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Another Watchkeeper down
A fifth Watchkeeper has crashed - this time near Aberporth in Wales. In case you're not familiar, Watchkeeper is an ISTAR UAV asset of the British Army, built by a company set up by Elbit and Thales, and based on the Elbit Hermes. Report from the Cambrian News
Fire crews called after drone crash near West Wales Airport News Cambrian News Defense Aerospace comments: The Watchkeeper programme was originally contracted for £800 million by the British Army, but delays and overruns have boosted its cost to over £1,200 million. In exchange, the British Army obtained 54 Watchkeeper aircraft, several of which were rushed to Afghanistan so they could fly some token missions before the British Army pulled of the country. They have since been mostly operating on training missions, with regular crashes diminishing their number: five having been lost to date. |
I remember the army's programme chief telling me some years ago that attrition losses were factored into the 54-aircraft buy, but they are going through airframes at a rate of knots.
Genuine question - why do UAVs need to be flown and potentially lost in peacetime? Why can all the training not be done synthetically? For the pilot, he is not in the aircraft anyway so will lose nothing in terms of realism from sitting in a simulator . Any ground forces he is supposed to be interacting can do so synthetically also, no? |
Originally Posted by melmothtw
(Post 10173750)
I remember the army's programme chief telling me some years ago that attrition losses were factored into the 54-aircraft buy, but they are going through airframes at a rate of knots.
Genuine question - why do UAVs need to be flown and potentially lost in peacetime? Why can all the training not be done synthetically? For the pilot, he is not in the aircraft anyway so will lose nothing in terms of realism from sitting in a simulator . Any ground forces he is supposed to be interacting can do so synthetically also, no? |
Synthetic training does not iron out the rarely occurring faults in the hardware, airborne software, RF link, weather related incidents, maintenance issues etc. Applying the same logic, none of our armed forces would ever leave their bases until war is declared.
Anyway, if the UAV is in a tree, it hasn't crashed, it just hasn't landed yet! |
All of those failures can be included in the synthetic training, just as engine failures etc are currently practised on simulators.
There is value to real-world training where that training replicates the actual environment where the person will be operating, but I still don't see why a drone operator who in real life will be sat in a windowless shipping container with no physical connection to his or her aircraft cannot experience synthetically everything they will ever experience in the real world. |
What you are suggesting is that the time to discover faults with the air vehicle is when our troops on the ground are depending upon it? Without knowing what the contingency plans were, there is no reason to suppose that the drone operators did anything wrong at this stage.
A British operated Hermes 450 was lost at Camp Bastion, with the root cause being a blocked oil feed pipe due to the engine oil reacting with the plasticizer in the pipe. Hermes 450 ZK515 loss Synthetic training won't bring things like this to light. |
Mechta, you said
Synthetic training won't bring things like this to light. airsound |
What you are suggesting is that the time to discover faults with the air vehicle is when our troops on the ground are depending upon it? Without knowing what the contingency plans were, there is no reason to suppose that the drone operators did anything wrong at this stage. |
Only £22.22 million a throw; peanuts.
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Melmothw, simulation is used to practise actual flight conditions and procedures. Without actual flight experience you do not know if the simulation is accurate. Also, a general rule in simulator flying is to concentrate on likely scenarios as there is unusually insufficient simulator time to explore every possibility with every pilot.
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Thanks Pontius, I know what simulators are for. The actual flight conditions and procedures for the drone pilot are surely no different to the simulated flight conditions and procedures, no? There is no physical connection between the operator and aircraft in either environment so surely anything and everything can be simulated.
The lack of simulator time you speak of has no real bearing on my point - that could be adjusted to meet the need. I'm still no wiser as to why a drone operator/pilot can't learn and train for everything they might encounter in a synthetic enviroment, and so save expensive airframes from falling out of the sky until none are left. But no matter. |
At least it’s not as bad as the “buggeroff” (Phoenix). |
Originally Posted by melmothtw
(Post 10173750)
Genuine question - why do UAVs need to be flown and potentially lost in peacetime? Why can all the training not be done synthetically? For the pilot, he is not in the aircraft anyway so will lose nothing in terms of realism from sitting in a simulator . Any ground forces he is supposed to be interacting can do so synthetically also, no?
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Sorry dears - I'm still not with you.
