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Heathrow Plane In Near Miss With Drone
An anonymous reader writes with news about a near miss between a drone and a plane near Heathrow. "An unidentified drone came close to hitting a plane as it landed at Heathrow, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed. An Airbus A320 pilot reported seeing a helicopter-style drone as the jet was 700 feet off the ground on its approach to the runway at 1416 GMT on 22 July. The CAA has not identified the airline or how close the drone came to the plane, which can carry 180 people. It gave the incident an 'A' rating, meaning a 'serious risk of collision'. This is the highest incident rating the CAA can give. Investigators were unable to identify the drone, which did not appear on air traffic control radar and disappeared after the encounter."
until these morons flying drones over and around airfields cause death, probably some kind of small light training vehicle with an inexperience "pilot".
So, being that it is called "An unidentified drone", do we know that it was a drone and not a bird or something else?
How about we just call it for an Unidentified Flying Object until we figured out what it was?
Let's leave making the law until one of these comes down. Ridiculous.
It is already the law. Since ever.
7.5 gram bullet "threatens" 100 kilogram man. You are a complete fucking moron.
And stop with the semantics. R/C A/C are "drones" according to definition; the difference now is they're switching from being almost exclusively operated by responsible hobbyists who take years to train and gain expertise, to being something any fucktard with an iPhone can fly in flight paths.
Of course, a thing made mostly out of solid metal is much more dangerous than a bird. That said it would still be unlikely to hit it in a spot where it will do damaged, but it is not impossible I guess. But what idiot flies it near an airplane, or even near an airport...
Likely to be yet another chav from the east-end mucking about with a spanking-new DJI Phantom bought from Hobby King. No fricking clue how to spend a penny, just tossing about and polishing his knob with a new gadget.
When two planes almost collide, they call it a near miss. It's a near hit. A collision is a near miss.
George Carlin
Video of the incident should appear shortly.
N417SW SKYWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT SKW2608 BOMBARDIER CL600 AIRCRAFT ON FINAL, STRUCK BIRDS, LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT, DAMAGE TO AIRCRAFT IS MINOR, SACRAMENTO, CA
http://www.asias.faa.gov/pls/a...
UAVs (sometimes called "drones") shouldn't be operating around airports but the likelihood of one downing a transport category aircraft is just about zero.
Most mid-air collisions have happened because pilots aren't looking out the window every second and at aircraft speeds it's literally a matter of seconds. Furthermore, cockpit windows don't provide particularly good views outside (in particular due to the thick "frames"). A few 3D cameras on the outside could detect unusual objects in every direction and a computer could immediately take appropriate evasive action, when needed.
"Why do we hear about incidents with drones but not about incidents with RC aircraft?"
Two reasons. One, RC planes are much more difficult to fly. Any monkey can pilot a quadcopter. Two, the media will latch onto whatever the latest Scary Thing(TM) is in order to manipulate the public and sway sentiment of politicians and citizens. "Drone" sounds scarier than "toy plane" and thus has better manipulative value.
My other theory is that people (or agencies) are doing this on purpose to drive anti-drone legislation in order to subvert freedom. It only takes a few instances like this to scare Ma and Pa into supporting anti-terrorist legislation. It's so sad because they can't see the terrorists are actually our own leaders.
So close, yet so busy fuming you're refusing to see any possible good in your self-defined bogeyman.
As someone who doesn't mind government as long as it, you know, governs where it should and knows where to leave well alone where it should do that instead, who hasn't even read Ayn Rand, I think your attempt to stifle any discussion with your own preconceived notions, your refusal to hear any possible suggestion of a solution, preferring to fume "semantics" while trying to paint with the broadest possible strokes over something that looks like an important detail, and proceeding to blame something entirely different that really doesn't have crap to do with the topic at hand, doesn't make your expressed point of view very constructive.
Of course, that's all the fault of people pointing out that the reporting itself comes filled with so much weaseling verbiage that it's indistinguishable from a DHS or TSA press release, farts from whom generally do mean our rights are fscked over good once again. We've only seen that scores of times in recent times. Doesn't happen very often at all.
Now, we could play a different game, but I see you prefer to fume and froth and get a coronary, so I'll leave you to that instead.
Thank goodness my Amazon drone-delivered goods were not destroyed by this incident.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Drones are mostly made out of solid plastic, except for the battery and the motors. I'm not saying the turbine fans would be perfect after swallowing one but I'm pretty sure it would be no worse than a bird-strike.
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And look on the plus side - if an aircraft does come down because of a drone taking out an engine then at least the bridge might offer you some protection.
Drones are mostly made out of solid plastic, except for the battery and the motors. I'm not saying the turbine fans would be perfect after swallowing one but I'm pretty sure it would be no worse than a bird-strike.
The problem is one of definitions... at one point "drone" had a well-understood meaning... now it is like "hacker"... as soon as you know who is using the word, and in what context, it is clear, but until then, it could mean just about anything from a mosquito on a shoestring to someone rigging up a remote control to a second A320.
Why do we hear about incidents with drones but not about incidents with RC aircraft?
