Drone Quote of the Century!

[HeliNomad]

Yesterday a CHP helicopter from the Golden Gate Air Ops division had a VERY close call with a drone at 700-800 ft. It so happens that these good men and women who work for this division are my neighbors at our local airport. Unauthorized drone activity has been posing a serious threat in the Bay Area and it's only getting worse. Fortunately the incident is gaining legs rapidly through the media. My good friend Jim Andrews was quoted brilliantly in this article and I thought it was worth sharing:

[...]
Andrews, also a CHP helicopter pilot who was off duty Saturday, acknowledged that he has a personal interest in keeping drones out of the way of piloted aircraft.

“If your level of aircraft experience is that you ordered something from Amazon,” he said, “you ought to stay out of the federal air traffic system.”

Original Article: CHP copter avoids hitting drone in Martinez - SFGate (http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/CHP-copter-avoids-hitting-drone-in-Martinez-6679935.php)

[Flying Binghi]

Unfortunately i suspect the more media attention they get the more the little nutters will want to fly a drone into an aircraft..:hmm:




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[HeliNomad]

Well sadly I fear you're right. Reading the comments on the article alone I fear for mankind: CHP copter avoids hitting drone in Martinez - SFGate (http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/articleComments/CHP-copter-avoids-hitting-drone-in-Martinez-6679935.php)

The Phantom drone in this story weighs 3 lbs, not 40. And it sounds like the helicopter approached the drone, not the other way around.

[Fareastdriver]

There was a disused airfield near Aldergrove International called Nutts Corner. This was a popular meeting place where model aircraft enthusiasts would fly their models. It was also a turning point for low level helicopter traffic approaching the airfield and sometimes they would get very very close to each other.

A precaution I took if a saw a model in my vicinity was to transmit a long dash on the powerful, 100 watt, hf radio we had on board. This would lock up the models flying controls and as you watched it going down you would give it back to the owner when clear.

Good unusual attitude training.

[[email protected]]

About 30 Mhz if I remember correctly FED:ok: Trouble they all seem to work on GHZ nowadays so that doesn't work so well.

[ShyTorque]

As an aero modeller in my younger day, I think it was actually 27 MHz in FED's day. In any case, HF frequencies don't go as high as 35 MHz; the RAF HF sets we had could transmit betwen 2-30 MHz.

IIRC, 35 MHz was allocated to model aircraft later. I've still got a functional 35 MHz RC set somewhere, and remember upgrading to it from the earlier type sometime in the 1980s.

A few years ago I was transiting the Heathrow control zone near Brent reservoir at about 1100 feet, when a large high performance aerobatic model aeroplane, complete with tuned pipe, appeared right in front of me. Obviously, it didn't collide with my aircraft, but it was very close.

[MightyGem]

I remember coming over a ridge, at about 100', in Germany and seeing a chap with an RC controller in his hands. Never saw his aircraft. :eek:

[bolkow]

I think its very important to distinguish between drones and normal fixed wing and model helicopters, the latter two take a degree of skills and learning to operate and during that time clubs get the opportunity to ensure legal requirements are both understood and respected, you cannot simply fly an aeroplane of helicopter out of the box so to speak.
The issue with drones is that any thug or yob with a few hundred quid to spare can buy one, and because of their use of gyros, fly them out of the box convincing themselves they are very clever. There is a reason why it was only with the advent of drones that this issue has arisen and its quite frankly inaccurate to paint all model flyers with the same brush.

[helimutt]

The article below from a thread elsewhere on pprune. But, has a helicopter ever hit a turtle? or iguana etc?

Airplanes Hit More Turtles Than Drones | Popular Science (http://www.popsci.com/airplanes-hit-more-turtles-than-drones)

[dash34]

Drones should be designed such that receiving a TCAS or FLARM signal causes them to immediately descend to the ground. Anyone who flies in the vicinity of an airport would immediately discover that their drone is inoperative near commercial aircraft.

[helimutt]

Oh and that would be just great. a drone with rotors spinning around descends into a crowd of school kids causing all sorts of lacerations. Or how about into the windshield of a moving car or truck on a freeway/motorway doing 70mph, wherever the drone happens to be, causing carnage. How many drones have hit aircraft so far? None. How many turtles have hit aircraft so far? Lots. How many Ducks have hit aircraft? Lets legislate against ducks then shall we?

All of these ideas aren't practical because there's a work around for anyone who wishes to fly dangerously anyway.

[Bellrider]

www.eurosport.de/ski-alpin/unfassbar-drohne-verfehlt-marcel-hirscher-beim-slalom-nur-knapp-video_sto5037699/story.shtml

Quite dangerous these little toys

[SilsoeSid]

Within the first 15 seconds of this vid;

TJu4kmcy8gQ

:eek: