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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."
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.
I talked about some of the reasons behind the push for a desire to fly in commercial airspace after my visit to Creech AFB a couple of years ago. Also some discussion on why there might be a higher accident rate in the drones (pilots want haptic feedback, and they do not have it with current platforms).
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Just because there's nobody in the cockpit doesn't mean there isn't somebody wanking a joystick with malicious intent somewhere.
...is firing a hellfire missile a airspace regulation violation?
In ten years, most of the unmanned aircraft in domestic airspace will not be from the military, but from private enterprise which (by definition) doesn't have an allegiance to any nation or state. As is the case in most situations (I believe) there's a bigger threat to our security, our privacy, our way of life and our freedom from transnational corporations than from "big government".
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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
Wait - so they haven't logged 100,000 flight hours, under 6,000 - and you are extrapolating up to 100,000?
This reminds me of an XKCD
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 have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I am a military Helicopter pilot and I have literally come back with a UAV sticking out of the side of my aircraft after a mid-air with a small drone. There are lots of growing pains with these things, and they are no where ready for integration in the national airspace system. A growing conflict with military use of UAVs is that they are often being operated by non-pilots(cheaper to train). In many cases the smallest drones are operated by infantrymen who throw these things into the air and rely on big sky theory to separate them from the aircraft providing Close Air Support. Non-pilots typically have less diversity of experience and a lot less air-sense when it comes to situational awareness.
The most likely user of this technology is Law Enforcement. The last thing civil aviation needs is some jack-hole beat cop throwing these things into the air to look for a guy on a stolen bicycle and have a mid-air with an airliner on approach because he dose not understand what is going on above him, or have any responsibility for his actions because his personal safety is not directly tied to the operation of his aircraft. They cant be trusted to use tazers, why the heck would we give them UAVs?
Thank you for pointing this stuff out.
People tend to look at broad statistics and believe that's them. Realistically, there are many things that good pilots do to considerably improve their safety statistics. Because of the differences in equipment and a single engine, its simply not reasonable to believe a SE plane can ever be as statistically safe as a commercial, multi-engine plane. But, it is reasonable and very likely for good pilots in well maintained aircraft to fly statistically safer than those driving in vehicles on the ground.
Contrary to popular belief, flying in a small plane is not a death sentence.
Most of the things that kill people in small planes are really, really, stupid behaviors which, for whatever reason, some pilots decide doesn't apply to them. For whatever reason, some pilots really do believe they are immune to the reality of physics and can't run out of gas...or believe their wings can stay on inside a hurricane...or believe they can recovery from a spin despite the manufacturer clearly stating it can't be done safely and reproducibly...so on and so on. Idiots like these lowest the safety statistics. But if you're not with a pilot who does dumb stuff like that, in a well maintained plane, your odds of remaining safe are dramatically improved.
Another killer are twin engine pilots who believe they are inherently safer because they have a second engine. Statistically these guys kill far more people than SE planes. Statistically, if a twin engine pilot has fewer than 100 hours annually, they are more dangerous than low proficiency, low hour SE pilots. The reality is, single engine failure in a piston twin is a bitch for most experienced pilots. For those less experienced and proficient, its usually lethal. So don't even let a twin pilot tell you they are inherently safe because they are full of shit if they do. In fact, that's likely reason to be very wary.
And contrary to popular belief, flying can be fairly affordable. The average non-commercial, private pilot makes less than $40K a year. The average plane owner makes less than $80K a year. And even with a headwind, a typical small, SE plane is still faster than ground transportation - and a hell of a lot more fun!
I'm a pilot, paramedic and software engineer. My flying is personal but I try to take a "professional" approach. I agree that there are a lot of not so great pilots out there but the most basic pilot has had a bunch more training than 99.99% of the drivers out there. A typical "commercial" pilot with a commercial certification and an instrument rating (and typically multi-engine in both) has about 3-5 times the training typically required for a CDL.
Pilots and the flying industry are one of the most regulated endeavors in modern society. A good chunk of those regulations are "written in blood" from past accidents. Besides a few thousand pages of official FAA regulations there are thousdand more in ACs, TSOs and even industry standards like SAE, Milstd, ASTM, RTCC, etc. One big part of the problem is there are no standards for UAVs or UAV operators.
