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How A Civilian Drone Crashed Into the US Army's Helicopter (arstechnica.com)
"In September, Slashdot reported on an in-flight collision between an Army UA60 helicopter and a hobby drone over Staten Island," writes Slashdot reader ElizabethGreene. "The NTSB has released its final report on the incident, blaming the drone pilot." Ars Technica reports:
After waiting 30 minutes, [drone-owner] Tantashov assumed there had been a mechanical malfunction and that his drone had fallen into the water. He returned home. A week later, Tantashov received a call at work. It was an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board... Would Tantashov be surprised to learn, the investigator asked, that his drone had not crashed into the water?
And that it had instead slammed into the main rotor of a US Army-operated Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter that was patrolling for the UN General Assembly in Manhattan? And that it had put a 1.5-inch dent in said rotor and led to the helicopter diverting back to its New Jersey base...? As the recently completed NTSB report on the incident puts it, "several [drone] components were lodged in the helicopter."
The drone's serial number was still legible on its motor, and investigators were able to track down its owner by contacting the manufacturer, who'd maintained a record of the sale. The drone's owner said he'd been unaware of "temporary flight restrictions" in effect that night, and "said that he relied on 'the app' to tell him if it was OK to fly." But for two months DJI had disabled the feature that checks for temporary flight restrictions (to perform troubleshooting), and the NTSB notes that that feature "is intended for advisory use only," and it's the responsibility of drone pilots to comply with FAA airspace regulations.
The NTSB also faults the drone's owner for letting it fly out of his line of sight.
And that it had instead slammed into the main rotor of a US Army-operated Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter that was patrolling for the UN General Assembly in Manhattan? And that it had put a 1.5-inch dent in said rotor and led to the helicopter diverting back to its New Jersey base...? As the recently completed NTSB report on the incident puts it, "several [drone] components were lodged in the helicopter."
The drone's serial number was still legible on its motor, and investigators were able to track down its owner by contacting the manufacturer, who'd maintained a record of the sale. The drone's owner said he'd been unaware of "temporary flight restrictions" in effect that night, and "said that he relied on 'the app' to tell him if it was OK to fly." But for two months DJI had disabled the feature that checks for temporary flight restrictions (to perform troubleshooting), and the NTSB notes that that feature "is intended for advisory use only," and it's the responsibility of drone pilots to comply with FAA airspace regulations.
The NTSB also faults the drone's owner for letting it fly out of his line of sight.
Flak is short hand for ANY anti-aircraft gun. Thats anywhere from a 20mm gun to a 150mm gun. The latter of which could hit a helicopter flying ~25000 feet up in the air and still have 25000+ feet of altitude range.
So to answer your question: a Black Hawk helicopter hit by flak would either shrug it off with dents or crumble like dry sand.
The drone pilot was indeed an idiot.
The full report shows that he knew about the maximum permitted altitude of 400ft, yet logs showed he flew as high as 547ft 1.8 miles away. He also knew there were frequently helicopters in the area and still flew it 2.5miles away, well out of sight. This is why we can't have nice things.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenera...
I crashed my Phantom 3 a few years ago and decided it was best to just drop the hobby.
Model rockets are in fact governed as aircraft in that one must also adhere to TFRs and other permanent airspace rules. The thing is that the typical Estes hobby rocket's incursion is so fleeting that it doesn't really matter, and the people engaged in this hobby are so comparatively few that they're pretty serious about it, along with handling things like tubes of packed black powder, that they generally don't cause trouble due to their innate sense of responsibility. The high-performance rocketeers even coordinate with the FAA to arrange NOTAMs and even TFRs for their activity so that other users of the airspace are notified and may plan accordingly.
But, I have to say this - your attitude, though, does fit 2 of the 5 Aviation Hazardous Attitudes[1]. Remember, these regulations are *not* about YOU.
Regulations cannot be tailor-made to everyone, and while you inspecting your roof with a drone 20 miles from the nearest airport is in reality a so-what deal, the FAA isn't going to spell out every possible exception to every FAR just to suit every drone-flying nerd in every possible situation. There are people (such as the one TFA is about) who completely flaunt the FARs and don't exercise even basic common sense on top of it. They don't understand that all drone pilots are now sharing airspace with actual aircraft, and thus all occupants of the airspace must play by the same rulebook. This matters most in the most congested airspace, and are largely the target audience of these rules.
We already have stories from around the world where dumbasses are flying their drones along major airport approach and departure paths, with near-misses now being a common report. These rules, as draconian to the non-pilot normies as they may seem, are an attempt to get people to act straight and not do this shit because no one wants to find out the hard way what happens when a drone collides with an aircraft that's on climb-out - an aircraft that might be experiencing a flame-out on one engine due to unrelated problems, only to have a drone get sucked into the one remaining operational one. No one thought USAir 1549 would happen - until it actually did. Same goes for a lot of other accidents, be they mechanical, environmental, or human-caused.
You have a drone, that's great. This also makes you a pilot. I highly suggest that you start thinking like one, and then follow that up with acting like one. Given your missive above, the below link would be a great place to start (and yes, these hazardous attitudes and their antidotes are questions indeed posed on the PPL written exam.)
[1] http://aviationknowledge.wikid...
There's a difference in the operator of a licensed manned airplane and random guy who picked up a toy at Best Buy on a lark.
Both in terms of training and in terms of incremental difficulty of checking TFR compared to the general involved process of preparing for flying and taking off.
Besides, it's bad enough for accidental interference, but if there *is* something that the patrol would catch, then you have an antagonistic adversary and it would not be a good idea for them to be able to knock out air support with an unarmed drone.
Of course, in this case it was more dramatic presumably because they could afford to be. They had an extra vehicle in the patrol, so they could peel off. Replacing the blade is also because they could afford to, in a more urgent situation they could have probably done other options safely.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.