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Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

telegraph.co.uk

61–70 of 176 posts

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#61
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geofencing has a downside, too. While you might think it enhances aviation safety, it may not do so at all. Planes spend so little time within flying/control range of commonplace drones that, when you read about a "possible drone strike" always bet against it. Instead it will enable mission creep as more places get banned because embarrassing things, like protesters getting beaten, happen there.

>Planes spend so little time within flying/control range of commonplace drones that It depends where you're talking about. Close to airports is the major issue. 2nm from the runway planes will be at 600ft, which is well within the range of drones. >Instead it will enable mission creep as more places get banned because embarrassing things, like protesters getting beaten, happen there. We're talking about voluntary geo…

> planes will be at 600ft, which is well within the range of drones.

not legally

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#62
post #39

Wow, this is an elected official? > Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320 > Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough. He said it would be much easier for terrorists to attack airports on the ground with rucksacks or car bomb…

They've also tried a 747 simulator. This is quite impressive.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#63
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately yes, which is why you get founders awkwardly trying to answer questions like.. "How does your product compare to X and Y that are dominating the space right now?" when they've never heard of X or Y.

> Classic HN. Jumping from someone's annoyance to "create a startup" that "definitely has value" without knowing anything about the space. All that without specifying whether or not you have knowledge in the space. You probably should have specified X and Y are already in the space rather than assuming that someone already has taken up space there.

Besides the established ones mentioned in siblings, there's https://airmap.io/ which is quite good.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#64
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's how most startups get started AFAIK?

Unfortunately yes, which is why you get founders awkwardly trying to answer questions like.. "How does your product compare to X and Y that are dominating the space right now?" when they've never heard of X or Y.

X and Y are dominating the space? Good, there's a proven market.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're talking about voluntary geofencing here, by the companies themselves. That's not "voluntary" - the manufacturers are not the owners/operators of the drones.

I (obviously) meant voluntary on the part of the manufacturers. That is how Phantom do it, and it seems to work well.

Sure, and creation of a law would be voluntary on the part of the government. The end result for the owner is the same - an involuntary restriction of their drone's software.

We don't need any more encouragement of device lockdown, treacherous computing, and the general erosion of ownership.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#66
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't look so easy. First you must put a GPS in each device, I think the cheaper drones don't have one. Also, the forbidden areas may vary, so they have to provide a way to update it.

> First you must put a GPS in each device, I think the cheaper drones don't have one. The cheaper ones are frequently controlled by a smartphone app, which can do the geofencing for it.

That would return the GPS coordinates of your phone, not the drone. It would not help unless you started in an airport.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Planes spend so little time within flying/control range of commonplace drones that It depends where you're talking about. Close to airports is the major issue. 2nm from the runway planes will be at 600ft, which is well within the range of drones. >Instead it will enable mission creep as more places get banned because embarrassing things, like protesters getting beaten, happen there. We're talking about voluntary geo…

> planes will be at 600ft, which is well within the range of drones. not legally

Yes, it's already illegal, but most people aren't aware of - or don't care about - the laws. The youtube vid I posted here was < 1nm from the end of the runway at CYAZ, which means planes are at <300ft. The only reason the guy wasn't creating a hazard is because the geofence in his Phantom wouldn't let him use his drone there, so he had to move a few miles down Long Beach.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately yes, which is why you get founders awkwardly trying to answer questions like.. "How does your product compare to X and Y that are dominating the space right now?" when they've never heard of X or Y.

X and Y are dominating the space? Good, there's a proven market.

Oh dear, it's worse than I thought.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah mission creep would be the best way to describe what I'd be afraid of with geofencing.

I'm not sure I agree with geofencing, but it's also true that drone operators appear to be, by and large, acting like complete jerks and someone needs to get the message across somehow.

The message shows be sent by levying fines, mandating community work and putting restrictions from operating drones for X years for anyone caught being a jerk.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#70
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Round up a team and put it in the ApplyHN sector - that could be a really useful, pay-for-app & updates type service. Definitely has value. The target market should be able to see the cost-benefit I presume. Good thinking!

It seems like there could be something of an aspirational market there for 'prosumer' drone pilots who follow the rules because it makes them feel more like professionals. Include some resources on interesting uses of drones, maybe a little marketplace for connecting camera drone pilots with marketers or landowners...

Absolutely - if anything, the excuse of "ignorance" factor would be a lot less. Reducing the risk of liability is a reasonable avenue in my opinion. Also if "drone racing" and the like start to get more popular, having advertisements for regional facilities could be mutually beneficial.
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