Apart from the fact they're really the same thing but with different gadgets.... Those with HD cameras can be flown out of sight of the operator while RC cannot. That makes it possible for the operator to fly a drone some distance away so they cannot be spotted and incur the penalties for entering a no-fly area. Also RC planes are hard to fly, it needs an experienced operator who by then will then be (hopefully) more responsible. Drones can be flown by a complete amateur thanks to their stability and gyros. That means someone is much more likely to fly it somewhere they aren't allowed to go just for kicks on their first flight.
TFA contains gems like "drones could potentially threaten commercial aircraft". 10kg aircraft "threatens" airbus a320. Sure. If you can down commercial aircraft by flying a drone in its general vicinity then there's something wrong with commercial airliners, not with whatever it is that flew into it. Might've been a bird, and those don't come with radio control.
All airliners have an achilles heel that their engines are vulnerable. Losing a single engine mid-flight isn't necessarily a massive deal, though scary. On take-off they're running at full power though, having a 10kg object enter the engine then could be very bad. Also a drone might be harder than a bird (metal parts) and birds don't contain lithium batteries that can explode when punctured.
Of course, a thing made mostly out of solid metal is much more dangerous than a bird.
Bullets are made of solid metal. Most hobbyist R/C aircraft, that are considered drones, are mostly Styrofoam and/or plastic. The hand built ones are usually balsa wood wrapped in shrink wrap plastic film. There are a few larger hand built R/C plane s with metal skin. But I don't think I've ever heard of hobbyists at that level being so irresponsible. It's become more of a problem since the relatively cheap "ready to fly" planes have gained popularity.
Ha! Keep up your idiotic fluffery. R/C A/C ARE drones. Stop confusing the issue; it's just too easy for idiots to use them now. But oh no, the gubments want all the droneses for themselves!!
So does a drone flying over your head sound about the same as the point of what you replied to?
It would seem that a drone is the perfect terrorist weapon to hit a starting airliner with.
Ezekiel 23:20
I was under the impression these things are mostly plastic and electronics since they have power-to-weight ratios to worry about. The most solid part is probably the chunk of chemicals making up the power source, then there's the various motors. Even if there's a metal shell around it, it'll have to be thin and light, say aluminium sheet. Much like aircraft are rather thin (but because of their size at the very least, thicker than drones) shelled contraptions.
The biggest threat is that of "Foreign Object Damage" to the motors. Turbojet engines are themselves rapidly spinning hunks of metal, comprising much more mass than even a solid metal drone (that won't be up there for those literally wouldn't be able to fly), that nonetheless don't take well to even a hunk of feathers, muscle, blood, and (hollow!) bone that is the typical makeup of a bird. This doesn't have to be: You can feed the jet engines engines in an A10 "warthog" large chunks of its own wing cladding, and they'll chomp and cough and spit it out and still bring the plane home. But commercial aircraft have prima donnas for jet engines.
And, of course, the world of commercial airline flying is hyper-sensitive to anything that possibly eventually maybe might cause accidents of any kind. If flying a drone near a commercial aircraft merits the highest grade of incident they have, it becomes indistinguishable from, say, two fully-laden passenger craft colliding on the runway. Meaning that this sort of classification is not the most helpful in sorting out the big from the small incidents. By the by, "Fukushima" showed us that the nuclear power world has a similar problem (along with some troubling others).
But anyway, I think it's a pertinent question to ask why "drones" attract "idiots" where the RC aircraft folk have themselves well in hand. Perhaps someone, possibly the government, should promote the flying of drones in clubs, where there's like-minded people that can teach each other not to do the ignorant thing and fly drones near airports.
Methinks that would be a more constructive approach than scaring up the public and the politicians until knee-jerking time when they'll "do something" by slapping on ill-thought-out regulations that likely will punish the harmless more than it'll prevent actual "possible" problems. Because the latter is what usually happens, it pains me to see it in action so transparently yet again.
Yes. Let's promote people to fly their drones in clubs! That's a great idea!! It'll surely prevent planes from being brought down!
Geese have managed to bring down jet fighters so a bird strike is bad enough.
Unless said drone carries some hardened steel components, this is more like a collision with a bird. Even airplane engines (the most vulnerable part) are designed to withstand that. A direct collision will probably result in some light paint scratches on the airplane. Unlike the case of an airplane collision, the destruction of the drone is not an issue here.
What is going on here is that some bureaucrats inflate the risk perception of something that is basically a non-issue to look really, really dangerous. This is likely done for purely political reasons, to inflate their perceived importance.
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Don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but a drone hitting the fan of a jet engine can be quite damaging.
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Indeed. Sure, a drone carrying explosives or a long steel rod could do real damage. But a model helicopter or model plane could the same and that risk has existed for a long, long time. AFAIK nothing ever happened. There is no risk angle that "drone" brings in here.
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For one, commercial quad-copters are a lot larger than the average bird unless you are talking about a giant eagle.
Second, if the drone is powered by a LiON battery pack and gets sucked into the engine, when the drone is struck by the impeller it COULD rupture the battery pack in a way that causes a small explosion. I don't know if this would be enough to damage the engine but I certainly would not dismiss it.
But not quite zero.
