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FAA Report Says Near Collisions With Drones On the Rise
The Washington Post reports that Pilots around the United States have reported a surge in near-collisions and other dangerous encounters with small drones in the past six months at a time when the Federal Aviation Administration is gradually opening the nation’s skies to remotely controlled aircraft, according to FAA records. ... Many of the previously unreported incident reports — released Wednesday by the FAA in response to long-standing public-records requests from The Washington Post and other news organizations — occurred near New York and Washington. The FAA data indicates that drones are posing a much greater hazard to air traffic than previously recognized. Until Wednesday, the FAA had publicly disclosed only one other near-collision between a drone and a passenger aircraft: a March 22 incident involving a US Airways regional airliner near Tallahassee, Fla.
n/t
Funny how this revelation comes out just before they are about to release their regulations for "drones".
Because every asshole out there with a DJI Phantom couldn't figure out flying around airports (or over 400 feet) was a bad idea.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Do the pilots fully comprehend the fact that even though there's nobody inside the thing that it's still being controlled. Couldn't this be more about human psychology than actual danger?
If someone is deathly afraid of pit bulls and a totally tame one gets loose and tries to play with them, wouldn't they later talk about how they feared for their life from this beast, even though they were never in danger?
The only thing of interest how the FAA is spinning this and how much they are going to try and regulate.
You wanna fly your drone with no IFF, no communication and anywhere you want? Oh, because America and Freedom and stuff. Okay, good luck with that.
That's a recipe for collisions. Now, I realize you got your SHINY NEW THING delivered from Amazon and want to use it any way you want but there's this thing we have called public safety. Grow up the lot of you.
Conversely, they can also be utilized to anonymously spy on people in ways that have never before been available to the average person/extremist types. Since they can also deliver explosive devices, they can be a very dangerous tool. It's easy to understand why governments are very wary of drones proliferating, since they are relatively cheap to produce. Law enforcemnt will want to be able to know who exactly sent which drone to wherever, and who sent it.
Today tech is advancing at such a rapid rate. We as a people can eventually adapt to whatever is coming. The question seems to be, can the powers that be adapt to the new freedoms drone tech will be bringing us.
The skies are open, they are owned by nobody.
The Air Commerce Act of 1926 takes issue.
Is this really a problem or just a ruse to have more regulation?
Consider that most 'drones' are very tiny light weight items more akin to a good old fashion toy R/C model airplane than what people think of as 'DRONES' as in war planes. When a real drone gets hit by a full size airplane, such as the 767 mentioned in the article, the real drone is destroyed and the 767 will not even notice the gnat with the possible exception being if a big drone went through the engine which would possibly cause damage but be unlikely to disable the large aircraft.
Birds, the organic things that flap their wings, are a far greater hazard to aircraft.
This leads to the conclusion that this report is more about justifying more restrictions on 'drones' than anything else. This is more about fees and control by government agencies than about safety.
so dangerous, and yet no accidents. Sounds like a PR campaign before another FAA power grab.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
We are past the point where the avionics that planes have is small enough to be integrated into any drone capable of flying over a hundred feet up. I know it would add cost but as someone else said why doesn't the FAA require a license and transponders on drones so that everyone knows what's in the air and who owns it?
Nothing is impossible. It just hasn't been figured out yet.
The skies are open, they are owned by nobody.
The Air Commerce Act of 1926 takes issue.
As does the pair of F-22 Raptors that will politely greet you if you enter US airspace unannounced and blow you out of the sky if you don't answer.
Are you retarded? Bird strikes are a real problem (remember Chesley Sullenberger landing that plane on the Hudson river?). Once you consider general aviation aircraft (which outnumber "full size airplanes") it becomes much more serious.
Protip: if you're flying a drone/rc aircraft/whatever near a fucking class B airport you're violating several existing regulations, which is to say it has been a restricted activity for decades.
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Anyone here can tell us the technical specifications for drones available to customers. I don't mean specifialized commercial drones, I mean mass market drones.
