A skirmish broke out in a Guangzhou park on 18 September, when a drone entered the airspace of a unit of upper-middle-aged square dancers. Upon learning that it carried a payload of several coupons for free moon cakes, the launched a concerted attack with their paper fans, downing the unmanned craft.
It was reported by Chinese media such as New Express Daily, that the drone was en route to some guy’s girlfriend filled with moon cake vouchers that were to be a quirky romantic gift. The boyfriend, a young video game company employee, had arranged to meet his girlfriend outside of his building. However, instead of going in person, he was going to land the small helicopter-like device in front of her with the coupons to a well-known moon cake shop in the area.
▼ Moon cakes come in a wide range of crusts and fillings.
Unfortunately, the man did not expect his flight path to intercede with the square dancing team. These are not to be confused with the “swing your partner do-si-do” people who dance in a square formation, but rather women who dance very slowly in public squares or plazas in groups of various sizes.
Square dancers are not always quick to violence, but in this case one of the moon cake tickets had fallen in the vicinity and was seen by one of the women. After that they quickly mobilized and launched an attack on the drone causing it to drop more freebies with each hit like one of those little elves in the bonus rounds of Golden Axe.
After repeated blows by paper fans the craft was downed and its angry pilot appeared. He requested compensation for damage to his drone and moon cake losses. However, the ladies vehemently denied attacking the aircraft. Instead they lashed out at the pilot saying: “When your airplane crashed it almost injured us. If anything, you should give us compensation!”
▼ As we can see in this rather fake-looking reenactment, the drone pilot was rather upset.
Both witnesses to the event and readers of the news in China didn’t really bother with the actual legality of the situation and simply echoed: “You can’t step up to those square dancing women. It’s useless.”
Although it didn’t end well for this guy, there is an important lesson we can learn from all this. Whenever flying anything, for everyone’s safety its necessary to get the proper clearances and make sure that your flight path is secure both for you and those around you. It’s the only way to fly.
Source: Focus Asia via Toychan (Japanese)
Top Image: 21CN
Inset Images: 21CN (Unless otherwise noted)