Study: Drones Present Minimal Threat To Aircraft (cio.com) 176
itwbennett writes: A study from George Mason University, which estimates danger from consumer drones, suggests that rules around private drone use could be relaxed without endangering general aviation. [Researcher] Eli Dourado [coupled] data on bird strikes with aircraft, with an estimate of the number of birds in airspace and the average weight per species of bird, and concluded that "a two-kilogram drone would cause an injury once every 187 million years of continuous operation."
Dourado admits there are some limitations to his estimate. While drones are crafted with plastic and metal, birds are generally softer and more likely to get squished on impact with an aircraft. However, birds are likely to be flying in flocks, where the danger of having several sucked into the engines is greater. US Airways flight 1549 was a prime example of this as the aircraft encountered numerous bird strikes which took out its engines, causing it to land in New York's Hudson River. In addition, the research doesn't include the possibility of someone maliciously trying to hit an aircraft.
Dourado admits there are some limitations to his estimate. While drones are crafted with plastic and metal, birds are generally softer and more likely to get squished on impact with an aircraft. However, birds are likely to be flying in flocks, where the danger of having several sucked into the engines is greater. US Airways flight 1549 was a prime example of this as the aircraft encountered numerous bird strikes which took out its engines, causing it to land in New York's Hudson River. In addition, the research doesn't include the possibility of someone maliciously trying to hit an aircraft.
drones evolve faster than birds (Score:3)
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a heat seeking anti air missile locks on to the hot exhaust of a jet engine. It needs to fly faster than the target since its coming from behind. A small drone isn't going to be fast enough, even if the plane is landing or taking off.
Re:drones evolve faster than birds (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think a drone could fly into the rear of a jet engine. Lots of air moving real fast coming out of there. The front of the engine, however ...
I would expect that there are a number of folks in the Middle East devoting some of their spare time to working out how to do that. My guess is that in a contest between a $1000 drone and a $60,000,000 jet aircraft, both lose.
Then there's the broader problem of remotely controlled Molotov cocktails.
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a heat seeking anti air missile locks on to the hot exhaust of a jet engine.
The exhaust plume is visible from the front until you are right in front of the aircraft, at which point the goal has already been accomplished. If you can just get altitude quickly enough, it might be feasible. If you used model rocket motors to gain the altitude and then used normal drone propulsion to handle positioning it might be feasible to intentionally take out a plane with a drone. Surely our military is already working on such things?
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I should think that the easiest time to attack a jet aircraft is while it is sitting on the taxiway awaiting clearance to position itself and take off. As all airline passengers know all too well, that aircraft likely isn't going anywhere for a while. At least not very far or fast.
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I should think that the easiest time to attack a jet aircraft is while it is sitting on the taxiway awaiting clearance to position itself and take off. As all airline passengers know all too well, that aircraft likely isn't going anywhere for a while. At least not very far or fast.
Yes, but the most useful time to attack a jet aircraft is... well, I guess that depends on your situation. But it's not necessarily before takeoff. For many purposes, that's either infeasible or undesirable. Remember, terror attacks based on air travel have long been possible if you have people willing to die for your cause; just fill up a suitcase with explosives, walk into the air terminal at a peak time, wait in line until you're in the middle of a large mass of people, and blow them up. TSA-style securi
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"I should think that the easiest time to attack a jet aircraft is"
Given the lax state of USA security procedures, the easiest way for any terrorist to cause maximum damage is to send a suicide bomber up to the TSA checkpoints during a busy period.
Perhaps then they might consider that the security theatre increases risk, rather than decreasing it.
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Back in the 1950's, sure. But it's not the 1950's anymore, and IR sensors have evolved a long way... Modern IR AAM's are 'all aspect' - they can lock onto the aircraft's skin (which is heated by friction).
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Exactly. Most drones could carry a 1kg block of steel and that would do way more damage to a plane engine than a frozen turkey could. Some drones have been researched to fly in swarm formation. Imagine a swarm of cheap drones carrying enough blocks to take out all engines (or even just half) at takeoff and you have something really dangerous.
