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.

Comments

Re:Would it really matter?

[wonkey_monkey]

granted the Phantom 2 weighs much less than the average duck

It's a witch!

Re:"you can indeed run into regular air traffic"

[maxrate]

I'm a pilot, but I love drones, built a quad copter 3 years ago, a DIY job - at 11,000', sorry to say, possibility of impact is exceptionally high. Best case scenario, damage to manned aircraft in the tens of thousands - Worst case scenario - injury and loss of life. Probability of merely tens of thousands of dollars of damage = low, probability of loss of life = high. This isn't about killing anyone's fun flying the drones....- this is about the real (and not far fetched) danger of me and my passengers losing our lives due to someone taking some aerial photography or just messin' about. Drones need to be regulated, there needs to be safe guards installed. Don't think for a minute a pilot would spot one of these little drones and be able to avoid it. We really are at your mercy, airplanes are not big strong 'tanks' people think they are. They have thin skin, structures to withstand (only) aerodynamic lift properties. In the sky, avoidance is paramount. Also, geese/birds aren't made of plastic and metal, they are flesh and bone is which 'can blend' (if we're lucky). Metal and plastic parts colliding will certainly elevate our chances of surviving an impact. Folks talk about 'rights' in flying these drones, what about my 'right' to survive? We need rules, we need folks to abide by them, we need everyone to get along. BY THE WAY: As far as flying, come get a pilot license!! I did the drone thing, flying the 'real' thing is so much more enjoyable. The general aviation community is relatively small, we always welcome more folks in the sky - G/A is a great hobby, meet lots of people, lot's of places to travel to.

Get a permit/file a flight plan

[davidwr]

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."