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Drone Hobbyists Find Flaws In 'Close Call' Reports
An anonymous reader writes: The people and agencies pushing for strict drone regulation have no trouble coming up with a list of dangerous drone-related incidents. This includes not only the recent drone crashes that have been picked up by the media, but also reports of "close calls," where drones have allegedly approached full-size aircraft. But a new study by drone hobbyists finds that most of these "close calls" were anything but. Of 764 such incidents reported to the FAA, only 27 were actually described as "near misses" by the pilots involved. None of the incidents involved mid-air collisions, and some have involved military drones rather than hobbyist ones. The people who did the study suggest that we should find a better way of classifying these drone-related situations so legislators have accurate information from which to design regulations.
a new "do not fly" TSA classification
"Drone hobbyists" redefine "close call" as "near miss". News at 11.
They can stick their heads in the sand until they get some collisions and it's too late to have any reasonable regulations or they could start figuring out how to keep drones out of aircraft corridors.
>> we should find a better way of classifying X so legislators have accurate information from which to design regulations
Why start now? Besides, it's not the legislators that get involved in "regulations" these days, instead its often committees full of unelected people working for this or that agency.
A operator running a drone that can hover near motionless may not consider things a 'near miss'. On the other hand, an airline pilot flying a jumbo jet that can not be maneuvered travelling at several hundred miles an hour is something completely different. At the speeds Jumbo jets travel, by the time they see something as small as a drone it's already passed by them. That's a near miss. They saw it. There's no time for them to avoid an object like that. So while the drone operators are bitching that - hey I was near a half mile or a mile away. Or even two miles away. The airline pilots are saying - get the hell out of my way. I can't turn and by the time I see your little hobby I'm either running it over or passed it putting my entire crew and my passengers at risk. It's not even an argument.
Government, along with its corporate masters and its enforcement arm, stand to lose in a big way if they have to endure the same kind of "eye in the sky" scrutiny they subject the public to on a regular basis.
It only stands to reason that they'd contrive excuses to forbid average people from having access to the same kind of toys they use.
And they aren't about to make the same kind of mistake they made with cell phones. If police and their masters had known how effective cell phone cameras would be in exposing widespread physical abuse of civilians, they'd have made it illegal to point any kind of recording device at a cop years ago.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
so legislators have accurate information from which to design regulations
Pfft! Since when have legislators ever cared about the accuracy of information when drafting bills? If Congress decides it wants to demonize hobbyist drones, it's going to do so regardless of what the FAA reports.
Since 9-11, concresscritters on both sides of the aisle have habitually either knowingly and willingly consumed disinformation, or ignored accurate information when it didn't support their predetermined goals.
I can see the fnords!
Who are these hobbyists?
Did anybody think to ask the AMA? The organization that kept RC hobbyists out of these kinds of troubles for 50+ years before RTF quads became the latest craze.
Quad hobbyists need only pay attention to the god damn rules that were set before they were born, not get all self righteous about things they apparently don't care to understand.
It's really pretty simple: Don't fly near airports, stay under 400 feet, if you see _any_ traffic, land, don't fly directly over crowds
They could be doing something productive like me, flying a scale predator drone near paranoid groups protesting.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If one of them suckers comes over my land, it is coming down. Before you drone jockeys get your knickers in a knot, my shotgun has a range of less than a 1000 feet. Even less when pointed upwards...
How about actually reading TFA (or at least the summary) before making assine comments.
"so legislators have accurate information from which to design regulations" Why on earth would they start using accurate information now? It's never stopped them before from passing laws on subjects they know absolutely nothing about.
Who listens to reason? If God wanted us to have drones he would have given each of us four tiny propellers.
If there are drones spotted over the fire area, by pilots or ground personnel, they cant fly.
Why do you need to be flying over a fire area that badly.
Apparently that is why they need big fines. Because you feel that you have it under control.
You can deal with that fact it was never your choice to make.
let's see there's smoke, fire, debris,.. Yes things that stop you from seeing drones.
That is why they cant fly when they are there.
Why? According to TFA, over 500,000 hobbyist drones have been sold in the past few years. 27 actually incidents (and not all of them were caused by hobbyists) is a very low number. Why should the 99.999% of drone owners who are responsible be punished? There are already laws to punish the irresponsible, and as TFA points out, some have been. Also, why should corporations, government agencies, and military by allowed to fly them (they caused some of the incidents too), but not civilians?
2) The US government uses them to spy on and kill people.
3) Tools used by spy agencies to kill or spy on people need to be regulated.