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An autonomous car could deliver a large bomb to a destination.
Better ban autonomous cars. Hell, better ban motor vehicles entirely ... after all, motor vehicles already been (ab)used like this! [wikipedia.org]
Or ... we could consider that bombing things is already illegal, as is shooting down any sort of aircraft in any manner, and for the most part ... people don't break these laws very often. And yet the already existing laws didn't stop McVeigh ...
Banning or heavily restricting model aircraft wouldn't stop them from b
This study ignores the obvious . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
that users (or should I say morons) have repeatedly been shown to fly their toys near airports, even in the flight path, where there is a higher likelihood of a strike occurring.
Re:This study ignores the obvious . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't the "obvious" thing be that in spite of people losing their minds over drone "near misses," no drones have been hit by aircraft, yet EVERY SINGLE DAY bird strikes occur?
If we diverted aircraft for bird sightings like we do for drone sightings, we'd never be able to fly anywhere.
Heck, more turtles have been hit than drones!
http://mashable.com/2015/12/18... [mashable.com]
Re:This study ignores the obvious . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
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Drones are already restricted near airports. That doesn't mean they need to be similarly restricted everywhere else!
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Indeed. Most (but not all) pilots know how to fly an aeroplane. If they see a Drone, they will just alter course. May or may not need to abort the landing and have another go.
Same for the laser nonsense. Yes, they are annoying and people should not point them at aircraft. But they do not make planes fall out of the sky.
Planes are big heavy things that can fly through storms etc. It takes a bit more than a 2kg drone to kill them.
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The obvious is that birds have limited intelligence and can't understand why it's a bad idea to fly near a landing strip.
Drone operators should be smart enough to understand that...
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How many drones are in the airspace compared to turtles, though?
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In the incident from the video the fault lies with the manned plane, who did a low altitude flyby on an in-use runway without permission. Even though it crashed into a very large R/C craft, it didn't cause enough damage to take down the manned plane and nobody was injured or killed. Just because collisions CAN happen, doesn't mean that they're automatically catastrophic and also doesn't mean that the R/C pilot is always at fault. There are already regulations and procedures in place to prevent such incid
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Just like birds. So it was accounted for.
Skeptical (Score:3)
I've always been skeptical of pilot reports of Drones in the pattern.
When you are in the pattern or on approach, you are crazy busy. Check lists, settings, instruments, etc. Also, your typical airliner, on approach or in the pattern, is doing 150-200 mph. Given the small windows, the speed, and their already hectic routine, it seems unlikely that anyone could spot a less than 1 meter in diameter drone (Phantom size).
Sure, you may have some asshat with a 2-3 meter monstrosity they built up there, but that is
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that users (or should I say morons) have repeatedly been shown to fly their toys near airports, even in the flight path, where there is a higher likelihood of a strike occurring.
Well, sort of. The study didn't ignore the obvious... that the vast majority of reported "near my airplane" cases weren't near the airplane. Most of the cases weren't in violation of existing FCC flight regulations. So what we've been mislead or misinformed, or both, as to the frequency of this threat. In most cases, objects observed by pilots were either legally-operated drones, or unidentified objects (which pretty much suggests they weren't very close). It is understandably a pilot's job to be paran
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By that logic, we shouldn't outlaw murder because people will still murder. Regulations aren't about prevention so much as formally stating that it's unacceptable behavior and setting aside a list of punishments for doing those undesired things. As such, drones should be regulated sensibly. By all accounts, that is not what is happening in my country.
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#2 - Drones have significantly lower weight capacity and range. If you need high-quality or non-visible spectrum video, they won't work. If you need multiple angles or manual adjustment of the camera to get the right image, they won't work. Be real about the limitations.