I am asking because the article reports altitudes as high as 4 000 feet. As far as I know, DIJ and Parrot drones have a battery autonomy of about 15 minutes and I wonder if they can actually reach 4 000 feet altitude and land within 15 minutes. What about the radio communication module, can it still control the drone at such an altitude? Because I believe if the drone is out of reach by the remote controller, it initiates a return flight until it is again within the radio communication perimeter.
Probably a custom made drone could reach 4 000 feet and be still remote controlled, I have doubts about the customer grade ones.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Our skies are riddled with commercial airliners, and a few private planes, owned by people who could afford them. Perhaps quads are the next thing in personal aviation and perhaps also the FAA should give recognize this and give people some airspace, too.
I live in Silicon Valley, where you can hear airliners every few minutes, and police helicopters every weekend, So what really is the difference?
I also fear that the FAA is going to tighten private use, just so they can auction off the airspace rights to companies like Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I see FUD... Sigh....
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
Planes hit birds all the time. Have we been smart enough to pass a bunch of laws to keep the birds from flying around planes? But in all seriousness--planes strike birds all the time and rarely encounter any issues. Of course there the was the Landing on the Hudson, but that was a flock of geese. Geese tend to be much larger and heavier than any hobby type drone.
,maybe we can come up with a reason to ban drones that saves the children....
But hey, before folks have a chance to think logically, might as well pump out the FUD to get these toys out of the hands of potential terrorists--or
How true. I can't even fly my drone without fear of being hit by an airplane.
You have the right to use an open space reserve, but you don't have the right to do whatever you want there. You can reserve airspace for rocketry without a pilots certificate, but you have to call Oakland center first. Usually the FAA wants to arbitrate the use of the airspace for safety reasons. Most FARs are written in blood. This might seem unfair to drone operators, but regulations are changing.
And those pesky helicopters keep chasing them around.
You normally can't get outside once you are in the secure area on an airport, with a few unreliable and guarded exceptions such as when walking from the gate to a very nearby plane.
I can cover that. Ban drones because predator use them to tract kids and see when they are alone. Anyways it is a legit concern. Wait till you are on a flight that is downed due to a hobby drone
At least 5 airliners in the next decade will be brought down 'accidentally' by cop drones aka drunk fucking assholes fucking around with their buddies.
As I said in a previous article on the same subject, just hire Bubba and his friends to take target practice on any drone anywhere near an airport.
Problem solved.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The basis of authority for the Air Commerce Act was the authority of the Federal government to regulate interstate commerce... hence the name! FAA has authority over "Navigable Airways", which are airways that can be used for interstate commerce (commercial flight). In practice, most any airport that supports private flight can also be used for interstate commerce, thus the breadth of regulation.
But just as "navigable" waterways are only a minority of all waterways, navigable airspace is not all airspace. It is generally limited to "cruising altitude" for various kinds of aircraft, plus areas around airports. And there are certain geographic regions which are explicitly excluded.
But the FAA does NOT have authority over everything in the air. The latest court ruling by a Federal judge was that the FAA does NOT have authority over small drones that are operating at low altitude and not around airports or other navigable airways... regardless of whether they are being used commercially.
So no... the Federal government does not have authority here, despite the Air Commerce Act. The authority for that act is Interstate Commerce, and little if any private drone use can reasonably be said to have anything at all to do with interstate commerce.
The FAA has appealed that ruling, though it will surely lose the appeal too. However, in the meantime it is trying to bull through regulation so that it's a "done deal" before they get to appeals court.
Drone regulations won't prevent this from happening. I'm not sure how it's relevant.
In fact, the modern air traffic control system exists precisely because people DID die.
Yes, I agree with what you're saying. But, for a laugh, you should listen to an old comedy bit by a guy named David Gunson. I remember laughing at this when I was kid.
"Navigable airspace" actually has a definition, you know.