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Probably not, actually. Of course, you could try and do it, and you could strap on a shaped charge too. And if done right the plane'll come down, no sweat. Finding out what "doing it right" means is going to take some trial and error that'll give the game away, so it's probably still more sure-fire to acquire a SAM (you know, a stinger or something--plenty of that floating around the black market) and shoot that instead.
But the point of terrorism isn't to bring down an airliner. It's really easy enough that if that was the point it would've happened much more often. The point is to sow terror in the hearts and minds of the people (and their politicians) to try and further whatever goal you're pursuing. You can compare the "9/11" attacks to the "7/7" attacks. The latter caused mostly shrugs and people continued living on. So it cost lives but didn't really bring much in the way of success for the terrorists. The former caused two actual wars (both essentially lost, with collateral damage in the form of the "Arab spring" and all the rest) and numerous wars on stuff, like water and nail clippers. Thus we see that simply killing people isn't enough, and by extension downing an airplane isn't enough. There has to be a something extra that resonates and strikes fear.
The thing that made "9/11" successful was that it was a grand, theatrical, evil master mind supervillain* type gesture against a people obsessed with being the bestest of everyone and therefore unassailable. And it turns out they're not, but to regain their sense of supremacy they had to show the world, to the ruin of, well, themselves and everyone else in NATO. So this has caused lasting damage to the status quo, and so was hugely successful to the people who hate "the west" and everything it stands for. Just downing yet another random airplane isn't going to be quite that spectacular, you saw that with MH17.
So, no, as a terrorist weapon a drone isn't automatically perfect, no. Partly because simple FOD is not an automatic death sentence for a plane. Mostly because terrorists have rather specific goals, and those goals are not "shoot down airplane".
* Also note that superheroes+supervillains are an American thing. Comics elsewhere have decidedly different themes, for example.
ONE bird hits plane? you mean a FLOK! Single birds hit planes all the time and are unreported.
"Estimating that 80% of bird strikes are unreported, there were 4,300 bird strikes listed by the United States Air Force and 5,900 by US civil aircraft in 2003."
FLOCK OF BIRDS hits plane all engines simultaneously, plane goes down, lots of deaths.
"In 1988 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 604 sucked PIGEONS into BOTH engines during take-off and then crashed, killing 35 passengers."
"On September 22, 1995, a U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft (Callsign Yukla 27, serial number 77-0354), crashed shortly after take off from Elmendorf AFB. The aircraft lost power in BOTH port side engines after these engines ingested SEVERAL Canada Geese during takeoff. It crashed about two miles (3 km) from the runway, killing all 24 crew members on board.[44]"
This one wasn't the bird that killed them, it was an engine fire suppressor that kicked in when it wasn't a fire, i.e. a design fault:
"On January 4, 2009, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter hit a Red-tailed Hawk in Louisiana. The hawk hit the helicopter just above the windscreen. The impact forced the activation of the engine fire suppression control handles, retarding the throttles and causing the engines to lose power. Eight of the nine persons on board died in the subsequent crash; the survivor, a passenger, was seriously injured.[49]"
It seems to be the fashion to exaggerate drones as a threat, but they're model helicopters with stabilization, and we lived with model helicopters for a long time.
Really? Those same engines are tested by firing frozen chickens into them while they are running.
...
Yes, it IS a threat. And a responsible person wouldn't be flying these things where they can put other people's lives at risk.
Yet airports DO take measures to discourage birds from being in their vicinity. Now, most birds generally don't fear fines and prison sentences, so the measures usually take the form of: (i) changing the environment, to make it less appealing -- removing surrounding trees, food sources, etc; (ii) trained birds of prey; (iii) sound-generating devices.
RC aircraft have historically been used by a small number of (responsible) hobbyists. Drones are becoming more widespread, and their owners are starting to include idiots.
It's a shame that some idiots are behaving this way. I say release the falcons on them!
Birds contain batteries now?
No. Batteries found on a drone are not a problem. Stop being stupid.
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Really, airline pilots talk crap sometimes.
Most of them are flying drunk or on drugs, we can't believe anything that they say.
I thought Bauer stopped this...
I'm sure mythbusters can cover this. It seems obvious to me that a drone made of metal is not the same as a bird made of bones, but how much difference this makes is not clear unless you're in love with your own presumption.
The CAA marked it as collision risk A meaning the probability of a collision was high. This says nothing about the actual potential damage. Any angle is put on my the media reporting. Although having discovered a THIRD comment from you on this thread, obviously what we have here is a drone operator deflating the risk perception of something that is clearly a potential threat to the safety of air traffic. This is likely done for purely selfish reasons, to inflate your probability of carrying on with your insignificant hobby without having to pay money for a license, which is what drone operators obviously need.
First, drones are made from harder materials.
Second, we can ban drones.
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A spook type exploiting fear to shut this anyone can fly a drone shit down.
Have you forgotten that drones are energy-constrained and hence need to be light? Also, if somebody actually wants to bring down a plane, a model helicopter does the job just fine when packed with enough explosives. Really no different from a drone, but available for the last few decades. There is _no_ new risk here.
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Wow! I didn't know that. This knowledge just made my day brighter. I'll never look at sliced deli meats the same way!
