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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

The UAV in question flies much closer to the ground than your CAP or GA aircraft are going to fly, and it is extremely light.

There was almost zero risk by having it in the air. Typical federal government overreaction.

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A bird strike can take down a GA aircraft. AFAIK UAVs weigh more than birds. And yes it does fly very close to the ground, but so do rotorcraft. I disagree with the zero risk statement.

I'm a GA pilot who is instrument rated, with several hundred hours logged as pilot in command. I did not make my comment in an uninformed manner.

I never said you were uniformed. Would you like to hit a UAV while flying in IFR conditions? Do you really think that hitting a solid object at 100+ kts will have zero impact on your aircraft? What if it goes right up the engine nacelle? Or through the windscreen? Or hits the control wire on your elevator?

Do you see my point? Not everyone with concerns about UAVs flying in close quarters with manned aircraft are fools. I'm not saying they can't coexist, I know they can. But we don't know the situation here. This is a one-sided argument from the UAV manufacturer.

> I never said you were uniformed.

"Uninformed" and "uniformed" are (allegedly) different.

Oh man, another coffee out of nose moment. Touché sir.

Is the UAV flying in IFR conditions? (Serious question.) If the goal is photography, I don't imagine it would be very useful if so.

Looking at the craft in the pictures I doubt it. It looks like a fairly tiny UAV with visible spectrum imaging capabilities. But it may pass through IFR conditions in between the takeoff and target locations. It may also have sensors that can see through cloud layers, such as a small radar. Again, I doubt it based on the size but I might be wrong.

^ rotorcraft are the key units operating right now.

Only if these UAVs are submersibles. The article states rescue helicopters are or at least should be working to pick stranded people up. Getting lower than people swinging in harnesses below a rescue chopper sounds a bit unsafe, and sort of useless.

The choppers aren't rescuing hundreds of people by attaching them to a longline.

That doesn't change the fact that helicopters are in the area working ground pick up. The only flying lower than the helicopters on or near the ground is to be "flying" below ground, or below flood waters.

I'm not saying that I believe operating the UAVs around helis would be safe, just in reply to this:

Getting lower than people swinging in harnesses below a rescue chopper

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