Flying is still heavily dependent on "see and avoid". The reality is we probably still avoid as many or more crashes from "big sky theory" than "see and avoid". The people who want to fly UAVs mostly want to fly them where the risk is highest - down low and over population areas. Also the UAV accident rate isn't as sparse as it sounds. There are well over 100,000 hours factoring in overseas usage. Even if you subtract out combat or unknown losses the accident rate of the UAV business is abysmal. Remember this is the industry that gave us unencrypted classified combat video. Check out http://www.homeland1.com/homeland-security-products/unmanned-aerial-vehicles-uav/articles/847069-accident-reports-show-us-drone-aircraft-plagued-with-problems/.
The argument that there is no pilot so the risk is minimal is disturbing. A predator is almost 30' long and a 48' wingspan - 1200# empty and over a ton fully loaded. This is comparable to most 4 seat trainers. Several of the private drones are smaller but have even less QA and little to no redundancy.
The first and only NSTB report on a drone crash is at http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20060509X00531&ntsbno=CHI06MA121&akey=1. It cites the typical chain of errors as well as a series of poor design decisions. It also notes the wreckage path indicated a flat approach and a wreckage path of almost 100' with jet fuel scattered around the crash site (there was no ignition). The operations console being used had suffered approximately 16 lockups in the 4 months prior to the crash and suck lockups were viewed as normal and acceptable. The normal "lost link" procedure normally keeps the aircraft flying a predetermined route over unpopulated areas until control was restablished but improper recovery on the crash failure caused the engine to be turned off.
The lost link route procedure was called out in the NTSB report: "Another contractor, Organizational Strategies, Inc. (OSI), provided the coordinates for the lost-link waypoints to CBP. OSI reported that it developed the waypoints using an Internet satellite website. CBP reported that it also used the same Internet satellite website to verify the location of the waypoints. According to this website, some of the website's imagery is 1 to 3 years old. Neither OSI nor CBP used additional methods to confirm that the waypoints were not located over populated areas." No indication of the resolution of the satellite imagry used - and no requirement for direct verification.
In fairness the CBP is actually one of the more rigourous operators of UAVs. Their pilots are required to be certificated pilots with at least 200 hours of actualy flying time and 200 hours of UAS flying time. They also use specific TFRs to provide seperation and maintain contact and obtain clearances from ATC. Not all FAA "Certificates of Authority" require this level of coordination or training. Many smaller operators operate close enough to the ground or restricted terrain or existing restricted airspace viewed to not interfere with existing flight activity.
The simple reality is the UAV industry is about where manned flight was in the 30s. They hav
Yeah, that's a meme isn't it? All authority figures are fascist thugs (particularly the ones that are actually everyday people)?
Or is that meme over on slashdot?
FanFictionRecs.net
Anyone with an interest in aviation safety should be able to entertain themselves for hours with the NTSB database of accident reports:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/month.asp
Reading about other people's bad luck and capacity for self-delusion and occasionally pure boneheaded stupidity can be both entertaining and enlightening. Better than most reality TV anyway :)
G.
The fact that these are merely regulations violations is no excuse; when violations are high, the chances of real accidents is raised - this is being underscored as we learn more about the corporate culture of BP and also Massey Mining.
...if that were possible
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Wanna improve your odds when flying private?
So do you make the call on your cellphone while you are driving to the airport?
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."
So, deviating from the flight plan is considered an accident?
If the drone operator changes the course in a way that is not inline with the plan, that's considered an accident?
In order to remain safely in flight, a plane has what's called a "performance envelope" - it's the range of conditions during which a plane can still safely fly. Go too slow, the plane falls out of the sky. (stalls) Go too fast, parts start falling off. Turn too sharply, you overstress the airframe, etc. etc.
When a twin engine plane loses 50% of its power, it suddenly behaves very differently. It climbs very slowly, making it easy to go too slow and stall. It pulls sharply to one side, forcing the pilot to compensate with very heavy rudder action. These and other, related factors make it very likely that the pilot will make a mistake that takes the plane out of its performance envelope and crash. Pilots of twins are much more likely to try to keep flying the plane rather than land it safely off-field.
Combine that with the fact that twice the engines mean that it's twice as likely to have an engine failure, and you end up with a confluence of factors that actually decrease safety by a significant volume.
Compare this to a single-engine plane: Engine's out = "Where's the best place to land?" Pretty simple decision, during which time the plane is gliding smoothly, it's quiet, and there is only one choice to make. The vast majority of the time, even over mountains and/or populated cities, there's a safe place to land! Freeways/roads, fields, even the roof of a large building can all make good emergency landing spots in a pinch. In General Aviaation, less than 10% of "forced landings" result in fatalities.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.