Some interesting comments re UAV's / Drones
 

An interesting article. Would be interested to know if all is true.

The first crash described sounds like a comedy of errors.

"inexperienced military contractor flying a Predator " he yanked the wrong lever at his console, killing the engine without realizing why."


Drone crashes mount at civilian airports overseas - The Washington Post

I reckon he wasn't dressed for the job:

The Air Force complains here about two over priced UAV's crashed by a civilian in the past six months but how many F-22's have the Air Force crashed in six months? That's why they build UAVs in the first place, because they are cheap and nobody dies when they crash.

The Air Force should concentrate on the over-pricing problem caused by General Atomics, IMO.

Anyone who flew a Tucano knows the risks of having 2 very similar levers close to each other, one that you use routinely in the circuit (the flap lever) and one that you don't want to touch at all (the engine shutdown lever!).

There are some well-noted ergonomic issues with the Predator/Reaper GCS, and people make mistakes!

Heater, HP Cock ... oops!

Best put a guard on one of those :ok:

Before my time, but surely that was a lesson which was learned from the Vampire with its essentially similar flap and undercarriage selectors? Not a problem in the JP, Gnat, Hunter or Hawk though......:\

So there appears to be some acknowledgement that Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA)'s should be flown by Pilots....

BEagle said: "...Before my time, but surely that was a lesson which was learned from the Vampire with its essentially similar flap and undercarriage selectors? Not a problem in the JP, Gnat, Hunter or Hawk though......http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/wibble.gif "

In RAN service switching between Venom to Vampire and not paying attention to the HP cock and SB lever could be embarrassing or fatal depending on circumstances. Reason: these actuators reversed in aircraft. Always best to use fist to bang down on the Vamp SB lever and THINK TWICE before using the lever inside the throttle of the Vampire to actuate the S/Bs [Sea Venom method] when in fact youse are putting the HP Fuel to OFF! What masterpieces of cockpit design! 724 Sqdn Linebook page tells a story.

CLICK thumbnail for big pic: http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...nfusionSBs.jpg

Oh for heavens sake. Put the engine off in the squat switch circuit with a separate CB. problem solved.

Yeah - if only. The 'squat switch' was like the 'golden rivet'. Nice that the A4G had a squat switch but.

All folding gear airplanes have squat switches. You just have to make them
work Consistently. If they don’t you modify it, alter or redesign it till it does.

And yet there is no 'squat switch' in a Vampire. Perhaps I left out the 'unreliable' part but probably the proper name will suffice: 'micro-switch located at the port torque links'. No 'squat switch' there. Anyway we learnt to live with this anomaly but suffered (almost) the odd incident as outlined. Smart arses were always easy to deal with.

A bit tricky to relight inflight.... if you need the squat switch in circuit.....?