Slashdot appear to respond my (and others) bitching! I loading up the main page and there was no blazing audio, out ads for Verizon. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Love live, Slashdot!.
Don't do this again.
Let's trust Wikipedia on bird strikes and assume that small objects (under about 10kg) rarely cause a catastrophic collision, mostly it looks like bird strikes and similar are survivable for planes, they just cost lots of money. Looks like most aircraft aren't going to fall out of the sky even faced with a drone operator who successfully crashes into a plane. However the photos show it can make a pretty mess of expensive jet engines.
So I suspect that commercial interest might also be at play, it would be in the airlines' interest to claim a terrorism threat to stop idiots going to the supermarket in the morning then flying a drone near commercial airspace in the afternoon. Going to cost a lot to replace one of those jet engines from the look of the wikipedia photos showing what happens when a bird hits them.
Seems like if you want to commit an act of terror then a 5kg lump of plastic isn't likely to knock an airliner out of the sky, but it will probably cost the airlines a lot of money so I can imagine they'd quite like some regulations in place to stop idiots flying them near their planes.
Why do we hear about incidents with drones but not about incidents with RC aircraft?
Because "drone" is the word which the news now uses to describe RC aircraft. The reason they do that is that "drone" sounds much scarier than "RC aircraft".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
and it's because of people like this that we probably won't be able to have cool toys like drones
The important bit of the story is that the chickens are defrosted first. The engines will not survive if a chicken-sized lump of ice is thrown into them.
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Geeses ain't no issue because geese us, Christ resuscitates!
But I'm fairly sure they don't continue running after the test.
I'm fed up with hearing the old trope that engines are tested by firing geese into them. Whilst this is true, the test is to ensure that the engine does not completely disintegrate peppering the cabin with shrapnel. The engine is most certainly not unscathed and if not written off completely would require extensive and costly refurbishment.
A drone may not be as heavy as a goose but it would very likely cause damage to the turbine blades resulting in reduced power and vibration and necessitating expensive repairs. Reduced power would also pose a danger.
Consequently, it goes without saying that airports do everything possible to prevent bird strikes and will presumably do the same for drones.
It's unfortunate that idiots like this (and the idiots that shine lasers into cockpits) will spoil it for us all. Inevitably, good toys will eventually be banned.
we could have had a soft landing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inFDgCSGWDs
Going to cost a lot to replace one of those jet engines from the look of the wikipedia photos showing what happens when a bird hits them.
Cost of engine repairs
Cost of plane being out of service while the engine is repaired
Cost of (unwarranted) bad publicity from all those passenger youtube videos showing "ZOMG The engine just exploded!!!"
Cost of dealing with all the passengers who are now delayed because the flight didn't make it to the gate on time.
And probably several other things that I can't think of right now
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I get the feeling that it could be government drones, the ones like predators be causing the risk. If they're worried about the 6.6 pound DJI Phantom drones then they are worried for no reason. Remember, they design those plane engines to chop up frozen turkeys which are harder and have far more mass.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfXX7qppbc
They shoot hail balls and turkey carcasses through these engines including tones of water.
Yes, but e biggest danger isn't the drone body (carbon fibre composite etc) but the Li-ion battery and quite possibly a fairly chunky metal bodied bridge camera (Sony NX-3 & 5 being popular models).
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Do you have a reference for this?
All the bird related large aircraft (includes jet fighters) bird related crashes have been the result of flying into a flock of birds -- enough to clog the engine intake and cause the engine(s) to flame out.
There's also he issue of the mounted camera. A lot of people flying in the $300+ range use bridge cameras with metal bodies. Now we're talking about throwing a brick into a jet engine. Along with TWO nice little blocks of flammable Li-ion....
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A pilot earning a small fortune, whose entire professional life is based on trust in him to save lives, whose entire career can be blighted by a single "what I saw wasn't there" incident, who's sitting next to co-pilots, lying in order to get an aircraft that he probably plays with at home himself banned?
Yeah. Right. It's all a conspiracy. Or some dickhead tested out his kids Christmas present and didn't know the laws surrounding drones because "it's just a toy", or wanted to get a cool shot of a plane taking off.
Heathrow is restricted airspace. NOTHING should be in that area, it's the world's busiest airport. You report ANYTHING out of the ordinary as a matter of course, as a pilot. And radar won't see a drone any more than it will see a house, or a car, or a cloud, or a big bird on it's own, or a lost birthday balloon. It's looking for aircraft. And all aircraft carry transponders blurting out their name and position by law anyway, which is the basis for air traffic control. Radar isn't there to find these kinds of things.
Occam's Razor. Either it's a conspiracy by the airports, the pilots, the governments and the CAA to ban drones that they themselves are using. Or it's some idiot with a Christmas toy. And they are already having enough problems with laser pointers, etc. by such idiots. I'm going with the later.
"Withstand" is a relative term... The engine is designed not to explode in a ball of fire and take the aircraft with it if hit by a bird, but that doesn't mean it will continue working properly. At the very least the aircraft will have to loop round and land again for inspection.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Of course, this suggestion will misused.
But I must say it, given the involved costs in lives.
