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Record-Breaking 11000ft Flight Sparks Criticism In Pilot Community
An anonymous reader writes: In an attempt to break the world 'how high can you fly a consumer drone' record, an anonymous person from the Netherlands flew a Phantom 2 Quadcopter to a height of up to 3.4 km. That is more than 3 km above the maximum European Union legal height of 120 meters, which has applied since July 1, 2015 to hobby drones. Undoubtedly he set a new record of sorts, which also led to substantial discussions among the drone pilot community on the safe use of drones. At a height of 3.4 kilometers or 11000 feet you can indeed run into regular air traffic, or cause a lot of damage in case of a crash. Fortunately not in this flight -- but the battery had only 4% capacity at the moment of landing.
So what you are actually saying... "but the battery had only 4% capacity at the moment of landing" ...is that these things need better/bigger batteries.
All I can find is a screen shot?
Hahahaha,
FYI the person who uploaded the video's username translates to cockmaster.
But honestly, what's the likelihood?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Serious question: if an aircraft were to hit or suck one of these things into its engines, what would happen? I would imagine that a flimsy construction of metal and plastic would simply vapourize (or glance off if just hitting the exterior) and do no harm. Certainly compared to a goose or other weighty bird, a drone seems like a pretty insubstantial thing.
Pilots have had to deal with in-air objects for decades. As both a pilot and a passenger I have avoided high performance weather balloon experiments, one time in particular was a reminder to pay attention as someone's looking-like 20+ lb payload was literally at our wing height, and 20 ft away.
Part of your job as pilot in command is to fly in and share the airspace.
Are there going to be flight/drone collisions? Yes, eventually. But planes, helicopters and balloons don't own the sky just because they were there first. A TCAS IV chipset might make a nice addition, but restricting a million plus drones to ensure a few thousand planes, that are already on the lookout, are safe? That's just stupid.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
They can "pay" for it out of the half billion dollars annual foreign aid to them, and we can also pull out of NAFTA and start tariffing all our vehicles that our being manufactured over there.
I don't think a drone's terminal velocity will be all that great, since most are not exactly aerodynamic.
Beyond a certain height, it no longer matters due to it's terminal velocity.
Idioot brengt hobbydrone tot hoogte van 3,4 km
Today I learned the Dutch for "idiot."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's Yugo. Quality counts.
SOME planes are rated for bird strikes at takeoff speed. You'll notice in the second video a bunch of planes with major damage from bird strikes.
This confusion led to a humorous moment on Mythbusters. They wanted to test the story about frozen chickens vs thawed, but even their thawed chickens kept going right through the aircraft. It turns out the junked aircraft they used for testing was not rated for bird strikes. Many (most?) general aviation planes aren't.
That was the translation of the Dutch article. On a DRONE SITE. Surprised /. didn't go for the click bait title.
Governments can't stop drones. Making stupid regulations like this only helps create awareness about how dangerous they could be. You can't actually think that a regulation will stop someone with malicious intent from using a drone.
So.. governments need to all collectively shut the fuck up about their stupid drone fears. You can't stop errant drones use anymore than you can stop a crazy person from getting in a car and running into something. The difference is the sky is three dimensional and huge and the chances of hitting something quite small.. more importantly it's entirely impossible to enforce such laws with any consistency.
The only conclusion I can draw from stunts like this is that quadcopter enthusiasts want quadcopters eliminated. Because this is precisely this bullshit that is going to get them banned, and yet again and again we hear these stories. If they would just be cool, and be responsible with their quadcopters, things would be great. But noooooo, that's not happening. You'd figure the Dutch would be especially sensitive after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but noooooo. So, government is going to step in and take away their toys before we lose an airliner.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
3KM or so is impressive enough I suppose. But now I'm waiting for someone to take a C-130 up to 25,000 feet or so, lower the tailgate, and toss a drone out the back :-) Then start orbiting (the C-130), and let the drone climb as high from there as it can. I wonder what it would max out at? Might be better to make more efficient high altitude props on the drone for the thin air up there.
I'm also wondering if a drone can autorotate if its batteries went flat.
Because, you know, it's not like foreign aid money actually does anything more useful than a wall of bigotry.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Would not the fans on a drone go into autorotation just like a helicopter if the propulsion failed?
