Can Drones Really Get National Airspace Access?

coondoggie writes "There is a push by a variety of proponents to give unmanned aircraft more free rein in US airspace, but safety is a major hitch in that effort. The Federal Aviation Administration said this week that data from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which flies unmanned systems on border patrols, shows a total of 5,688 flight hours from Fiscal Year 2006 to July 13, 2010. The CBP accident rate is 52.7 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. This accident rate is more than seven times the general aviation accident rate (7.11 accidents/100,000 flight hours) and 353 times the commercial aviation accident rate (0.149 accidents/100,000 flight hours)." An FAA executive noted that an "accident" refers to a situation in which "the aircraft has done something unplanned or unexpected and violates an airspace regulation."

Comments

Uh, yeah

[russotto]

The CPB isn't answerable to the FAA; nothing will happen to them if they violate airspace regulations. So of course they will have a much higher rate of violation than anyone who does.

Small sample

[Anonymous Coward]

Running the numbers, that means they're looking at 3 incidents in 4 years. That seems like a pretty meaningless exercise to me, especially then comparing that number to commercial flight with millions of hours logged.

Re:I'm impressed, they are worse than GA

[mcrbids]

Kind of hard to believe considering how many terrible pilots I've seen out there.

And yet, even with all those despicable actions taken by pilots, the general safety record of Single-engine piston based General Aviation is roughly the same as the safety record of automobiles, despite flight being an inherently much riskier activity. While any failure rate could be improved, most people here are comfortable with the relative risks involved with driving from point A to point B, and the relative risk of getting from point A to point B is about the same in a private plane as a car by actual DOT statistics.

Wanna improve your odds when flying private?

1) Don't run out of gas. Seriously, almost 1/3 of fatalities involve (gulp!) running out of the stuff. I DO my checklist EVERY time I fly, and I don't take off without knowing exactly how much fuel is on board, EVER.

2) Don't fly into storms. About 1/5 of fatalities involve icing and thunderstorms. Can you say preflight briefing?!?! It's a TOLL FREE CALL!!! (that I generally make, often while on the way to the airport)

I would mod you to 6

[Radical Moderate]

...if that were possible