If a small enough vehicle comes within range (for an airplane radar, it might be easier to "see" it), or a device is incoming at supersonic speed, should airplanes have a defensive device to get rid of it? I'm thinking of drones and the recent case of the plane hit by a missile.
Besides the well-known flares, could we throw some kind of net at the incoming object which would open and make a temporary/instant (*) wall between it and the plane?
(*) Sometimes deflecting something is as good as stopping it.
> Occam's Razor ... idiots.
Alternate hypothesis: Aliens. Why this to human malice or stupidity when the simplest answer is that it could just be curious little green (*) guys checking us out.
(* or gray!!! No disrespect, little gray dudes.)
Thank god Jet A isn't flammable.
Oh, wait...
I would rather trust the CAA's own reporting and videos on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) showing bird strikes and what one (that's 1!) goose can do to a £230,000 engine. Three strikes a year which result in emergency landings, and that's just in UK airspace. Sometimes strikes aren't through engines, but through cockpit windows.
That is a risk.
Drones? That's just fucking lunacy. I'd go so far as to call it malicious intent.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
First up, not all planes are turbine engines. Secondly ignition in a turbine engine occurs at a very specific part of the engine, which is not the surface of the blades. A Li-ion battery might well explode on impact.
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Comparing a single engine jet fighter to a multi engine passenger jet. Yeah!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
really??
This one was hobbled by a single bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Seriously a brick would probably ding a couple turbine blades and that's about it. See exactly how many turbine blades get damaged by say a 5 pound bird during testing. A brick or the metal from a camera case would be through there so fast that maybe one or two blades would be dinged. As for the flammable Li-On battery - exactly what do you think a jet engine is? A nice calm environment? It's an inferno where jet fuel is being combusted. I doubt such a battery being burned would be any hotter than the conditions already present in an engine.
You also have to bear in mind the speed at which all this debris passes through the engine. It's not going to be there long. At most there's a compressor failure or the engine loses a bit of power and needs to be serviced on landing, and pilots are supposed to be very competent in handling this sort of event.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
One example: F16 + 1 Bird = 30+ Million dollar hole in the ground :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
...idiots like this will make sure that it's only a question of time before drones are forbidden/regulated.
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Look, do you know why we have so many measure to hunt/chase off birds near airport, to the point that falconery and using other bird of prey was introduced ? Google bird strike, or worst, bird ingestion. The biggest fatality was a small commercial airplane with enarly all on board killed. And now you want to excuse off people using drone near the landing/take off , especially people trying to have the drone as close as possible possibly to take photo or film ? You are a damn fool.
Really? Those same engines are tested by firing frozen chickens into them while they are running.
Ah, that reminds me of one lunchtime debate with a colleague when this factoid came up:
Me: ... yeah, I don't think they use live ones ......
Him: Nah, they use frozen chickens
Me: Defrosted though I'd think?
Him: No - at that altitude, they *would* be frozen
Me:
Makes you wonder how well they'll handle a clump of metal making up a drone motor or battery.
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Cool. And I'm sure they'll survive a fluffy pillow too. How about throwing in a battery or rotor engine?
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>Unless said drone carries some hardened steel components, this is more like a collision with a bird.
It doesn't take steel to cause a devastating accident (devastating to the point it was one of many reasons these planes have never flown again):
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Air_France_Flight_4590
I find it just as likely that the pilot sneezed or had a derp moment when landing and invented the story of a rogue, invisible, stealth drone at 400 feet to explain his potentially erratic actions. The radar at an airport is very sensitive, and would likely have picked something up.
Keep in mind 90% of the non- professional quadrocopters have maximum ranges of less than that. So unless the controller was standing directly on the runway (or maybe in the field/ area behind it), then they would have been out of range.
Heathrow is restricted airspace. NOTHING should be in that area, it's the world's busiest airport.
Though I absolutely agree nothing else should be in the controlled airspace around Heathrow (or any other controlled airspace) without the full knowledge, permission, and constant monitoring of air traffic controllers, Heathrow is not the world's busiest. Heathrow serves the largest number of international airline passengers annually. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world's busiest both in terms of passengers served and aircraft movements.
A pilot earning a small fortune? That was pre-9/11. Now they make about as much as us IT schlubs.
Pilots aren't paid like any other hourly worker in other professions. Despite the fact that professional pilots work 8, 10, 12 hour+ days just like any other professional, they are only compensated for the time considered "in flight." For most flying jobs, unless it's a salaried position, that usually means that they are paid from when the parking brake is released at the departure point until the brake is set upon arrival at the destination. It's not uncommon for a flight instructor or an airline pilot to work a 12 hour day and only actually get paid for 5 to 6 hours of that time- and sometimes less!
Birds are notoriously squishy. A drone carries one or more electric motors and a battery pack, both of which are rather denser and less breakable than bird bones.
> I say release the falcons on them!
Um, falcons are nice, but I'd rather see them release the nighthawks or the raptors on the idiots. They'll never see it coming, and we can all watch the infrared targeting cam feeds with glee like it's 1990-1991 again! :D
The battery packs are highly unstable.. it slike "Lazing a Stick of Dynamite"
If they Legalize shooting the Rebels from the Sky, Airports and soon Planes could soon be carrying Invisible "Masers" that could "Blow the Little Drones up" on approach.
