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DRONE CRASH IN MARYLAND, USA
Yet another drone bites the dust - this time close to a populated area...
Hopefully the CAA won't relax its current rules on the flying of drones outside UK Restricted Areas for a few more years yet..... |
this time close to a populated area... I wonder, when the pilot actually lost contact with his aircraft if he jumped up out of his seat to simulate an ejection? Nah.... probably just logged out of dii, turned his monitor off and went home for the day. complete non story. |
Indeed a non story, except everybody and their dog wanting to fly them in, around and over large concentrations of folks. That plus the enduring/endearing tendency for the last 28 years that I personally know of, to wander off on their own, time and situation indeterminate.
One needs a rather heavy duty tin foil hat to withstand BAMS on the loose. And no, after the usual expletives and frenetic button pushing everyone sits back, prays to whatever they believe in and if the video link is still up (you would be surprised at the %) watch the end. A sigh of relief or a giant damn that was close usually ends the process. Some things just never change. |
When you said "Drone" I thought you were talking about a target facilitating unmanned aircraft - that is the correct use for the word "Drone" and not for the RQ-4 in the article. That is a common etymology mistake expected from an ill-informed journo or ill-educated individual?
Now the RQ-4 can autonomously land, so I'm surprised the article states the Pilot lost comms with it? When it comes to safety the CAA are getting it wrong and making our country lag well behind the rest of the world; in years to come we may well compare this blinkered attitude to the introduction to the locomotive, automobile, heavier-than-air aircraft and the jet engine. Burn the Spinning Jenny, eh, Beags...:ok: |
B word,
Drone is just as acceptable as RPV/UAV/UAS and whatever comes out of the latest Project Office when someone is bored. I personally think that it is more appropriate at times, as one watches the uncommanded deviation from flightpath and the (insert acronym here) drones off into the distance. Don't you think? |
'Drone' has become the normal terminology in the US and UK media.
Apart from the drone operators, no-one else can be bothered to keep up with whatever TLA has been invented this week..... They have their place, but clearly are not yet sufficiently safe to operate near friendly populated areas. |
Of course manned aircraft never crash onto populated areas do they? Oh wait.
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The De Havilland DH 82B ‘Queen Bee’ was developed to the 1933 Air Ministry Specification 18/33. It combined the fuselage of the D.H.60G III Moth Major with all other components from the DH 82 ‘Tiger Moth’. It could be flown by a pilot from the first cockpit, while the radio equipment was fitted in the rear cockpit. First conventional flight was on January 5, 1935, the radio control development started in June 1935 from HMS Orion. The Air Ministry ordered a total of 420 Queen Bee to Specification 20/35, 320 were contracted to De Havilland and 100 to Scottish Aviation Ltd (SAL - who later went on to build the Bulldog and Jetstream aircraft), deliveries were completed in July 1944. The RAF operated the Queen Bee from RAF Farnborough’s No 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit (11 Apr 1938 - 1 Oct 1942). This unit operated Pilotless Aircraft Sections (‘A’ to ‘Z’ Flt) at various locations throughout the country for summer camps (such as RAF Cleave, Henlow, Hawkinge and Weyborne). These flights returned to Farnborough during the winter and often closed. It went on to form the Pilotless Aircraft Unit at RAF Manorbier (5 May 1942 - 15 Mar 1946). A senior US Navy Admiral witnessed the Queen Bee in operation in 1936 and found the concept very interesting. He set up a US Navy program under Lieutenant Commander Delmar S. Farnhey. By 1937, Farnhey's team had converted a number of light aircraft to radio-controlled targets and used them in exercises. It is said that Farnhey invented the term "drone" for robot aircraft as homage to the Queen Bee and the fixed-pitch drone they made when the RAF’s remote operators made so few throttle demands to produce a predictable gunnery target for training. |
Perhaps the CAA is rather less convinced about drone safety than the FAA?
Single engined aeroplanes must always be able to glide clear of congested areas. But if some drone goes walkabout, no-one can be sure where the wretched thing will finally crash to earth. So the drone operators can only watch their TV screens helplessly, whilst agonising over which doughnut to have.... Which of the UK's risk-averse RAF commanders would dare to approve the flying of a drone over a congested area.....?? One day, perhaps, when they have proved their reliability. But not just yet.......:\ |
Baegle said
this time close to a populated area.. the US Navy said Smoke was seen rising from brush fires in an unpopulated area near a tributary of the Nanticoke River shortly after 12.11pm on Monday. There were no injuries or damage to property, a Navy spokeswoman said. |
Watchkeeper, about the size of a Cessna 150 is to fly in the following area:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/06/17/drone_airspace.jpg Population of Salisbury is ~40,000 and the population of Wiltshire is ~460,000. So what is your definition of "congested area"...:confused: Accident rates for Predator are better than that for single engined GA aircraft in the UK per 10,000 flying hours - so define "safe"...:confused: Lots of US presentations online - see slide 7 for a GA comparison here: http://www.asma.org/asma2010_mp/pdfs...resent_018.pdf |
Very brave of Swanny to sign up to the approval at this stage...
Or rather, 2 years ago when the proposal was first mooted. Minimum height over Salisbury will be FL80. The first time a drone goes walkabout and spears in outside the segregated airspace will be the last time any such thing will be allowed for quite some time. |
I believe the LAX airspace to which you refer includes my little piece, up in the high desert, the old George AFB. The Guard have a uav/uas whatever here. ALL the flights to and from had manned chase planes. Right said Fred, thats enough of that, these ere little planes can do it all on their lonesome.
Problem was they had a problem, and back to manned chase planes. Don't get me wrong, I was involved way back when, before GPS, still am to a degree. They can be really useful little bits of kit, but when, not if, when they go off the reservation there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can be done to mitigate whatever is going to happen. Tis the nature of the beast. Note the helo that destroyed the GCS and a couple of folks inside it. Some say the GPS signal was fiddled with, doesn't matter, folks died. The point about manned aviation safety record vis a vis doesn't really cut it. When the manned aviating attempt fails, in the interests of self preservation, one trys to return to earth in a somewhat controlled manner if at all possible, picking spots that are, hell you all know the deal. UAV quits listening, internally it has absolutely no idea anything has gone wrong. It may, but a lot of the time it does not, initiate a pre programmed RTB/climb to acquire and a host of other actions. But if it doesn't it will serenely motor on until it runs into an obstacle or out of fuel. The latter is currently the most disconcerting, a modern day V2 perhaps. The former will be if operating in controlled airspace. Hell I'm old, what do I know. |
Drones.......NAV's???
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Yes, in my day they too tended to walk away droning on about something. Annoying little critters, until you needed them, every once in a great while.
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FltLt
"or out of fuel. The latter is currently the most disconcerting, a modern day V2 perhaps." Don't you mean a V1 ? (Doodlegug or Buzz Bomb ?) Having those things coughing and spluttering above you certainly scared the living daylights out of my family. |
500N
You are quite correct. A somewhat gentle nose over versus the supersonic lawn dart. |
FltLt
All good. Only reason I know is my grand parents and mother used to talk about the long silent glide after the coughing and spluttering stopped. None of it was good but they used to watch them from the fruit trees in the back garden at Croydon and depending on if it did or when it started coughing a spluttering determined whether they shinned down the tree and made a run for the air raid shelter. Anyway, my apologise for the thread drift. |
When the First F-14 crashed near the same location on one of its early test flights, the F-14 program was not cancelled....
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Beagle just feels threatened by these things, for some reason. And I don't mean in a "they may crash into me" way ;)
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