"Navigable airspace" is airspace at or above the minimum altitudes of flight prescribed by the Code of Federal Regulations, and must include airspace needed to ensure safety in the takeoff and landing of aircraft. By policy, the term "airspace above minimum altitudes of flight" is interpreted to mean "airspace at or above minimum flight altitudes."
The referenced 14 CFR 91.119 defines minimum altitudes as altitudes allowing a safe emergency landing, and various other restrictions depending on whether you're over a "congested area", "other than congested area", or a "sparsely populated area".
So if you're over cornfields, the plains, a beach, or a lake (with no boats within 500 feet) it's perfectly legal to fly at 20 feet, and that counts as "navigable airspace". Hence the FAA purview. It's well established that the FAA has authority over all airspace in the country. The only rebuke the FAA has gotten in court has been "you have to go through rulemaking for this, you know" - which is precisely what they're doing.
Frankly, these drone idiots are ruining things for everybody. Model aircraft folks came to an understanding with the FAA something like 30 years ago, and the rules were quite sensible, and kept everybody safe and out of each other's way. But in comes Mr. Drone flying his just-bought Phantom out of sight at 1500 feet in an approach path, and now they have to regulate it.
I'm a pilot, and getting too close to birds gives me the willies. But birds don't have metal. If your toy puts a hole in my windshield with a closing speed of 230 MPH, it will probably kill me - what skin do you have in the game?
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That the FAA is made up of pilots is why they should NOT be making policy calls. Flying is scary, exhilarating, complex... Nobody learns to fly because they're just looking for any ol' job. Its an emotionally charged activity and people pursue it because they're the sort who's motivated by those sorts of emotions.
So when one of these people is asked about dangers, they aren't going to look at statistics, or make a single calculation. They're going to answer off the top of their head that "there is a non-zero chance." And its technically true - probability does get arbitrarily close to zero without ever getting there. But they're still wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
When you think about something scary, and you're later asked about the probability of that thing occurring, you will always always always overestimate the likelihood. That is how brains work. You can't get around it. Pilots think about scary airborne accidents more often than most people, and so they will defend the FAA to the death. They don't actually KNOW that they're only doing so to justify their emotional knee-jerk reaction, but they are. These are super intelligent and competent people. Piloting is HARD. They're smart and have spent their lives making solid rational educated decisions. So imagine how embarrassed they would be to admit that they never actually looked at how difficult it is for two things to collide in a three dimensional environment. They won't do that. The more rational and intelligent argument they hear against this nonsense, the harder they'll stick to their fear-guns.
P.S. The FAA is lieing. There have never been any near-collisions. Drumming up a fear response is just standard policy. All agencies do it. Don't think that because humans have a hard time lieing to one another in person that a large group of humans will also have a hard time lieing to other large groups. It doesn't work that way. The American government in particular lies as a matter of course, about nearly everything. I'm not being paranoid or anything - all the people who make up the system really do mean well. We just have to acknowledge the nature of large organizations with no accountability, diffusion of responsibility, and strong motivation to cover-one's-ass.
P.S.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/119/
That shows mathematically how difficult it is to hit something LARGER than your projectile, when you're actually aiming to do so.
Traditional powers always want to hold the turf. The FAA wants to keep its authority. But this will distill into a solution that the FAA may not like. Drones are proving to be very useful and are rapidly becomming more and more useful. If the skies can not tolerate both drones and traditional aircraft it may well be time to ground planes almost completely as drones have more to offer most people. Keep in mind that passenger carrying drones can easily exist. The Air Force is more than slightly aware that human pilots are not ideal in fighter type air craft. Even the notion of a human controller in a remore location is not such a great idea as autonomous drones are rapidly becomming more and more capable and less likely to err than human controllers. In some ways weapons of war with very high tech designs begin to resemble ancient ideas of war machines. For example artillary barges which either had no ability to guide themselves or very small propellers and engines to be able to do a bit of manuvering can be seen in modern designs. A large vessel tows an unmanned barge that sits so low to the water that water sloshes on its deck. The sides are V shaped to ward off strikes by guns or torpedoes. The barge is able to go the last two or three hundred miles under its own engine. It is a highly armed device with missile ports and other high tech weapons that pop up and can rain hell on a region. It is all weapon and all armour. No sailors are at risk at all. When the barge depletes its weapons it can return to the mother ship or pull into the mouth of a harbor and scuttle itself thuse sealing off the harbor.