Come to think of it Imperial Drones could hunt down those fool hardy to enough to aim Brilliant Green or Lasers at Airplanes.
Come on, the biggest danger will be unregulated law enforcement use of these things for 'public safety, spying on people and parking lots. Because in a world of untrained asshole cops and Federal agencies who don't see a 'near miss' as anything at all, you're going to see more and more of it. Anyway, why do you think it's flying at an airport? To find the rare idiot shining a laser at planes.
Several posters incredulously have stated that the risk to the plane was nonexistent, equating it to a bird strike (which in fact *is* dangerous). This is just plainly irresponsible on their part. We in fact cannot say what the outcome of a collision would be but we can say the risk of loss of life or damage to the aircraft is not zero. Is this acceptable to you personally? Perhaps it's okay for strangers whom you do not know? Family and loved ones? The risk of collision, however small, is a completely preventable risk, and it shouldn't even be there in the first place. That's why authorities are coming down hard and harder on the hobby.
Whether the airplane was in real danger or not, this incident is just one more of what are becoming weekly if not daily occurrences and show the utter stupidity of some people who fly these RC toys in reckless and dangerous ways. Every serious RC modeler knows that there are restrictions flying near airports, and strives to be safe and situationally aware. These idiots flying their RC toys next to full-scale aircraft are neither safe nor situationally aware, and really are ruining the hobby for everyone, and it will be a loss to all of the rest of us. Yes I'm sure this is all said so often that it gets really old, but this story makes me very angry as someone who flies RC airplanes and the occasional quad, and the situation is not improving. Self regulation is not working because idiots don't self-regulate. So sooner or later the entire hobby will be banned (besides that, none of these airplane buzzers build their own craft; they just buy a ready-made unit and toss it in the air without any apparent thought), plain and simple.
You left out the potential "cost of funerals, cost of damage and death in crash area, cost of airframe replacement . . ." An engine failure could be catastrophic. People who don't live in the New York City area may not fully appreciate just how many buildings the "Miracle on the Hudson" plane avoided crashing on when both engines were stopped by bird-strike, not to mention just how much trouble crashing into the George Washington Bridge along the way would have caused (it's the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
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A pilot earning a fraction of what they used to earn, whose entire professional life is based on trust in him to save lives...
FTFY. Nonetheless, its still a very satisfying career under the right circumstances. At least for me...
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
But commercial aircraft have prima donnas for jet engines.
Of course they do. the A10 engine is a rather rough, inefficient thing designed ot deal with foreign objects. A modern jet airliner has an engine with an astonishingly high pressure ratio, which requires very exotic materials and very fine tolerances. They're designed for maximum fuel efficiency, low maintainance and not shedding blades into the cabin whe na birdstrike happens.
It's the high pressure ratio that makes them prima-donna engines, but that and the low maitainance is what makes moderately cheap flights possible.
But anyway, I think it's a pertinent question to ask why "drones" attract "idiots" where the RC aircraft folk have themselves well in hand.
RC things used t obe expensive and hard to fly. As a result of an investment of time and money the operators were somewhat thoughtful, and enthusiastic about flying for its own sake. Now any yahoo can buy a quadcopter with a camera mount and go look at interesting stuff for a few hundred bucks. No knowledge required.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Around an airport controlled airspace is shaped like an inverted wedding cake. The smallest layer - which contains the runways - touches the ground; therefore you can be knee height in there and still flying illegally if you don't have permission.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Pics or didn't happen
There is no risk angle that "drone" brings in here.
Um yeah there is. RC helicopters are fearsomely hard to fly. Drones are trivial to fly. As a result there are now many, many more drones in the air and that massiely increases the risk. They're also flown by much less experienced people which further increases the risk. AND they can be flown BVR which they can be flown into troublesome areas more easily. That increases the risk even further.
Drone is not a "scare word" but that doesn't mean that the drones do not come with increased risks.
Just like with lasers in cockpits. sure in the 80s, someone coud have bought a $15,000 lab laser and invested time to learn how to operate it and shone it at an aircraft. Funily enough no one did until cheap, integrated lasers you could buy ready to operate came available.
This does not mean technology is evil, but making potentially dangerous tech more easily available does increase the risk.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It happened in July...Yawn
The "toys" are only a pound or two. But drones being conssidered for farm or foresting work are more substantial. they carry fuel and payloads.
Remember the government wants to make owning and using a drone illegal so this is just a well co-ordinated efforts to ensure that happens. Obama is pretty clever that way.
We have little drone, weighing at most 3lb. And then we have a jumbo jet, weighing tons. The jumbo jet creates all kinds of turbulence and wind eddys. The little drone can barely hold in any wind.
I realize if one of these gets into the engine of a plane it could be devastating. However, being an owner of one of these "drones", I have a hard time seeing one of these ever getting to that point. The higher you get with the drone, the more wind to contend with. Wind and drafts will throw a drone so far out of control it will be like a piece of paper blowing in the wind.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
citation please
*which is to say, you're either full of shit or have never held a battery.
It landed safely, though, didn't it?