#3 - Amateur pilots have a ton of training and safety regulations to deal with. Drone operators basically have nothing. The only thing keeping drones safe is the fact they weigh less than a small book. If and when we develop larger drones, t
they may not be a 'problem' now... (Score:2, Insightful)
but they WILL BE. best to reign them in now and set significant limits and restrictions on them while there's still a chance. once they''re ''out there'' is massive numbers, at will be a harder thing to do.
further, and ffs, it's NOT just about the dangers to real airplanes... its about keeping them from flying over private property. i surely don't want some nutjob flying over my farm or hunting grounds with a 'drone' .. and i'm sure the neighbor feels the same about his farm and his swimming pool. i wouldnt
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So you want to mandate what non-intrusive behavior should be in public property and airspace? You're an idiot.
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semi/non line of site operation
The article only suggests relaxing the mass limit.
The line of site, elevation and other requirements would remain. And, while it's been many years since I last flew an RC plane, I recall similar line of site and elevation restrictions on RC planes.
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Thius, exactly. Manbearpig is out there and he's going to eat the children. I;m SUPER SERIAL!
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R/C planes (very short range line of sight single purpose 'airplanes' and 'helicopters') are one thing.
Yeah, they're one thing that you can use to take pictures of other people's property, just like you're worried about from quads. People do it every day. Get some perspective.
Batteries much denser than birds (Score:1)
It appears there is nothing in the study accounting for the fact that the battery of a 'drone' is much denser than any bird. Last time I looked at a DJI the battery was 0.9 lbs. That is more than enough to destroy a propeller which strikes it. Remember, the prop tips are doing over 400 mph.
Birds will try to avoid the plane... (Score:3)
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So you figure people will spend a couple hundred to a thousand on a drone and faced with it's eminent destruction they'll say "Meh, fuckit".
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Because the drone costs THEM money. People are always more careful when some part of the bill will come to THEM.
How many drones can even fly that high? (Score:2)
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I built a $120 SK450 and it could get into navigable airspace in a hot second. You can buy $100 drones off the shelf that can do the same. $50 drones don't generally have the radio range, nor are they massive enough to even be a real issue.
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This drone [amazon.com] has a flight time of 25 minutes. In 25 minutes it can definitely go higher than 400 feet.
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That is a software limit which can be changed [dji.com].
Maximum flight altitude and radius limits may be changed in the DJI Pilot app. Be aware that the maximum flight altitude cannot exceed 1640 feet (500 meters).
Other drones may have different limits.
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Fair enough... but then you still have to do so explicitly, and in doing so, one also reasonably assumes any responsibilities for deliberately changing that limit, while out of the box, the drone cannot typically go high enough for it to pose a problem... and unless the drone provides constant feedback to its controller about its altitude relative to takeoff point (which some may, but I don't know of any), the average hobbyist may not be entirely sure how high
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unless the drone provides constant feedback to its controller about its altitude relative to takeoff point (which some may, but I don't know of any)
Take a look at the flight telemetry from his drone [dji.com]. It always displays height above takeoff point. I bet most drones do that.
Smells like turds! (Score:2)
" estimated the drone passed about 5 meters/15 feet underneath their left hand wing."
I call BS! Jetblast would be much too strong for a small UAV to come anywhere close to 5 meters behind a jet.
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" estimated the drone passed about 5 meters/15 feet underneath their left hand wing."
I call BS! Jetblast would be much too strong for a small UAV to come anywhere close to 5 meters behind a jet.
I call reading comprehension failure. If they overtook it, or met it head-on, this is a perfectly good description.
Drones CAN be a danger... (Score:5, Insightful)
I work directly with commercial and military pilots. Drones scare the shit out of them. Most of these guys have advanced degrees in an assortment of engineering areas.
A goose or a drone hitting the fuselage is not much of an issue for a big slow moving jet, but as we know, ingesting geese can bring a jet down. As well, a smaller, faster moving jet will experience much higher structural damage. I have myself seen, as an Air Force fire fighter, fighters come back with huge parts of their leading edge wing missing, and taking the cable because of hydrolic systems loss. On one occasion, many years ago, we lost a jet due to ingestion, though the pilot "punched out".
