Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Old man hears something making a heck of a racket out in his yard, grabs a light and goes out to see what's making all that %$#! noise when he's trying to sleep. Gets arrested for his trouble:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-grandfather-attacked-RAF-Apache-8-torch.html

Wikipedia background on this fearsome flying machine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH-64_Apache

'Don't tell the Taliban that all they need is an eight-quid torch to bring down multi-million-pound high-tech gunships,' Mr Merriott said.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

What a joke! If you can't handle the light, stay OUT of the garden.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

What a joke :shakehead.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Hahaha! That's awesome.

Too bad he got arrested. BS...

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Ridiculous yet so funny!



The Aus. Army better look out for my M6 sporting an MN21, if they decide to hover above my house :laughing:

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

DimeRazorback said:

The Aus. Army better look out for my M6 sporting an MN21, if they decide to hover above my house :laughing:

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Beware - based on this story, the army might take that as a threat!

- FITP

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

WTH! 10' off the ground at 1am in the morning.:shakehead That is rediculous in itself!

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

FlashInThePan said:

Beware - based on this story, the army might take that as a threat!

- FITP

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At 10' off the ground you could have turned on flood lights on the house and been in trouble.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

If I see a monster aircraft like a fricking Apache hovering over my property at 1a.m, I'd probably shoot at it thinking that terrorists stole it from the Army...

That's completely absurd! Way to go RAF! Sending a combat helicopter to train over private civilian property... What's next? To call an A-10 Warthog to open fire over London just for practicing? (and arresting people trying to get cover for "interfering with a military drill") WTF??

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Thought the Nazis lost the war. :thinking:

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

That is COMPLETELY absurd... 10 feet above the ground in a civilian residential backyard .. at 1AM? I am sure the pilots of that apache were in violation of several military regulations.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Sgt. LED said:

Thought the Nazis lost the war. :thinking:

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Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

more importantly, did he get his flashlight back? :thinking:

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

That's is insane, a helicopter 10ft off the ground and he gets in trouble when its his house.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

To be fair, blinding a helicopter pilot flying that close to the ground -- or a building -- or another helicopter -- to say nothing of all three, is a very dangerous thing to do. That's not to say they didn't have it coming, but the worst case scenario could've involved a fireball and a bunch of dead soldiers. It makes perfect sense why they would at least want to document the guy's story and do further inquiries, but booking him was a bit much.

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

flasherByNight said:

more importantly, did he get his flashlight back? :thinking:

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according to the article, no.

But seriously, flying at night and so low in private property is already wrong to start with, and it was just an exercise which IMO, is bad justification for why they're there. That alone justifies the old man GETTING an apology.

As for the man shining shining the light at the helicopter, unless the police can prove the man had intentions to purposely blind the pilot, i don't see any grounds for locking anyone up, but the commander who authorised the the low flying. Its only a low powered torch, that fact alone should should prove the absence any wrong intentions.

Maybe taxpayer's money is too abundant :tired:

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

it would be a perfectly normal reaction to investigate what felt like an 'earthquake' especially so if it is occurring on my own property. If i heard a car revving away on my driveway and hit 'em with my Aurora WF500 with Philips focusline bulb and it turns out to be a police car am i going to be charged? I certainly hope not.

the last line of the article was incredibly funny though, i could just imagine the terrorists shining lights at the helicopters and marking their own positions that way,

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

I just can't imagine a regime that would arrest a man for shining a light on a totally mindless military prank such as this. Maybe they were lost and running out of fuel or maybe they thought they were back at the landing strip. Sounds like they need more light shined on them than this poor guy could possibly do. LOL

Them there pilots ain't scared of no danger or they would not have pulled a stunt like that and went back home crying about being blinded. LOL

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Story is totally from the citizen's point of view.

Did the helicopter have problems? Was it really 10 feet off the ground?

In San Diego, we have jet fighters, helicopters and Marine and Navy artillery. I just had two low flying heavies (probably twin rotor Navy CH-43 choppers dropping SEALs in parachute training) fly over my apartment a few hours ago. It's called "The sound of freedom."

Re: Grandpa Arrested for "Attacking" $20,000,000 Helicopter With $20 Flashlight.

Story's from the UK. He isn't really in trouble for shining that light.
He is in trouble because he called to complain about their actions and they want to punish the man for it.