Air-traffic authorities should provide for this sort of thing by allowing trained (licensed?) hobbyists to file a flight plan ahead of time, to give the authorities time to say "no, the airspace is busy at the time you requested" or "yes, go ahead, we've put you in the system and will alert other airspace users of your presence. Please use transponder code ABCXYZ."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A drone in a 3km cubes (say 7.28 ^ 11 positions) overlapping a plane (say 50m x 50m x 50m, 216000 positions).
We're looking at numbers of the order of 1 ^ 18 for simple instantaneous collission, say it passes 1000 of these cubes, 1 in 1 ^ 15.
But that assumes pure random chance, that the drone pilot never sees the plane. Which is unlikely.
Put this in context there are BILLIONS of birds in the sky, do you want to regulate them too?
This surely won't be the last such attempt of going for height records. People always like to seek limits and surpass them. The only thing I can really fault this person for is not notifying air traffic control about the attempt.
A more sensible idea over an outright ban would be a mechanism to allow for such attempts. Weather balloons routinely go way higher than these drones, and don't cause problems, so why can't drones be treated like them? Get similar regulations/licenses/whatever as there are for balloons. If we can handle uncontrollable, freely floating balloons passing though commercial airspace (all the way to above the normal limit of airliners) then we certainly can make arrangements for drones to safely do the same. In some countries people even like to fire home-made rockets, which also may reach heights well into commercial air space, without causing any danger for other aircraft as it's all regulated so they can avoid one another.
I for one would love to be able to get a drone and see how high it can get. Max out the battery, optimise the weight, and add a small parachute and GPS locator. Send it off, and when the battery reaches 5% have it trigger the chute and gently drop down. Must be able to get a lot higher than that 3.4 km. I fully understand you can't do it just anywhere, but why not in the existing paths of weather balloons? Why not in a specific area that's normally not used by commercial airliners, but instead can be reserved for this kind of flights?
The ceiling of 120m is fine for overall use in most countries (where I live it's a bit low as the average height of a residential block is well above that), but is it really that hard to make exceptions?
There are many comments about the odds of hitting a bird... But don't birds actively try to avoid hitting planes?
Why not take your drone to a high mountain and launch it there
Quite a few mountains are more than 11,000 feet
The Mexicans will pay for Trump Wall because it will prove cheaper for them to have the wall, than to have to constantly be evicting the US citizens out of Mexico who will soon be going down there as illegal immigrants to get jobs in the factories.
(believe me, Mexico doesn't mess around, illegal immigrants are OUT when caught)
It's interesting, that these endurance flights (distance or altitude) are 9 out of 10 Phantom users.
I mean some one can easily build a diy system for similar cost (most diyers opt for lower cost, hence lower range) and blow these records out of the water, but it's always centered around a Phantom competition....
Instead of a physical wall (brick, metal, etc) it should be a wall of frickin' laser beams to burn to a crisp anything that crosses the line.
Half billion? Try two orders of magnitude higher. 50 billion might be too much, but closer to the actual figure. More like 30 billion or so.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It is in the USA 400 feet, or 121.6 meters, but in Europe it is 150 meters. UAVs can fly up to 150 meters.
Just as a matter of record, there was not a single collision of a quadcopter with a manned aircraft in the whole world.
Instead of panicking about drones above 120 meters give drone operators their own air corridor with permitted entry/exit points.
High enough for doing autonomous waypoint flying without the risks of hitting something and for flying in the clouds.
That's all we really want, a safe piece of airspace to bring in the new age in drone technology and have fun.
eg, 700 - 800meters would be a good block
The great thing about the drones industry is we can rapidly build new technology for location monitoring and crash avoidance in models.. :)
Give us the airspace and we will build the infrastructure for model flyers to use it safely
Building a simple RC transponder that idents the models GPS co-ordinates to other nearby models for automatic crash avoidance is not hard.
It's a $5 arduino, a $20 GPS receiver and a $2 433mhz transceiver.
There is a lot of talk of civil UAVs flying here and there causing a risk, but there was not a single test of an actual collision between and UAV and manned aircraft. Similar testing is done for cars, for aircraft and birds extensively but for some reason not for UAVs.
