadoes going to recover the done. To each their own I guess ... good luck to all this year!

 

[Gary Latimer]

Does anyone know the person in this video? I had not heard of this before and it looks to have a lot of views on YouTube:

Lol... that very video popped up earlier today in my YouTube “recommended videos” section... I have never seen this kid before and now this makes 2x in the same day

 

[Joey Ketcham]

So what I'm getting from the responses in this thread is that no one knows who this is. Okay, checkmark number one.

What frustrates me about what this person is doing is that it seems to display a lack of requisite knowledge for doing this. I doubt he is doing this for any kind of scientific purpose, but rather he has money he wants to spend on getting attention by doing something extreme that most others aren't doing.

Sounds about right for storm chasing.

I hope he understands that unless he uses some kind of large, bulky, high-powered, professional drone unit, he is unlikely to ever get a drone directly into a tornado. Those things are just not strong enough to punch through the wind field. His only hope would be to place the drone in in an inflow surge, but those are not easy to find. And he will likely lose the drone doing so.

You're not going to be able to get a modern-day consumer-brand drone into a tornado by going through the RFD...like...ever. The reason is...it's a downdraft, and when downdrafts hit the ground they spread out...ya know...diverge...i.e., the winds push out and away from the RFD core. That means away from the tornado except for in the small sector where the RFD hasn't completely wrapped around it (better get there early in the tornado's life cycle, because once it becomes occluded it's game over for your chances). You'd have to get your drone into the near-surface part of the inflow ahead of the apex of the RFD gust front to get a drone into a tornado. You would then have to hope that debris centrifuging doesn't keep the drone from being able to get in closer to the tornado's center. Not impossible, but you're probably gonna go through a lot of money crashing drones that get close but don't make it.

ADD: My final point in this matter comes in the form of a question: why do people want to get drone footage from a tornado in the first place? Instrumentation is fine, but I'm only seeing reports from people using only cameras. What do you think you're going to see? It's not going to look like the inside of the EF5/"finger of god" tornado from Twister. I strongly suspect the video would be difficult to make sense of for a few reasons: 1) The camera would likely begin tumbling due to turbulence on its way in or due to extreme spatial velocity gradients in the funnel; 2) even if the camera doesn't tumble, it will still be rotating rapidly within the funnel, and may also experience strong vertical motions, so vision of any one fixed point in space will be very short; 3) even if a camera punctures a visible condensation funnel, the inside is likely to look nothing but gray - there will likely not be any fixed points of reference within the funnel on which the camera can focus. More likely the video would look like swirls of black and gray with much of it out of focus and either covered in mud or water.

I guess I don't understand where this hostility of yours come from towards him. He seems rather young, obviously not a scientist and doesn't claim to be, he is just doing something he is passionate about and enjoy's doing and gets to share it with others. Last I knew, none of that requires the approval of Jeff Duda. You're better than that, dude.. like seriously? I'm disappointed seeing this crap coming from you.