Drones *are* a serious issue to aviators.
A bigger question might be why to morons fly drones in the approach path of airports?
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Drones *are* a serious issue to aviators.
Please cite a specific incident involving a drone impact on an aircraft. I'm not saying that it can't or won't happen - I'm sure that if it did there's a possibility of it being significant. I'm just interested in a specific example that demonstrates why this is a serious issue.
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Drones *are* a serious issue to aviators.
You know what is really a serious issue for aviators? Flying. People actually die from flying. I would take these serious issues seriously, if the aviators in question had an understanding of risk.
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The sad reason is, to get cool video of planes landing.
It's all for the shot - to get that cool video that you post on YouTube and hope goes viral and maybe even make some cash from YouTube's content creation policy.
So, in the end, it's all about money - get the cool video, get lots of money from YouTube (make original content, and YouTube will split ad revenue).
Pilots (Score:2)
I work directly with commercial and military pilots. Drones scare the shit out of them. Most of these guys have advanced degrees in an assortment of engineering areas.
Perhaps your pilot friends are geniuses, but there are plenty of not-so-genius pilots around:
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This has what to do with drones? Oh, nothing.
Re:Drones CAN be a danger... (Score:4, Informative)
I work directly with commercial and military pilots. Drones scare the shit out of them.
That's because people most closely involved in any type of activity are some of the worst placed to judge the risk of an activity. They are able to get a good picture of the consequence but they almost universally hugely over-estimate the likelihood of any scenario. That is something that goes well beyond aviation.
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So you say. Any studies? Or are you talking out of your ass?
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Studies? Not sure, this was covered in team selection for risk analysis, general industry processes which were born out of mistakes, experience, and sometimes studies (none of which were ever cited to me). But there's a very good reason for a very specific set of teams to be generated when doing hazard and operability studies and why they are involved in each steps. Common practice in many industries is to exclude front line people from likelihood analysis deferring to them only for a list of ways that some
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A bigger question might be why to morons fly drones in the approach path of airports?
My vote goes to the fact that the general public (i.e. majority of drone operators) has dick all idea of the structure of airspace. Shit, most of them think that airliners are always talking to "The Tower". Unless somebody's a pilot or a serious flight simulation enthusiast, they often have literally no idea about how air travel actually works (nor should they really have to).
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Not at those speeds.
Indeed. [standard.co.uk]
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I'm glad you mentioned this - I was going to as well. I've had plenty of close calls with birds, but only one bird strike. In most cases they duck out of the way when you get close. Obviously they have an incentive to do so! Someone else mentioned the squirrel-on-the-road-dodging effect: the guy I hit dodged left, dodged right, and, at the point where most of them dive he... dodged left again!
The main rotor strike turned him into a fine mist of blood and feathers which was a mess to clean up but didn't do m
Birds aren't like drones (Score:2)
Forget about the liklihood of damage, look at the difference in behaviour.
Birds don't fly high, most of the time. They stay near food, near home, and near safety. Drones go as high as possible for the best vantage point.
Birds would, on their own, attempt to stay away from large noisy planes. Drones won't.
They are not comparable at all.
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I never said they can't. I said they don't. If you look outside your window today, for the whole day, how many planes will you see up high? If you're anywhere near a city, you'll see between 10 and 1'000. How many geese will you see at a similar altitude? I'll bet on zero.
Like I said, it's about behaviour, not about capability.
Even when the geese migrate here, they do so at an altitude of 100 feet.
Words have meaning. You can't just switch them around as you did.
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Are you the same coward from before? Or a different one? Can't have a discussion without knowing to how many persons I'm speaking.
If you aren't willing to put your name to your opinion, then your opinion has zero value. That's consistent with your not knowing what a registration achieves.
