The Drones are coming........

[hadagutful]

Those who didn't see Foreign Correspondent tonight on ABC TV, do yourselves a favour and have a look on iview.
An absolutely amazing expose on drones which have very rapidly moved from the province of the military to all and sundry. This is scary stuff for all pilots, from GA rotary and fixed wing and even to RPT particularly during take off and landing phase.
Drones are going to become the biggest issue for aviation in the next few years particularly in relation to airspace use. With in built cameras, privacy and national security will be a huge issue.
How will the FAA, CASA and other regulators catch up and keep up with what's going on?
Will TCAS pick up a drone and even if it does how do you avoid it?
Commercial use is still illegal in the USA but the police and US Customs and Border control agencies are already using them.
Even right now you can go down and buy a helicopter "drone" at Dick Smiths all set up with on board camera.

[gobbledock]

How will the FAA, CASA and other regulators catch up and keep up with what's going on?Answer - With great difficulty. They are obstanate and normally years behind industry, so after watching tonights program I would say that technology will certainly outpace the bureaucracy side of things.
However, I can just see CASA now, along with highly skilled "Poohtube inspectors' survelling industry over the internet you will now have CASA inspectors using hummingbird drones to spy on naughty operators around the country?

Will TCAS pick up a drone and even if it does how do you avoid it? TCAS won't pick up the small drones.

The biggest deterrent to prevent hoons, nimrods and nupties from buying these things is to price them upwards. Once these things drp to a price anybody can afford then you open up the market to a whole new range of clientele.
Airspace restrictions are also an issue. It's one thing for aviators to understand and comply with flight or height levels but in the hands of a bunch of weekend warriors..............

And of course these drones will be a goldmine to big brother who will embrace the technology stronger than a politician embracing a trough full of taxpayer funded treats!

[S70IP]

I remember about 6 years ago in the O's Mess at RAAF Base Edinburgh one night at dinner winding up some Nuckle Heads (Fighter Pilots) saying that the F35 will be the last manned fighter. The verbal abuse my way was :mad:. But it was worth it to watch them get wound up.

Quote " the US Airforce trained more drone pilots than fighter pilots last year".

I thought I was right then. I know I'm right now. I wonder if those guys remember the Army guy sitting in the corner of a dining room table and conversation he started.

PS: I reckon about 5 posts before you know what gets mentioned....

[Gate_15L]

The biggest deterrent to prevent hoons, nimrods and nupties from buying these things is to price them upwards

The cheap ones won't get very far, being quite limited in radio range. Not to mention if they get anywhere near high enough, the nupties, nimrod or hoon will probably lose control of it anyway due to their lack of being able keep it level from a distance which is quite a skill...

The scary ones are the weekend warriors that put their own r/c drones/planes together. Especially with FPV now. These things are more than capable of flying 6000-7000 ft and quite some distance using a UHF long range link.

It's cost me so far about $500 US to put together a FPV electric glider. I've just finished soldering together the avionics and nav system. Damn thing also comes with a autopilot and auto leveler and will fly itself home if it loses the radio control signal. I haven't dared to test flight it for max height yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it topped 8000-10000 ft, esp with the more powerful transmitter that was fitted...
Its a hell of a lot easier to crash too that a real plane, as flying though video goggles is fairly different to just jumping in a plane... I've already put one down in the sticks about 2 km away... and that was sub 500 ft alt..

TCAS won't pick up a drone. I don't see your average person buying a $5000 transponder for a model airplane! The trick I believe is good education and line of sight flying only.
Its the uneducated folk I'd be worried about.. the ones with no idea of the airspace around them...

[RatsoreA]

You don't even need a radio that transmits very far. There are plenty of programs that you can get that will allow you to pre-program a course and height that doesn't require you to see the drone or be in control of it.

Watch it take off, go inside for a beer and wait for it to return after it's flown it's course (photo-recce!) and come back outside and land it.

[18-Wheeler]

The scary ones are the weekend warriors that put their own r/c drones/planes together. Especially with FPV now. These things are more than capable of flying 6000-7000 ft and quite some distance using a UHF long range link.

That's me! :)
Got an FPV hexacopter. I never fly it high and mostly keep it just around my own property though.

gkARuS2qp0Q

[tartare]

Personally - I laughed my tits off as I watched the story.
It was such a predictable piece of ****e scare mongering journalism.
I deal daily with lazy, jaded hacks in all branches of the media.