The DJI Pahntom pictured is hardly a drone. It is an R/C aircraft that 'can' carry a camera. It is illegal to operate R/C aircraft near an airport and it should be investigated / prosecuted as such. Throwing 'drone' out there is just fear mongering.
When we have a near miss with a Military Predator drone, then we have a drone near miss.
Fly drone into path of an airliner and post the impact to u tube.
No more relevant than hitting a seagull unless ingested into the engine.
Of course you may spend the nest two decades in prison as a terrorist,
and of course a terrorist has no civil rights under the law currently.
Not advocating it, just an irreverent idea, so please don't send the thought police.
The pilot of a remote control model helicopter is usually in the vicinity. People can see them, they can be caught on camera.
A by-internet operated drone brings no such level of responsibility or accountability.
The price evolution is also a factor. When remote flying things were expensive, they were bought by people who liked flying things remotely. This brings in a higher average of skill and care. When they cost very little, they will be bought by people with little or no skill or care, and instead of enjoying flight, some will be using them for anti-social purposes (invading privacy, annoying people for fun, etc.).
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The CAA has not identified the airline or how close the drone came to the plane, which can carry 180 people. It gave the incident an 'A' rating, meaning a 'serious risk of collision'. This is the highest incident rating the CAA can give. I
Then nothing really happened did it, this is just propaganda in the run up to taking away radio controlled aircraft.
It was most likely a Phantom (DJI) and the Phantom firmware will not allow flights within 5 miles of a airport.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Show me a picture of the drone taken from inside the aircraft. I've heard this kind of story so many times, only to find out that the drone was nowhere near the altitude or location that the complaint originated.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
A drone is likely to have screws and other hardware that are hard steel as well as a high density power source (battery).
The high speed interaction between a airplane with a thin aluminum airfoil and jet turbines and a steel hardware is not part of the certification tests, so it is just a guess what would happen.
If it hits the aircraft skin, it might just dent or might punch through.
But if the drone was ingested into the engine, the steel parts might be spun around by the turbines and eject at very high speed out the side. The shrapnel would be like bullets. It would be a roll of the dice if they ejected into a fuel tank, flight control system, or into the passenger compartment.
So, no, this is not just some political game. Drones need to be separated from other aircraft.
There are rules to keep aircraft separated from each other and drones need to respect and follow those rules just like any other aircraft. That is why airspace near a airport is "controlled"
That wasn't a crash.... that was a completely controlled landing, even if an engine was out of commission.
They shoot hail balls and turkey carcasses through these engines including tones of water.
Sounds like one of those relaxing nature sounds videos: soft hail on aluminum roof, with overtones of water.
Seriously a brick would probably ding a couple turbine blades and that's about it. See exactly how many turbine blades get damaged by say a 5 pound bird during testing.
Here's a fun test you can do at home. Hit yourself in the face with a one pound chicken breast. Now, hit yourself in the face with a one pound rock. Let us know which you enjoy more. The plane would have pretty much the same answer, if it were sentient and communicative.
The question then becomes, what kind of drone was this? Was it a cute little plastic piece of nothing, or something serious enough to carry a signifcant payload like a DSLR or what have you?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
200 Drones wouln't have resulted in a near miss.
Now we know why the bee population is declining.
Hit yourself in the face with a 5 lb chicken going at 300kph. Hit yourself in the fact with a brick at 300kph. Not much difference. Plus I'm sure the titanium fan blade will slice through brick just as happily as chicken breast. Bricks are not that tough, you can smash one with a sledge-hammer. Besides, no one is talking about bricks, we're talking about a drone made of plastic, aluminum and other mostly soft metals.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Do they do this every time they see a bird while taking off or landing?
An airliner in the pattern is doing well over 100 MPH just to stay in the air. They are way too busy checking lists, communicating with ATC and flying the plane to spot some 48" Quadcopter off their wingtip. No consumer "drone" is going to be able to keep up with any passenger plane.
It may be tin foil hat, but I think someone is making up shit as a pretext to regulate or ban these all together.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This made me think... everyone always discusses the rules and laws for drones and their co-existence with larger aircraft... which is fine. However that's not going to stop anyone who doesn't mind breaking the rules (intentionally or otherwise), drones are relatively cheap, no license is required to get one, and there's pretty much nothing physically enforcing the use of drones.
So what about enforcing those rules when it comes to the larger non military manned aircraft... Perhaps they should have some kind of basic defence against small unmanned craft in their flight path. I wonder what kind of "airline" level weaponry would be acceptable to take out drones while not posing a risk to military aircraft. For starters an on-board radar and tracking system would be needed to pick up drones that are too small to be visible to ground based radar... It could even make the occasional encounter with bird shaped projectiles a little less dangerous.
The only problem with shooting a drone out of the sky is of course falling bits of drone... so i guess avoidance would be preferable given a sophisticated enough on board radar.
I am not at all against charging a drone flyer that damages an engine the full repair cost and I am not at all against fining them for flying drones where they should not. But it is not a risk of killing a lot of people, it is an almost completely economic problem. Laser-pointers are much more of a problem in that regard (still zero deaths despite a lot of morons shining them at cockpits...).