Act of "god" vs act of man. (Score:2)
" the research doesn't include the possibility of someone maliciously trying to hit an aircraft."
Herein lies the crux of the issue.
People generally are willing to accept act of "god" type incidents (bird strike, bad weather etc.) at levels of risk much higher than act of man type incidents (acts of terrorism etc.).
Most Birds don't have lithium batteries (Score:2)
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A hobbyist drone doesn't become "embedded in the aircraft".
not always [dailymail.co.uk]
birds are dangerous (Score:2)
Just Wait (Score:2)
Just wait until people start kitting out their drones with high powered lasers (so they can be seen from the ground), and having a laser light show from a few drones flying in formation at night. I'm sure the aviation authorities would love that.
And when the drone count reaches 187 million? (Score:1)
If one drone means one accident in 187 million years of continuous operation what happens when we have 187 million drones out there up in the air at any given time? It's like 640k. People will perceive a need for more leading to hundreds of millions of drones some of which will be operating at any given time. Somehow one accident a year does not sound appetizing to me even if that's a world wide accident rate.
{^_^}
Malicious actors will not follow rules (Score:3)
" In addition, the research doesn't include the possibility of someone maliciously trying to hit an aircraft."
Why are we continuously discussing rules and regulations that will have zero impact on a malicious actor. If it's available to the general population but "regulated" only those bent on malicious actions will break those rules.
I'm all for reasonable rules; "don't fly your drones around an airport; don't discharge a firearm within city limits; drive on the proper side of the road; ..."
Will any of those rules stop someone from attempting to down an aircraft using a drone? Someone attempting to plow through a crowd using their car?
It would seem the things that give us the most freedom, aka liberty, are those things that are most regulated. A drone gives us a huge amount of freedom to do so many different things, including observe authority. It would seem those making the rules have a conflict of interest here...
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Will any of those rules stop someone from attempting to down an aircraft using a drone? Someone attempting to plow through a crowd using their car?
It actually is possible for cars to prevent people from plowing through crowds, if we give them enough self-driving technology. And it actually is possible for a sufficiently intelligent drone to avoid obstacles, and it is not a stretch to assume that high-end drones (though not hobbyist-built ones, especially intended as a weapon) will sooner or later avoid aircraft.
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It is possible for cars to prevent people from plowing through crowds, however rules/regulation will not do that!
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Good luck trying to get through a horde of walkers when the zombie apocalypse hits and your fancy luxury car politely stops for them :P
My fancy luxury car doesn't even have active yaw control, it was instituted in the latter half of the model year and my car comes from the former. My zombie apocalypse is a formerly fancy luxury car, but a base model with ez-wipe seats. It doesn't even have an ECU, and it runs on diesel. It's also for sale. Project car, but a fantastic runner with many new parts. Inquire above.
Well... (Score:2)
Drone On (Score:1)
Dammit (Score:1)
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The biggest danger of a drone is the loose nut behind the controller.
A while back, RC helicopters were expensive and difficult to fly. Only serious folks did it.
Now, they are so cheap and easy to fly, that folks with too much money, and too little common sense can make a public nuisance of themselves.
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The biggest danger of a drone is the loose nut behind the controller.
A while back, RC helicopters were expensive and difficult to fly. Only serious folks did it.
Now, they are so cheap and easy to fly, that folks with too much money, and too little common sense can make a public nuisance of themselves.
That's always the problem. Idiots who refuse to follow reasonable rules designed to keep things safe wind up ruining it for everyone as regulations get written to deal with the random idiots and impact the reasonable hobbyists who want to enjoy their hobby without endangering others.
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Yeah! Because we know that regulation stops stupidity!!!
No, but at least you can put the stupid out of their misery.
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Yes, now the RC world is experiencing its own September that never ended and as usual it's screwing over those that cut their teeth "the old way."
Sigh.
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Youtuber promoting his channel.
There are no decapitations in the linked video.