Cue sinister synth drone music.
Follow with shots of Nellis based arm chair jockeys watching cars and trucks in Infra-red.
(So - er - anyone with a Lantirn pod hasn't been doing that for the last 10 years while they've been training?)
I waited for the words big-brother and surveillance state in the voiceover - and sure enough - bull**** bingo!
And how long til I see the university video of the little things flying in format... oh, there we go!
So they're getting intelligent too!
I thought the sole redeeming bits in the piece were the astonishing shots of the Golden Gate bridge.
Drones are great - a fantastic force multiplier.
And yes - the knuck of the future (and I think there still will be knucks) will have, if not already has - a robot for a wingman, several in fact.
The airprox issues will be solved - anyone's been able to fly Kites or RC aircraft close to real planes or jets or buildings for years.
The little blighters will be carrying lasers soon.
Please - in a story like that - tell me something that will surprise me.
Like how long have cruise missiles been able to fly in formation...?:E
This was a much more intelligent discussion of the issues (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19432407).
The great thing about the web, and the yoof of today, is that they can watch a story like that, and then go online, direct to the sources that the journalists have used - and armed with the knowledge to actually critically think and analyse from their many media studies courses - can form their own opinions.
And they are.
I overheard a conversation recently where some 20 year olds were laughing at the predictability of a slo-mo montage to music in a mainstream TV current affairs piece.
Be worried traditional media - your audience are not dupes and increasingly are seeing you for what you are.
Rant over.:)

[EW73]

Hey 18-Wheeler......I didn't see the hot Nissan parked anywhere during your tour of the property, have you moved on!

[Exaviator]

The drones aren't coming, they are already here. By 2008 the U.S. Air Force already had over 5000 in their arsenal of weapons and the U.S. Army 3000. The smallest being the hand launched Raven for over the hill recon to the Global Hawke which can fly 3000 n.m. spend a day spying an area as big as Tasmania, then return 3000 n.m. to home base.

Some even have the ability to be in-flight refueled.

[tggzzz]

ga_trojan wrote It's getting scarier than that. Chatting to a IT guy at work recently and he got back from some big conference in the US where they showed guys who are building their own home made drones. The code is all up on the net and all you need to do is hook it all up and you can pole a drone around anywhere from your own PC. Given they have their own data link you can go anywhere you can get the coms. Adds a new dimension to Flight Sim I suppose..... Snipped from A newbie's guide to UAVs - DIY Drones (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/a-newbies-guide-to-uavs)
What is an amateur UAV?

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft that has the capability of autonomous flight, without a pilot in control. Amateur UAVs are non-military and non-commercial. They typically fly under “recreational” exceptions to FAA regulations on UAVs, so long as the pilots/programmers keep them within tight limits on altitude and distance. Usually the UAV is controlled manually by Radio Control (RC) at take-off and landing, and switched into GPS-guided autonomous mode only at a safe altitude. (Confused by all the acronyms and unfamiliar terms in UAVs? A glossary is here (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A42428).)

The DIY Drones community has created the world's first "universal autopilot", ArduPilot Mega. It combines sophisticated IMU-based autopilot electronics with free Arduino-based autopilot software that can turn any RC vehicle into a fully-autonomous UAV.

You can buy Ready-to-Fly UAVs (both planes and multicopters) from uDrones (http://www.udrones.com/Default.asp):

[neville_nobody]

Drones | Drone Age (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/here-comes-the-drone-age-20120910-25o6p.html)

[hadagutful]

Yeah good pick up Neville, I noticed the article myself today in The Age. I felt the original post from ABC TV's Foreign Correspondent was worthy of mention even though it was moved to the GA site.
These aerial vehicles probably have more implications for lower level GA aviation at present but as time goes on and the technology develops, it will have far reaching effects for the entire aviation sector.
Who knows where it will go, privacy will be a massive issue but airspace use will be high on the agenda.
If you think the sky is crowded in some areas now, we ain't seen nothing yet.
The burning question is how will governments and the regulators maintain safety and control?

[Andy_RR]

I fail to see why everyone seems to be panicking about (amateur) drones when most of them will weigh less than a parrot or a goose and fly just about as fast.

Anything that is bigger, heavier or faster will usually be so expensive that the operators thereof won't be keen on taking big risks anyway.

It will be a long time before drones represent anything more than a tiny fraction of the risks pilots and passengers already face when flying

BTW, it's the pilots job to maintain safety and control, not government or the regulator...

[tartare]

Precisely.
Drone, schmone.
Anything big enough and fast enough to create a true airprox or air miss risk is still of the order of $10k plus at least - and likely to remain so for some time.
ABC could spend time and money examining more clear and present dangers.
Like how it is still easier and cheaper to put together an IED from materials freely available at hardware stores and other places worldwide.
Now that really is scary - and have no doubt it keeps many people in intelligence agencies awake at night with worry... certainly frightens me.