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
But don't you dare don't hit their SUV with one of your drones. They'll pull out their concealed pistol, shoot you to death and claim they were "standing their ground". Hundreds of people could die in an air crash due to collision with drone and they wouldn't bat an eye, but should their car receive one scratch....
Rare events are not indicative of what normally happens. There is a reason it is called a miracle and that is not that these planes usually crash. It is that the whole situation is exceptional unlikely to occur.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Besides, no one is talking about bricks, we're talking about a drone made of plastic, aluminum and other mostly soft metals.
You brought up bricks. Now you want to pretend like it never happened. I'm calling bullshit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Half Pint HAL brought up bricks first.
bridge cameras with metal bodies. Now we're talking about throwing a brick into a jet engine.
1) Drones are smaller than large birds and thus not a serious problem. These are not Predator Drones. These are little RC style helicopters that can barely lift.
Big Airplane + Little Drone = Big Airplane.
2) People need to start flying less.
OMG, is everyone with a slashdot ID a complete idiot these days? An aircraft engine that sucked up a bird has to be disassembled completely before it is allowed back in operation again. Stop f***ing whining about downing airplanes, you're missing the obvious issue. What do you think it COSTS?
There is a big difference between a bird, and a metal drone.
Bird strikes are a bad thing for aircraft, but mostly survivable. If you suck a bird into the engine it is going to cause a ton of damage come out as a fine mist.
Ponder for a moment the amount of energy it will take to render your drone into a fine mist. Now consider the energy content of battery or fuel. If the engine casing breaches the plane probably is coming down, or it will at least be a very bad day for all involved.
Still think it would be no big thing?
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We could do that... except that it will lead to the requirement to carry insurance, as with other situations where you can cause more damage than you are likely to be able to pay for.
Your insurance company will in turn tell you to stay away from airports or the policy is not valid, meaning you are illegally flying. The end result would basically be a drone tax, and you would still not be allowed to fly near an airport.
It seems easier to just ban drone flight near airports, and cut out the middleman.
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Pretty much, now that the cost of a drone has gone sub $100, and can be flown with no real understanding of the forces involved in keeping it in the air... it is a very different risk.
Think child, or dude with a mcjob getting all drunk and deciding it would be great fun to park near an airport and fly with the real planes.
I actually mostly agree with the proposed FAA rules for the commercial variety as well: pilot license, stay low, stay away from airports, stay in visual contact. They can relax them as the technology improves.
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No actually Half-pint HAL is the one who brought up bricks.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You've never played the Chinese Whispers/Broken Telephone game? lol.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The goal of terrorists is to spread fear and slow down economy and other daily goings-on in a country. Why do you think that random risk to ordinary air traffic wouldn't help them further such goals? Especially if the means for doing so are so primitive and seemingly innocuous...until a drone with a piece of a metal bar in it hits an engine inlet? Imagine this happening at a dozen airports simultaneously.
Ezekiel 23:20
I know a lot of car owners that get irritated if a pebble from the road nicks their paint job.
If you owned a plane, why would you tolerate people crashing stuff into it while you fly it around? That shit's expensive.
A friend of mine did hit a bird with the driver-side rear view of his car at 45 mph. Glass and bird blood (actually, some of it was his) everywhere - window was down...
I'm pretty sure drones large enough to fly a few thousand feet up will damage a plane if they collide - maybe it won't bring down the plane, but it will push maintenance costs up. It's just something we don't need regardless of the perceived safety. You wouldn't (I hope) drive an RC car around on a busy street. Sure, it wouldn't total a car, but you'll probably get your ass kicked.
It is not a "near miss", it is a "near hit", or more properly "Heathrow Plane Nearly Hit a Drone". If it were a near MISS, then the two would have collided.
There's more than one incident that was due to losing an engine at a bad time with multi-engined aircraft. To me that sounds like a good enough reason to keep drones away from airports - losing an engine during takeoff or landing can mean things like wingtips hit the runway before the wheels.
So I don't see anything at all wrong with the comparison and suspect you are not seriously considering the subject if you do.
it was a bird collision that for one reason or another, grounded an aircraft by being the direct cause of catastrophic engine damage.
I think the point of this thread is, if a soft and fleshy bird with hollow bones can do that to an engine in the time it takes to inhale, what about something built of carbon fibre composite (which splinters beautifully and burns extremely toxically), a smidge of a highly reactive element in an equally unstable substrate (lithium polymer batteries are fine as long as they're not damaged, and if you want to see one explode just poke a Polaroid pack with a screwdriver and stand clear), and between two and four pairs of rare-earth magnets (motors are packed with magnets, yanno)? Consider that the RB211 and the Trent engines are built by Rolls Royce to the same tolerances (primary turbine blades ride 0.4mm away from the rim of the cowling).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Even private pilots with hundreds of hours of flight time need explicit clearance to enter a class B.
.. said political reasons being that government doesn't want people having the same abilities to observe and record as police departments etc.
Drones for civilians will be outlawed, one way or another. The propaganda war will not stop until it is so. Stupid people who use hobby drones irresponsibly will only feed into their agenda, sadly.
I bring up chickens. You can't bring up bricks.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'