Heathrow plane in near miss with drone
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Man, I have 1 kilo machines and they are huge and (very)expensive and everywhere I go people say it is the first time they see such a monster.
What this pilot saw was probably a 120 grams toy that an aircraft engine could eat for breakfast(engines are tested for much bigger birds impact). It is an expensive repair but to say that the plane goes "near miss" is a gross exaggeration(You near miss another plane, like a Cessna).
With 10 kilos we are talking about professional machines, with hybrid power source, military or highly professional. Probably they are 10 of those in all UK.
We need drone regulation, today it is in limbo. Professional services also have to be legalized and regulated(they are not but people are using them anyway for movies, for electrical grid control, they are so useful).
They don't want to because those machines compete with helicopters and planes at aerial jobs but much cheaper and without pilot's risk of dying.
Flying 1kg in the air is much safer than flying 600kilos machines. If the thing crashes, which is really difficult now with GPS and automatic control, you lose 1000, 2000 dollars, not a life.
Helicopters are very dangerous near the ground, if something goes wrong, like a gust of wind you are dead.
So you need to get high enough, which means using big and expensive camera gear.
With a drone it is so much simple.
If you're flying a drone in an urban area then no, that's not true. There's a reason helmets are mandatory on construction sites: a 1kg object heading at speed towards your head has the potential for serious injury.
You seem to have assumed the only loss when a drone crashes is the cost of the machine itself, but you're forgetting you'll be liable for any other damage you cause. Requiring drone operators to have insurance (which I bet you don't have) seems like a good first step. We require it for cars, why not drones?
I'm not sure sure about this. Most drones are made of such low-density material (and obviously have some large aerodynamic components) that I have a hard time buying it could cause much injury even if it fell at terminal velocity onto someone's head.
Most people don't think of drones (quad copters etc) as essentially flying lawnmowers. If you find yourself at the wrong end of a prop I can assure you that your opinion will change.
The weight of them is probably the least important factor when it comes to safety.
I have a _great_ deal of respect/fear of friends 12 and 14" carbon fiber props with ~2000W motors spinning them. One friends main machine is arguable 8 flying lawnmowers strapped together, with all the blade guards removed.
And I fear that uneducated or uncaring owners of that second class of "unambiguously dangerous machines" are reasonably likely to impact my enjoyment of the sub 500g class machines.
The "drones bad" meme is already affecting people who fly ~300g gliders - a lot of people flying F3K handlaunch gliders are getting booted out of various parks (including, I believe, all US Federal National Parks?). These things literally weigh 50% less than a football or only 50% more than a Frisbee, and - and have the added safety of being under active control by the pilot (who _really_ doen't want to hit anyone with his expensive and delicate toy).
A remote-controlled copter killed this poor fellow.
Do you think people kicking a football round "in an urban area" or thowing a Frisbee in a park with other people around should be "required to have insurance"?
I have two quadcopters who's all-up flying weights sit in between a Frisbee and a football. I rarely get them much above treetop height (one of them usually flys with an altitude limiter set to 70m, and the only times I've ever had it cut in is when flying up high to test it's working).
I've hit myself (both intentionally and unintentionally by being reckless) with both my ~320g and my ~380g quadcopters. I know for sure that they are no more a risk of "seriously hurting someone" than a freak Frisbee or bicycle or rollerskate accident (those last two of which I've got stories about bystanders being hospitalised by in the last ~12 months).
As hinted, I know I set that question up in an intentionally argumentative way - but that's in response to very few people acknowledging the difference between a ~30g Hubsan X4, a 380g Parrot AR Drone, and a 3kg DJI Phantom 2. Two of thosw "classes of quadcopters" weigh less than a football.
That said; A 1-2Kg UAV can easily do expensive damage to an aircraft if a collision occurs, in addition to the obvious safety risks. Of course, the result is little different from a bird doing similar damage.
But drone is single word easy to say with some buzz to it and I guess it also sounds ominous.
My understanding is a drone in the military sense is a flying target a UAV is not.
It took 20 years for people to stop calling anything tech/Internet related "cyber" now calling anything that flies is a drone that word will be with us until 2034.
British [1] http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/drone English [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drone
Regarding "cyber" you may want to tell retailers to stop using Cyber Monday, the FBI to rename its Cyber Crimes division, the CIA to rename its Cyber Security division and the NSA to rename its Cyber Operations unit. I agree that cyber is an old-school term and even sounds reminiscent of The Net and Hackers but it's doubtful it will go away any time soon.
But, you see this even in competitions wherein schools will build various RC-devices to face off in "robot battles". It's cool that they're imagining and building this stuff, and it's a lot of fun, but they are NOT robots!
I think from a technology perspective this is going to be very interesting. I'm starting to work on proximity operations in space, specifically designing robust Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) systems to ensure safe and effective operations. I just got off the phone with a friend who's startup is in stealth mode at the moment, looking at developing GNC algorithms for UAVs that offer real-time, autonomous operations with collision avoidance etc. in the absence of GPS.
Going to be fascinating to see how the technology in this space develops.
EDIT: Fixed typos
It's just a pity that most operators are not aware of these laws, and may cause a larger amount of regulation for the area.
All my research so far indicates the main issue is getting a GPS module that is certified accurate to use in a ADS-B transponder at low cost. For approx. $2,000 they are commercially available and within the SWaP(Size, Weight and Power) requirements for a DJI Phantom or similar. What the FAA would say about fitting a DJI Phantom with a transponder would be interesting.
What would be intelligent would be fitting a ADS-B receiver to the UAV, and if an aircraft is detected within caution range (say 0.5 miles) the UAV pilot is alerted.
What would be more intelligent is increased awareness about flying anything (Quadcopter, other UAV or even a kite) within range of an airport. The vast majority of traditional RC pilots are well aware of the 3 mile restriction around airports.
"Mr McAuslan said there was an urgent need for rules to be tightened before much larger unmanned cargo planes - potentially the size of a Boeing 737 - took to the skies."
sounds intriguing. Are we really close to that happening? I was under the impression the CAA restrictions around unmanned aircraft were still very tight.
The second was that the small military UAV was blown off course due to changing winds, while a jet was doing a ground power run. The RC aircraft crashed short, with some debris hitting the aircraft wing. UAV operations were authorized, although the Tower controller and Ground (Movement) controller didn't foresee the hazard.
GCHQ intercepts nearly all of the intern... oh wait, this one is actually true
More regulatory capture incoming. It is already illegal to fly RC models near airports, but hey A DRONE and NEAR MISS, lets label them airborne terrorists.