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What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

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Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#21

Post by inamberclad »

cmurf wrote: post #17
GiorgioG wrote: post #12

They were flying in a remote area, low to the ground. If it wasn't by an airport and below 400 feet, I'm not sure there was any wrong-doing on the drone's part. Sometimes they're called 'accidents' aka s * happens.

That's deeply ignorant. Instead of speculating and arriving at the ridiculous idea that the only regulation is staying below 400 feet and away from airports and then anything goes, how about finding the regulation? §107.23 Hazardous operation. No person may: (a) Operate a small unmanned aircraft system in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another; §107.37 Operation near aircraft;…

I think part 107 only applies to regulated commercial operation of drones/UASs. Private operation is still unregulated.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#22

Post by dzhiurgis »

huffpopo wrote: post #11
mpetrovich wrote: post #5

I wonder why the pilot didn’t attempt to go straight up.

Helicopters are slow, and they probably didn't have the rotor speed needed to yank the collective. Hitting a 2kg drone would result in expensive repairs, e.g. $30K for replacement rotor blades and you still might crash. I probably would have taken the hit but I'm much better off than the average R22 pilot who often operate or razor thin margins. That said; my bet is that there was no drone. My guess is the student ma…

Was it 2kg or 0.5kg drone? Is there much difference between two, afaik all of them are more or less plastic.

If planes and helicopter are ok with hitting birbs, perhaps we should regulate drone manufacturing to be more like birbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-27Bk_RME

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#24

Post by wpietri »

bri3d wrote: post #7
woofyman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Flight instructor saw a drone during low-altitude hovering exercises with a student, panicked, tried to land, and hit a bush The pilot didn’t panic. The drone was directly in front of the helicopter.

I was making an unfair inference about the pilot's mental state, so I removed it. With that being said I still strongly question the relation of the drone to the crash physically and believe the effect of the drone on the pilot's decision-making is the interesting part of this story. Landing as an evasive maneuver doesn't make a lot of sense to me and the actual cause of the crash seems to be a situational awareness…

I think that's ridiculous. Pilots are correctly very reluctant to hit things. Historically, we have wanted them to do their best to avoid that.

You could argue that we should now train pilots to carefully pause and consider whether the thing they are about to hit is safe to hit. But for that, you'd have to show that the additional reaction time in avoiding collisions is really net safer. And if you did argue that, you couldn't judge the current pilots by your proposed new standard.

For those interested, by the way, in really thinking through accident retrospectives, I strongly recommend Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Human Error": https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error...

I read it just out of curiosity, but it turned out to be very applicable to software development.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#25

Post by craftyguy »

newdayrising wrote: post #23

I've been wondering this for a long time - what's to stop a terrorist from flying and attaching a drone with an explosive payload to a large commercial flight? Especially at night while the plane is taxiing?

Nothing, apparently. I wonder though if it would be large enough to be picked up by the radar used at most airports to track planes on the ground.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#26

Post by craftyguy »

wpietri wrote: post #24
bri3d wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was making an unfair inference about the pilot's mental state, so I removed it. With that being said I still strongly question the relation of the drone to the crash physically and believe the effect of the drone on the pilot's decision-making is the interesting part of this story. Landing as an evasive maneuver doesn't make a lot of sense to me and the actual cause of the crash seems to be a situational awareness…

I think that's ridiculous. Pilots are correctly very reluctant to hit things. Historically, we have wanted them to do their best to avoid that. You could argue that we should now train pilots to carefully pause and consider whether the thing they are about to hit is safe to hit. But for that, you'd have to show that the additional reaction time in avoiding collisions is really net safer. And if you did argue that, yo…

Well by avoiding trying to hit one thing, they hit the ground. That's (arguably?) worse than hitting just about anything else other than perhaps another large aircraft or a missle.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#27

Post by trothamel »

newdayrising wrote: post #23

I've been wondering this for a long time - what's to stop a terrorist from flying and attaching a drone with an explosive payload to a large commercial flight? Especially at night while the plane is taxiing?

The NSA and other intelligence services tapping the communications between the terrorists and ensuring that they're arrested before the plan starts.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#28

Post by mbrameld »

taneq wrote: post #6
mpetrovich wrote: post #5

I wonder why the pilot didn’t attempt to go straight up.

Or just realise that a 1.9kg toy should be ignored rather than evaded. What happens if a goose or swan or pelican flies near a helicopter?

Helicopter pilot here. We take evasive action. In forward flight that's probably going to be a quick stop to give me time to see what the bird's doing and then flying away from the bird. If I were working on hovering maneuvers and a large bird flew near I would set down until it left.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#29

Post by cmurf »

kelchm wrote: post #19
cmurf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's deeply ignorant. Instead of speculating and arriving at the ridiculous idea that the only regulation is staying below 400 feet and away from airports and then anything goes, how about finding the regulation? §107.23 Hazardous operation. No person may: (a) Operate a small unmanned aircraft system in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another; §107.37 Operation near aircraft;…

> staying below 400 feet As someone that has spent a lot of time flying model sailplanes, I want to point out that there is no regulation which prevents a hobbyist from flying above 400ft AGL, as long as you abide by the guidelines established by the AMA or another "nationwide community-based organization". The FAA boils everything from section 336 (the "Special Rule for Model Aircraft") as follows: - Fly for hobby o…

FAR 101.41 (b) subsumes any such guideline as a regulation. AMA's see and avoid guideline says any flight expected to go above 400 feet requires a spotter, so if you don't do that, you're violating FARs. Operating an sUAS with autopilot (among other things) has its additional advanced flight system programming guidelines, which have a hard 400 foot ceiling when operating within 5 miles of an airport. This is legally identical to having a regulation preventing operation above 400 feet AGL.

If you violate the applicable community guidelines, you're violating FARs. That's what this part says.

And then there is the catch all FAR 101.43, which is a big black hole of liability that you can also easily run into if you're unfamiliar with the national airspace system and your surroundings. If you fly a sailplane or m/sUAS above 1200' AGL in a published victor airway (this is Class E airspace), I'd argue that's a clear altitude violation of this regulations.

Re: What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

#30

Post by cmurf »

inamberclad wrote: post #21
cmurf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's deeply ignorant. Instead of speculating and arriving at the ridiculous idea that the only regulation is staying below 400 feet and away from airports and then anything goes, how about finding the regulation? §107.23 Hazardous operation. No person may: (a) Operate a small unmanned aircraft system in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another; §107.37 Operation near aircraft;…

I think part 107 only applies to regulated commercial operation of drones/UASs. Private operation is still unregulated.

No, in that case it's regulated under part 101.
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