An UAV could be constructed being frangible after 200 km/h speed collision. And by this not causing any harm to the manned aircraft.
There are thousands of drone flights every day that are no risk to aviation. Many nations have similar rules and regs - there are dozens of phone/pad apps that display maps of prohibited or restricted air space in circles surrounding airports and heliports (in addition to military, or other protected space). Some countries permit operation in restricted space when a drone operator has notified the relevant air traffic control of operation within the radius, but out of any conceivable flight path. Why? You can bet that a surprise ping on a radar screen, with no corresponding transponder, will launch some serious law enforcement action. Nations that are wealthy enough to have a 'drone problem' are usually nations with saturation radar coverage of everything above the tree tops. If an idiot drone operator wants to attract all forms of post 9/11-trigger response, flying above the legal limit (above ground, not sea level) is an excellent way to acheive this. Remember - radar knows position and direction - pretty handy to tell the boys and girls on the ground of where to round up someone behaving like a terrorist.
Even if a stupid operator gets away with a violation, many drones fly a form of 'black box' flight recorder. Why? Drone companies learned early on that claims of warranty-covered failures weren't always legit. Ship your destroyed toy back and tell the manufacturer that 'it just quit and crashed' and the manufacturer can play back the flight to learn that a panicked drone op pulled the throttles to the 'kill the drone power' position.
There are more eyes and ears than a drone dummy knows. Anyone stupid enough to get their drone into air traffic by accident is probably not flirting with Darwin for the first time. Civil aviation faces bigger problems than this.
Choose one, not both.
It doesn't stop a collision, but it DOES buffer the collision and make it less likely to contact and contacts more likely to be grazing. You forget that sharks ARE AIMING TO COLLIDE. Are your pilots looking to score points by taking out drones in their path???
Moreover, since the impact transfers energy based on the relative momenta of the objects and one is orders of magnitude bigger than the other, your 640kN goes almost entirely into the drone not the airplane.
It is extremely hard to ban what you call "drones".
First, a drone is actually a plane that fly itself. A DJI Phantom can be classified as a drone but I am quite sure this was flown, and hence should be called a quadrocopter (which is what it is).
Secondly, a quadrocopter is extremely easy to make. Heck, I could build one out off scraps. You actually don't even need the electronics to control it if you makes it in a certain way. However, lets say that you go with the electronic way because it is better and easier to control.
Most quadrocopter controllers are simply Arduino boards that is programmed in a certain way and has a electrical gyro connected. How are you going to stop these? And if you have the controller, the only thing you need to add is 4 motors with speed regulators and 4 propellers. Are you going to forbid small propellers to be sold? Small engines? Quardocopters isn't limited to DJI. The knowledge of how to build them is widespread. It is easy. I can actually 3D print me one. There is several small designs on Thingiverse for instance.
To test that laser fence, how about we give you three Viagras and make you walk naked towards it, nice and slowly?
To test that laser fence, how about we give you three Viagras and make you walk naked towards it, nice and slowly?
Any way we could record it and monetize the "laser dick" video?
Just tax the remittances from illegal immigrants.
US to Mexico remittances accounted for $25 billion in 2015, or about 2% of Mexico's entire GDP.
Are you serious? It's not remotely close to that. The first poster had it right on the nose with half a billion.
Shee. Back when we were worried about evils the southern command looked at this. The borders goes tight through the middle of some communities and there is a lot of legit traffic. And the military does not simply put up walls to seal area. They put a soldier every 100 or so meters. Then there a r e moutains.
So we can seal the border permanently with 11 divisions. We have in total world wide 10. Hmm. Plus real estate costs. You know. Barbed wire and other good to haves.
Before someone counters with " omgthinkoftheplanes " the only reason this is even IN the news is because it contains the word " Drone " somewhere within it.
How many photos have you seen of folks strapping various items to balloons with a Go-Pro attached taking selfies of said items with the Earths curvature as the backdrop ?
I would think they are just as much a hazard to aircraft as any drone, yet no one is running about in a panic or demanding legislation requiring folks register their balloons when purchased :|
Seriously news types, drones are nothing new. RC craft have been around quite a while so find somthing else to sensationalize if you wouldn't mind.
It's documented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.pastemagazine.com/a...
