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Comment by mpetrovich | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why the pilot didn’t attempt to go straight up.

Helicopters are hard. It might not have had enough time to do that (before hitting the drone)

Helicopters are slow, and they probably didn't have the rotor speed needed to yank the collective.

Hitting a 2kg drone would result in expensive repairs, e.g. $30K for replacement rotor blades and you still might crash.

I probably would have taken the hit but I'm much better off than the average R22 pilot who often operate or razor thin margins.

That said; my bet is that there was no drone. My guess is the student made a small mistake, the teacher took over and made a bigger mistake, and both want to keep their jobs/future carers. Drones make an easy target to lie about and are hated anyway. Not to say there are no irresponsible drone pilots, just currently I think it's more likely heli-pilot error at this stage. My hope is the GPS tracking in the phantom well let us know for sure.

Was it 2kg or 0.5kg drone? Is there much difference between two, afaik all of them are more or less plastic.

If planes and helicopter are ok with hitting birbs, perhaps we should regulate drone manufacturing to be more like birbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-27Bk_RME

Drones have harder parts and I would expect hardness to play a big role in damage done. But it doesn't even need to be hard, raindrops can also do a fair amount of expensive damage.

I'm curios on the 10+ downvotes this received since posting; would someone care to give me a reason. Thx

I did not down vote. My guess is the mudslinging:

My guess is the student made a small mistake, the teacher took over and made a bigger mistake, and both want to keep their jobs/future carers. Drones make an easy target to lie about and are hated anyway.

Ah, I consider them human with human faults and incentives. One really sad aspect is that a major killer of helicopter pilots is cutting corners on preventative maintenance in order to save money. I feel like we need to be honest on what people are like.

When making such points, it usually helps to talk about the systemic or situational factors pressuring people to do such things and to frame it as one plausible explanation that fits the scenario as presented rather than as an accusation.

You need to be very careful about making public accusations (or sounding like you are). That can seriously harm people's careers and lives.

I suspect that filing a false report with the NTSB would be a crime, in which case you'd be accusing the crew of breaking the law, perhaps even perjury.

Or just realise that a 1.9kg toy should be ignored rather than evaded. What happens if a goose or swan or pelican flies near a helicopter?

This feels like a "I flipped my car dodging a squirrel" situation to me, as well, although the FAA models do support the potential of 1.9kg toys to cause fairly substantial damage. I think that given all documented collisions mentioned in the article resulted in zero-to-minor damage to the larger vehicle, drones are probably best ignored as well, but to make such a sweeping generalization in something as safety-critical as aircraft will probably require years more research.

More accurately, an rc car, not a squirrel. Squirrels are part of nature, but an rc car on a highway is an act of negligence.

Here's what happens when a Blackhawk hits one with it's rotor: https://petapixel.com/2018/01/02/dji-drone-collided-us-army-...

How much do you think that cost to replace? I love my drone as much as the next guy, but someone who flies one next to a helicopter with people in it needs to go to jail.

Edit: Here's a main rotor for an R-44 for $47,000... https://m.ebay.com/itm/R44-Robinson-Helicopter-Main-Rotor-Bl...

Also a black hawks blades are probably going to be significantly stronger than those on an r44.

That's serious damage. I'm a pilot but not an engineer, I would not fly an aircraft with that kind of damage without A&P consult, and there's a decent chance only ferry flight would be legal if it were flight worthy at all.

The centrifugal force stress at the hub (root) of a blade is thousands of times the weight of the blade. Easily there's tens to hundreds of tons of force "trying" to pull the blade apart and this not so little nick, makes that much more likely to succeed.

Helicopter pilot here. We take evasive action. In forward flight that's probably going to be a quick stop to give me time to see what the bird's doing and then flying away from the bird. If I were working on hovering maneuvers and a large bird flew near I would set down until it left.

Airplane pilot here. I suspect there's enough noise and downwash/turbulence that a bird doesn't get anywhere particularly close to a hovering helicopter.

If the drone is clearly outside the radius of the main rotor, you'd set down. What if it's above the rotor coming toward you? Probably set down and hope it doesn't get sucked in? What if it's below the main rotor coming toward you? You may not want to set down unless you know (?) the downwash is something the drone can't put up with, but how much time are you going to have to decide whether to risk striking it with a rotor vs throttle up delay and ascending away from the drone?

I think the behavior of various sized drones in proximity to helicopters is going to become a necessary training item. There will be planned and unplanned close proximity of s/mUAS and the worst enemy is going to be having never thought of or discussed these operational what ifs.

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