Drone Sightings Near Other Aircraft Up Dramatically

schwit1 writes The government is getting near-daily reports — and sometimes two or three a day — of drones flying near airplanes and helicopters or close to airports without permission, federal and industry officials tell The Associated Press. It's a sharp increase from just two years ago when such reports were still unusual. Many of the reports are filed with the Federal Aviation Administration by airline pilots. But other pilots, airport officials and local authorities often file reports as well, said the officials, who agreed to discuss the matter only on the condition that they not be named because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. Michael Toscano, president of a drone industry trade group, said FAA officials also have verified the increase to him. While many of the reports are unconfirmed, raising the possibility that pilots may have mistaken a bird or another plane in the distance for a drone, the officials said other reports appear to be credible.

Comments

These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone

[ZorinLynx]

Drones are so much fun and you can get so many cool photos and video from them.

Yet these morons flying drones near airports are going to ruin it for everyone. Expect to see them heavily regulated or banned soon.

This is why we can't have nice things. :(

Re:These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone

[tlhIngan]

In the USA, I believe that we classify a drone as a flying vehicle which can be remotely piloted via either instrument or visual feedback. Anything else is just R/C stuff. I believe that is what these craft are. Although I did see one listed at frys.com going for $250 USD that had FPV video included in the controller. But I digress, my point is that anyone operating these type of craft "drones" should be operating like they would any other flying vehicle and be aware of their surroundings. It's a damn quad-copter with FPV feedback!, why the hell wouldn't you be constantly looking around? If more parents had taught their ignorant children, people would know better, but Nooooo. Some idiot has to shit in the gene pool.

The problem is that R/C and your modern drone are completely different beasts.

In the R/C world, you're constantly controlling your vehicle - because if you don't, you'll either bust airspace or it'll crash. You have to FLY an RC vehicle.

Modern drones though, basically do "all the hard stuff" for you. You basically tell it to take off, and boom, it's in a stable hover 1m above the ground in front of you, and it'll do that with zero input from you until the batteries or fuel runs out. The autopilot on board keeps it in a stable position.

The user of a drone basically just commands the drone to go to places, while the onboard computer figures out how to do that and maintain stable flight. There isn't much more to ones that can go from GPS waypoint to waypoint.

The fact that the user doesn't really need to "fly" the vehicle leads to dumb users (they are REALLY that simple to fly) to do stupid things. FPV gets addicting, so they're concentrating on that rather than watching what their drone is doing, and oh, you just crashed into something you didn't see because your eyes were on the camera feed and not on the craft. (In the R/C world, you can never take your eyes off the aircraft or you can lose it).

Basically the ability of the drones to fly themselves results in the pilots going from having to learn how to fly (and learning the rules and regulations as a side effect) to basically ordering it off of Amazon, opening the box, clicking "fly", and boom they're in the landing path of aircraft.

Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Sidewhow Bob jumps in a fighter plane, sees how the Air Force has dumbed it down to "Fly" and "Stop" buttons. The modern drone is just like that.

Re:These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone

[JWSmythe]

At the speeds commercial aircraft are moving, yes, I could see a pilot mistaking a bird soaring for a RC airplane.

I was in a Cessna, in the pattern to land, I had just a couple seconds to avoid a buzzard. That was, nothing visible to "what's that?" to "oh shit!". I banked hard hard to miss it. The others in the plane were a bit freaked, and happy at the same time. They didn't realize what was happening, but the one who saw the bird barely miss the windshield was very happy I did it. It would have hit his side. That roughly a 5 pound bird with a 65 inch wingspan. That'd be a pretty big drone.

Here is a video of another pilot with a similar incident, except he didn't even have time to evade. He was going a bit faster than I was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--XhLJMzRB4

Commercial aircraft are moving much faster, and the pilots are busy doing pesky things like preparing to land. Seeing a bird or drone is nothing more than a glance and a "I saw something".

You can find lots of bird strike videos on YouTube.

With the number of birds (animal kind) in the air versus the number of RC aircraft and drones, statistically I'd say most sightings were birds.

Re:These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone

[jbwolfe]

At the speeds commercial aircraft are moving, yes, I could see a pilot mistaking a bird soaring for a RC airplane.

It has less to do with relative speed than relative speed vectors. The most difficult target to see, even when advised of its presence, is coming from a constant bearing decreasing range as there is little change in position with respect to field of vision. I have flown past, on three separate occasions, mylar balloons while at cruise flight levels (FL300-FL390) at 400-450 KTAS. The size and shape are arguably similar to drones, so distinguishing a drone from a bird while at drone operating altitudes should be equally trivial, assuming the event wasn't just a flash in the visual periphery.

Commercial aircraft are moving much faster, and the pilots are busy doing pesky things like preparing to land. Seeing a bird or drone is nothing more than a glance and a "I saw something".

My VMC scan at cruise is much less rigorous than while in a terminal environment. The flying pilot should be scanning outside (VMC), and leaving box work to the non-flying pilot. "See and avoid..."

All that said, I have not ever encountered a "drone" in my 15000 hours of flying, respecting the fact that I don't find myself in the environment (which most likely is not large commercial airports) in which drones operate. OTOH I usually have about 1 birdstrike per year, most of which I never see- only hear the impact.

the Government

[swell]

"The government is getting near-daily reports..."

I want Slashdot readers to know I love them for so many insights. But let's not be arrogant about US citizenship. Many readers are not so blessed, and when we say "the government" they may be confused about which we are referring to.

Please, then, say "the US government" if that is what you are speaking of. Notice that most of those outsiders specify which government they are speaking of. And for all you little foreigners, I hope you benefit from this message.