Others.
http://graphics.wsj.com/faa-dr...
It's just a matter of time before someone gets killed. We had to adjust the attitude of an individual near my airport about two years ago. He felt he had the right to fly his copter in the air pattern for the airport. Well he hasn't been back.
People saying what you say it like introducing a soda to the general population that will kill people after 30 days after ingestion.
After 15 days someone discovers the deadly component in the soda and puts it in the news and the company says, we have had millions of drinking it and there is no problem.
This is a matter of "when" and not "if" some shit will happen
There was an 11000ft flight 3 years ago.
http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/vision-tested-to-11-000ft-but-how-much-higher-can-it-go.4146/
Granted it was only 1000ft above their 10000ft launch site, but still...
The videos which you provided are well known fakes. You could do 20 seconds research to learn it before posting them as a fact. It is creatde by some mutimedia designer.
I live near an airport, I don't own a drone, I've never flown a drone. I'm very pro-airplane safety.
That said, why are drones any more dangerous than the helium balloons experimenters keep sending to the edge of space? Don't they spend a lot of time in the air domain frequented by private and commercial aircraft? Aren't they even less controllable than the drones? Every time someone posts a video of the balloon that carried their glorified webcam so high that it photographed the curvature of the earth, everyone seems to let out a collective "Gee! how neat!". Meanwhile, some guy flies his toy to 11,000 feet and everyone erupts into condemnation just short of calling the guy an accidental terrorist. I get it, safety first. No problem but isn't this a little bit of a double standard?
I guess you've not been paying attention to the huge money leakage coming from the Merida Initiative that started in 2007, huh (and that only STARTED at 1.7 billion dollars.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Just as a matter of record, there was not a single collision of a quadcopter with a manned aircraft in the whole world.
Sure, lets wait until there's 400 deaths between we move our butts off our chairs. Too comfy here.
1.6 billion has been approved for a three year period. Out of that, 216 million has currently been spent. Where are you getting 30-50 billion out of that?
The point was made. There have been collisions and I think everyone knows it. It's documented. Here's another one - http://www.flyingmag.com/techn... . See, actual damage.
...It's documented. Here's another one - http://www.flyingmag.com/techn... . See, actual damage.
Birds attack manned aircraft deliberately the same way as they attack UAVs. Just make search of images in Google on "birds collision with aircraft". You will see exactly the same damage and even worse.
In the article it is clearly written: "the FAA's incident report refers to a collision between the Piper Apache and an "unidentified object". So it was an UAV allegedly, but since collisions with birds happen often by Occam's Razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... principle it was a bird collision.
To me - clearly you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I've hit plenty of birds over the decades I've been flying. Not one of them has left damage anything like that. Not one of them has left distinct lines like you see in that aluminum. It's ranged from no damage to having to replace some surfaces due to being deformed. Not one of them had an actual hole in it like you see on that wing.
So we have stories like this:
http://www.pressherald.com/201...
It's just a matter of time. Do we have to have a big body count before the inevitable happens and we do something about it? Seems that is the only way it'll happen.
... we do something about it?...
I do not argue with you that it's better be safe than sorry and we work on making airspace safe. I am piloting RC aircraft, both fixed-wing and multi-rotor. My RC aircraft was attacked by birds quite a few times. Sometimes a bird or a flock of birds can be unbelievably mean and aggressive.
Bird-strikes happen thousands times per year. Unlike a bird, an UAV can be constructed from frangible materials. The FAA works on it with drone producers. In my DJI Phantom 3 and F450 I set the maximum altitude to 150 meters (a regulation in my parts) above ground. It does not fly higher; a message "aircraft reached maximum altitude" appears on the screen.
If I just hear a sound of a manned aircraft, a plane or helicopter, I land immediately and disconnect the battery.
DJI Pantom 3 and the new Phantom 4 cannot take off in no-fly areas: http://www.dji.com/flysafe/no-...
My argument was that there was no clear-cut proven collision of an UAV with manned aircraft yet in the whole world. As for flying an UAV above 150 meters (or 400 feet in the USA) it is clearly against the law, let alone flying near an airport, above a stadium full of spectators, etc. I disapprove it myself. And RC pilots are well informed about these rules.