4) Because they are new, we don't have any real regulations on them.
It seems obvious to me that we need not regulate drones. That does not mean outlaw - it means regulate. Forbid them from flying over private property without the owner's permission, forbid any technology designed without appropriate safety measures.
But there is surely room to allow use of drones on public lands and on private lands with permission from the owner.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Drunk drivers find flaws in DUI reports... even one is too many.
This is dumb and irrational. It is expensive to enforce DUI. Enforcement takes up police time, uses jail space, and takes incarcerated people out of the productive economy. That is reasonable if it saves thousands of lives. It is not reasonable to prevent ONE guy from driving home from a bar. Scale matters.
Likewise, if the "drone problem" is being exaggerated twenty-fold (as TFA claims) that is a serious accusation. The FAA is an organization of pilots, for pilots, and by pilots, and they have a history of impeding drone use. If the FAA has been lying, then someone should be held accountable.
FAA rules on aircraft separation is quite strict. 1000 meters, horizontal separation and 1000 feet of vertical separation between aircraft. Any violation of this rule will be deemed to be an incident. It does not matter whether it results in any kind of accident or near misses. Any violation of separation has to be reported to the FAA and investigated by FAA. Not sure how the hobbyist organization determined separation. Also not sure if the hobbyists understand the significance of the rules and compliance by FAA.
It looks like some kind of lobbying, astro-turfing and pressure to be applied to FAA to go lenient on the drone industry. 20 pound soft birds do enormous damage to airplanes, 50 pound hard metal drones are really a serious threat.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Just because it's hard to enforce, doesn't mean the rule making won't happen.
Look at the rules about pointing lasers at aircraft. It's nearly impossible to track such events to their source, but they manage to do it occasionally and then make the best example of the idiot possible. Flying a drone is going to be a whole lot easier to enforce than catching someone with a laser pointer. A drone won't fit in your pocket, unless you have really baggy pants. Plus, it is going to take a couple of minutes to land that drone, collect it and do something with it, where a laser pointer can be in a pocket in seconds.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
ONE commercial airliner crash caused by a "drone" and you can bet they will try that. Nothing like a hundred people dying to motivate folks to get something done about it.
IMHO, drone operation should be severely limited by common sense and not just the law. 5 miles away from an airport and under 500 feet isn't enough to keep the idiots from ruining this hobby for everybody. Common sense says you operate these things as far away from airports as possible, as low as possible and also away from buildings and people. Unfortunately, idiots don't have enough common sense fly safely and to see past their selfish desire to fly where it's convenient or interesting to them.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
There have been two wildfires within 60 miles of me in the past week. In each fire there was a point when firefighters had to ground helicopter operations because of interfering private drones. The helicopters can't safely land with all the fire retardant they take off with, so they had to waste 500 gallons of fire retardant, just dumping it in the middle of nowhere. In one case the delay allowed the fire to make major progress and probably delayed containment by a couple days.
I'm all for declaring a permanent open season on unmanned aerial vehicles. Jamming, shotguns, surface-to-air missiles, whatever. I'm sick and tired of the crap that drone operators pull.
Hobbyists have been flying Remote controlled Aircraft for decades, without issues. Drone Hobbyists seem to have issues. Why is that.
Easy, space and cost. Flying models take unobstructed space to fly around. Such spaces are usually not found in your local neighborhood so you need some open field somewhere to take off and land in. If you are going to drive someplace to fly your model, it's easy to head away from airports and such. Also, it used to cost you something to obtain a model to fly. It was a couple of hundred dollars between the motor, radio and model. You where naturally more careful with that. I remember the old helicopter models which set you back easily a thousand dollars or more between the radio, gyros, motors and aircraft. I remember one kit where the rotor blades alone where a couple of hundred dollars. Scary amounts of money for most back then so you went to the wide open spaces with that stuff because you didn't want to loose everything if it got away from you.
Drone operators don't need space now. They hover and land in your back yard, or your smaller front yard. Heck all you need is a small sidewalk now, forget needing any real open space. They are also cheap. Yea you can spend as much as you want, but the entry level $100 system is quite capable. This means folks don't mind doing risky things with them. So this "I don't need free space" and "I don't care if it crashes" equates to operating in dangerous locations at dangerous times, including near airports, over large crowds and structures.
Then you add in the "My drone can collect interesting imagery" and ask yourself "of what?" Why of people and interesting equipment of course and you can plainly see why this is becoming a problem.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Um... Would you apply that logic to murder, larceny, rape?