Actually, small surface-to-air missiles should be the all-American response to drones encroaching on flight paths. Has anybody looked into this yet?
The referenced 14 CFR 91.119 defines minimum altitudes as altitudes allowing a safe emergency landing, and various other restrictions depending on whether you're over a "congested area", "other than congested area", or a "sparsely populated area".
Did you actually read what I wrote? This:
Navigable airspace" is airspace at or above the minimum altitudes of flight prescribed by the Code of Federal Regulations, and must include airspace needed to ensure safety in the takeoff and landing of aircraft.
Is actually pretty damned exactly what I described. It is only a fraction of "total airspace", and low altitudes in particular are not part of it.
If you're a pilot, but not a crop duster, what are you doing flying at low altitudes when not around an airport? As already discussed, twice now, areas around airports, for obvious reasons (takeoff and landing), are "navigable airspace" and drones are prohibited.
Flying drones in those areas is already against the law. So what's the problem?
Did you read what I wrote? The vast majority of the airspace of this country - including lots of airspace that drones have been using - is regulated by the FAA. Inasmuch as "a fraction" is "a very small fraction, like If you're a pilot, but not a crop duster, what are you doing flying at low altitudes when not around an airport?
What? That's the regulation and I'm allowed to be there whether I'm a crop duster or not. What is the drone doing there, is the question. In any case, the vast majority of this country has no altitude restriction since it counts as "sparsely populated areas". Otherwise it's 500 feet - hence the RC limit of 400 feet (since they generally fly in "other than congested" but not "sparsely populated" areas).
Flying drones in [in approach paths] is already against the law. So what's the problem?
Exactly. Like I said, the FAA came up with rules in 1981 to have planes and RCers get along. The AMA is pretty careful about this, actually, and it works well. But these drones don't require any skill or investment (and hence limited likelihood of interacting with the community), and the self-regulation isn't working any more. Do you expect the guy buying a Phantom on Amazon to be able to read a sectional and figure out where planes are likely to be? If they all did, we wouldn't be having this problem! So we need tighter regulation to make sure the drone guys follow the rules... unfortunately for everybody who was getting along just fine.
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Sorry, that should have been "a very small fraction, like the amount you could stick a pole into" followed by the quote:
If you're a pilot, but not a crop duster, what are you doing flying at low altitudes when not around an airport?
--
Anyways, I just thought I'd add that I really don't have anything against drones or RC planes or anything as such, just their reckless operation. Just as the big jumboes tolerate me, I figure I should tolerate them. But my life is on the line, so I expect them to know the rules that keep us safe. I trained for 70 hours of flying time, and took a written, oral, and practical test to get my flying privileges. I know the FARs and so does everybody else in the sky, and we all follow them or people die. I'm not being melodramatic, people die all the time. Here's one from a few weeks ago where the guy likely (the report's not done) broke the rules and paid the price. The regulations are absolutely written in blood.
RC folks practice pretty hard as well, and they have a very good community that's interested in interoperating with "the system" and keeping everyone safe. The drone guys - as has been demonstrated - do not. The growing list of encounters that this article is about shows that self-policing isn't working. All I want is for people to know the rules and be held accountable to them - which is pretty much why the FAA is working their way up to requiring some sort of certification.
I cannot emphasize this enough - I consider the drone fliers to be the equivalent of a drunk driver, except worse since at least a drunk is also risking his own neck. They're going to kill someone, and it's only a matter of time.
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