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U.S. Passenger Jet Nearly Collided With Drone In March
SonicSpike sends word of an FAA report that a small, remote-controlled aircraft was nearly struck by an American Airlines passenger jet as the jet was preparing to land. The pilot saw it briefly as he flew by — it was close enough that he was sure it stuck the plane, but no damage was found upon inspection. Jim Williams, head of the FAA's drone office, said the incident highlights the risk of ubiquitous, unregulated drone use. He said,
"The risk for a small UAS to be ingested into a passenger airline engine is very real. The results could be catastrophic." The article notes that the FAA "currently bans the commercial use of drones in the United States and is under growing pressure to set rules that would permit their broader use. Hobby and many law-enforcement uses are permitted. Last year, the agency began establishing test sites where businesses can try out commercial uses."
If you read the stories on this carefully, you find out that it was a model of an F4 Phantom, not a copter type "drone" that we think of now.
Why is it that everything that flies now and doesn't have a pilot is called a drone and is a major new concern, even if it's been around for decades?
While there are certainly some people who will hold this up as an example why hobbyist drone flying should be banned, it just looks like a case of existing laws being broken. Am I believe there is not already rules governing the airspace immediately around airports? I'm sure there is, and I'm sure this person was violating those rules as they stand. So new laws against drone flying aren't going to have any effect on the outcome.
Secondly: The idea this drone could be pulled into the engine of a commercial aircraft with "catastrophic" results... and how is this any different than a large bird being pulled into the engine of an aircraft? If the sudden loss of a single engine from what should be an accidental interaction with a drone is all it takes to cause something "catastrophic" from happen, maybe the airplane needs to be designed better. If it's not accidental, but intentional (terrorism) then all the laws in the books aren't going to prevent it.
To me at least, the primary distinctions between a model aircraft and a drone are a) autopilot of some type (or very good telemetry for remote piloting) and b) range / flight time.
Model aircraft are flown by watching them from the ground. Drones are flown POV through on-board cameras and generally some autopilot capabilities.
Model aircraft typically have the capacity to fly for 10 minutes or so. Drones, an hour or more.
Drones, here defined as remotely piloted or preprogrammed aircraft with a flight time longer than twelve minutes, have not been widely available for decades.
In this particular case, the actual object has not been identified. We only have the report of the jet pilot who saw it. That report does say it was at 2,300 feet from the ground. That means nobody was looking up at it and flying it, in all probability. That altitude strongly suggests it was either following a preprogrammed flight path or was being flown from an onboard video feed.
Since an RC operator wouldn't be looking straight up at it, but would need be looking up at less than a 45 degree angle, someone flying it by remote control would have been a mile away. You can't look at a model a mile away and see whether the wings are level, or what the pitch attitude is. Therefore, it's rather unlikely that this was an RC model.
Why do commercial airliners have implicit ownership of the airspace?
They don't. In the U.S., the people own the air and the FAA makes sure that it is used safely.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Because these days they usually are. A drone is an aircraft of any size that can be flown unmanned, autonomously without human control, or remotely without line of sight.
These days MOST cheap model craft fit that description. You can get a model plane to fly remotely using FPV out of line of sight for a cool sub $250. You can get a model plane to fly autonomously for under $400.
You fail to realise just how much the small hobby equipment has caught up with it's military counterparts.
Actually, if you want to fly an ultralight aircraft and keep it below 1000ft you may not even need the license or certification, depending on where you are.