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Given there are more bird strikes in a typical HOUR than have ever occurred for drones, perhaps we should force people to register birds with the FAA. After all, you could theoretically train birds to attack aircraft, and you could even have the bird carry harmful chemicals or explosives. After all, the Allies tested this device during WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Except we don't require registering your bird with the FAA because that'd be absurd. Have we become THIS dumb?
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...put chemicals or explosives in one.
Something like a battery. Like all drones already carry.
Depending on size and chemistry, a hot jet engine isn't going to a good place for it to get into.
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I don't think someone that wants to blow up a jet engine with a drone carrying a bomb is going to care that he's entering restricted airspace.
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It's enforcement that's the issue, not so much regulations. If drones are seen as a big potential threat to airplanes, then more measures would be taken to prevent encounters.
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There is potential problem with logic here. Why didn't they put explosives _before_ the rules were introduced. Why would they start doing it only _after_? Second thing is that trying to hit a flying aircraft with drone will take not hours, it'll take years and generations.
Actually, your logic has more potential flaws. First, all ideas may or may not need to come out at the same time an invention appears. Besides, some people could have thought about the idea already but do not want to mention or talk about (afraid of Striensand effect), but then later on some wackos finally have a thought about it (and do it).
Second, why are you thinking that a wacko would target only a flying aircraft with drone? It doesn't make sense at all. However, a dangerous application can easily be u
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You know the fun thing about what you just shared?
Not a single drone strike. NOT ONE.
We wet ourselves just because we SEE a drone. Yet there are over 10,000 bird strikes every frakking year. There are more bird strikes in a typical HOUR than ALL DRONE-AIRCRAFT COLLISIONS EVER.
http://www.faa.gov/airports/ai... [faa.gov]
SorryNotSorry for the all-caps, but this point needs to be driven home.
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as the summary says aswell, he didnt take into calculation that drones are made of tougher material and the article doesn’t even mention about the battery that can be considered a small bomb by itself
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Do you actually want hundreds of people to die before acknowledging a problem?
Air travel is incredibly safe, and one big reason is that it's very cautious. I'd rather start with restrictions on drones where aircraft go and loosen them as needed than tighten regulations a little every time an airliner goes down.
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I saw a turtle once. He was coming right for me. I had to take evasive action.
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The *moment* someone finally nuts up at a testing center and throws a Phantom 3 into a commercial jetliner engine, and it does *any* noticeable damage, then we can talk about how easily they will bring down a plane. At this point, with *NO* testing, these assertions come directly from the anal region.
Sensible rules, away from approach paths of airports, and limited to 500 ft outside of those areas, unless licensed to do so. If you can't manage to lift your plane above 500 feet away from the airport, you have problems that 'drones' have no effect over. Christ, planes buzz the 400' tower attached to my work - and the damn thing is painted red and white and blinks, FFS.
Actually, it's the other way round. The way we have brought airplanes from deathtraps to very-very-safe is by testing and estimating risks as much as possible, and avoiding unknown risks whenever possible. You don't tell people "sure, you can do a low level barrel roll with this 747, nobody ever crashed a 747 doing barrel rolls". You tell people "Sorry we have not designed and tested the 747 for low level barrel rolls, so you can't do those with the plane". Jet engines are typically certified for ingestion
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You're not actually an engineer, are you? If so, is the "cheap" intentionally significant? 'Cause that's not how engineering and safety works. "Well, we've never done it so sure, go ahead and risk it until we have the data." That's not an acceptable answer where lives are on the line.
That said, the regulations are retarded. Seemingly, they're just as retarded as the responses to them.
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That's 187 million drone years to cause one (1) air to air injury. Taking the average mortality rate of being a human on planet earth of ~12/1000 you could expect 2 1/4 million of your drone pilots to die in the course of one year while only having a 50% probability of causing 1 commercial aircraft injury/fatality.
So that puts the expected score for the Deadly Drones of 0.5 to 2.25 million against.
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Oh really, try telling Chester Sullenberg about that.