Yes, of course. If there was ONE murder, ONE larceny, and ONE rape every year, then we could shift resources away from police and prisons. Duh.
Yes, of course. If there was ONE murder, ONE larceny, and ONE rape every year, then we could shift resources away from police and prisons. Duh
One per household? Per block?, City? Country? Planet?
I'm pretty sure most, if not all countries have less than one murder, larceny and rape per household and block. Some cities and even countries probably qualify. Scale matters.
"The FAA is an organization of pilots, for pilots, and by pilots, "
I guess you don't know any pilots.
Pilots tend to hate the FAA.
BTW, the FAA is the Federal Government and not a group of citizens.
The people who did the study suggest that we should find a better way of classifying these drone-related situations so legislators have accurate information from which to design regulations.
I think the people who did the study have missed the point then. The point is that the FAA want to regulate drones, and so they need data to the support the need for drone regulation. Accurate data might prevent this.
Yes, and those households, cities, and countries usually don't have entire police departments going around trying to prevent murder, larceny and rape. The low incidence rate probably means that most of the intervention is responsive, not preventative.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
didn't we have an example last week showing what happens when an engine decides to come apart?
actually common sense would say get your toys out of the way of the adults trying to do their jobs. Even you admit that there is a lot of stuff for them to keep track of. the laast thing they need is to have to worry about some overly important idiot trying to get a good you-tube clip for his friends.
You seem to ignore the fact that money not spent on policing can be used to save lives elsewhere. If the murder rate is low, spend less money on police, and more on medicine research, better education, greener energy etc. Those are also life saving expenses.
Shachar
Baby girl in stroller slashed by shrapnel from falling drone in Pasadena
Drones are inherently dangerous. At a minimum, a drone that can hover has a lot of kinetic energy in it propellers, so when it crashes you can get events like the above.
People do things with drones that they would never do with traditional RC aircraft. People don't often fly RC planes near fires or airports.
On Google Maps go to "214 E Union St Pasadena, CA 91101". That is the intersection listed in the article. It's a business neighborhood two blocks from City Hall. There's no park around. There is a grassy area at the north end of the block, but not where you should be flying anything. It's insane that a child, or anyone else for that matter, would end up in danger at that location from something flying around.
Drone flyers are in a complete state of denial about the risks involved. All the comments claiming the 'close call' figures are incorrect are completely missing the point. As soon as a drone starts flying it is a potential danger. Ignoring this fact makes the danger even greater.
It's not about technology. It's about the users. Drones are just the latest example of how self centered fools can cause real world problems when they become enamored of technology and refuse to face facts. As long as the basic attitude is "drones are safe" then the problems will only get worse. Eventually this will lead to harsh legislation and everyone will scream about government repression. But remember, when an infant in a stroller gets struck in the head after a drone crash, there are bound to be repercussions.
Why is Snark Required?
Also, planes typically have only one person onboard?
In general the majority of planes produced world-wide have been small craft that have one to four seats which means that the majority of aircraft that have been produced are quite capable of having on a single person onboard.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
i'd say you're obfuscating the matter.
commercial passenger planes log a lot more miles than your average cesna enthusiast.
It's rather relevant. The scope and scale of the plane and quantity of people involved shouldn't be a defining factor. A smaller 1-4 passenger plane is going to be more at risk from a drone than a commercial passenger jet simply because of scope, scale, and redundancy. Further these planes are going to be operating out of smaller airports of which many people are ignorant precisely because they don't service jetliners. I live within 5 miles of one such airport which means I can't fly a drone at all without being in violations of the FAA's regulations. I'm about 12 miles from an airport which does service jetliners.
The issue is when taking off or landing at an airport. That is the most dangerous time of the flight and what drone operators are neglecting is that it's not a matter of whether it's a near miss or not, it's a matter of an uncontrolled object flying in an area where a landing or takeoff is being performed. There's no clue to its intentions. Whether jet liners log more flight miles and hours is irrelevant as we are mostly concerned with the number of flights (take offs and landings) that are occurring and the risk that a drone's presence creates.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
actually common sense would say get your silly toy computers off the internet and out of the way of adults trying to do their jobs. Even you admit that there is a lot of stuff for them to keep track of. the laast thing they need is to have to worry about some overly important idiot trying to get a good you-tube clip for his friends.
$100 drones won't fly in anything more than a 5mph wind, and not any farther than bluetooth or low power wifi. Try Again.
...and Godwin'd
Saw the title after posting the comment, and felt sheepish. Unfortunately, /. won't allow me to delete the comment, so I get to continue feeling like a dumbass...