Surely, how people might be trained to deal with all the possible emergencies that could occur is a secondary concern? Wouldn't it be a good idea to decide why so many of these expensive airframes [are] falling out of the sky until none [is[ left. airsound |
Pilots aren't the only people involved in operating UAVs, nor the only people to benefit from training Their only interaction with the drone in real-life would be via radio communication with the operator /pilot (who could be in a networked simulator for training) or viewing a video feed (which could be synthetic or fed from a surrogate manned platform that wouldn't fall out the sky). |
Lettting the manufacturer provide 'surveillance by the hour' is the way to go, rather than letting a succession of two-year tourists tell the experts how to design a UAV for a soldier to operate. The Israelis will get it right if you just let them get on with it, in the knowledge that crashes will come out of their pocket and not yours. |
Basrah late 2007/08 Hermes flown into the side of the main terminal in very poor vis, I also saw a picture of a Hermes trying to fly into the side door of aMmerlin that was also airborne. No criticism but am I correct in thinking that the Army UAV's are not flown by pilots.
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Originally Posted by KPax
(Post 10173915)
Basrah late 2007/08 Hermes flown into the side of the main terminal in very poor vis, I also saw a picture of a Hermes trying to fly into the side door of aMmerlin that was also airborne. No criticism but am I correct in thinking that the Army UAV's are not flown by pilots.
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Originally Posted by airsound
(Post 10173807)
Mechta, you said
Quite so, and, although the erudite discussion on the thread about synthetic training is interesting, I'd like to know why these things keep crashing. Any ideas, anyone? airsound EAP |
Thanks, EAP for that - and also Mechta for the accident accounts. Are the Service Inquiry reports publicly available, do you know? I haven't been able to find out so far - sorry!
Also, while accepting EAP's point about UAVs' not having to be as safe as manned (personned?) aircraft, I don't recall hearing of anything like this rate of accidents to other advanced UAVs like Reaper. airsound |
Originally Posted by airsound
(Post 10174383)
Thanks, EAP for that - and also Mechta for the accident accounts. Are the Service Inquiry reports publicly available, do you know? I haven't been able to find out so far - sorry!
Also, while accepting EAP's point about UAVs' not having to be as safe as manned (personned?) aircraft, I don't recall hearing of anything like this rate of accidents to other advanced UAVs like Reaper. airsound |
"Also, while accepting EAP's point about UAVs' not having to be as safe as manned (personned?) aircraft, I don't recall hearing of anything like this rate of accidents to other advanced UAVs like Reaper."
https://dronewars.net/drone-crash-database/ |
SW, very interesting. I'm pretty sure that the list is not exhaustive. If safety isn't an issue, why would they report all mishaps?
EAP |
Originally Posted by EAP86
(Post 10174948)
SW, very interesting. I'm pretty sure that the list is not exhaustive. If safety isn't an issue, why would they report all mishaps?
EAP With regard to the Government reports, that's freedom of information for you, plus the desire to learn from incidents and accidents in an effort to prevent an identical reoccurence. Safety is ALWAYS an issue whenever a manmade object takes to the air. They've got it down from the tree now. Needless to say, it 'just missed' a school sports day. BBC report - Watchkeeper UAV recovery : https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...bd92bfa147.jpg Watchkeeper UAV WK005 Recovery 16 June 2018 |
Mechta, sorry loose wording on my part. I wasn't referring to Drone Wars UK; the "they" was referring to the various operators of UAVs. Many industrial concerns and national Air Forces have experimented with UAVs investigating technical and operational viability. The industry operators will only report mishaps when there is a regulatory imperative to do so. I suspect many Air Forces will only report mishaps only when the knowledge is already in the public domain. I'm aware of the odd mishap which doesn't appear in their listing hence the first part of my statement. The strict definition of 'safety' relates to the risk to life, not the economic losses accruing from a mishap. If you can operate within a sanitised range, you can achieve adequate safety as there is little or no risk to life. I'd hope this explains the second part of my statement.
I note that their database only starts in 2007. In the early 90s I attended the UAV Systems Conference in Bristol. The first Bristol conference was held in 1979. A lot of mishaps can occur in 28 years. EAP |
EAP86, The difference with Watchkeeper is that it is no longer just operating over military ranges and areas of conflict. With governments wanting to operate Watchkeeper and Predator or 'Protector' (as they like to call it now!) over the heads of their voting public, replacing manned aircraft, transparency is needed to keep their voters on side.
Approval to operate Predator in UK airspace was sought Before 2007, UAV operation in the UK was, to the best of my knowledge, confined to military ranges and sparsely populated areas, so maybe of less interest to the Dronewars people. Prototype and development UAVs, not destined for production, which get bent on a military range, are of little concern to anyone other than UAV developers and potential operators, unless the future intention is to use them elsewhere. |
Unfortunately this is going to stir up a hornets nest as there has already been very vocal protests locally and this is only going to make them worse. As to the School it's about a mile and a quarter west of the runway and almost directly under the extended centre line, and it was there before the airfield!
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Don't these 'fly' autonomously and just respond to directional commands from the operators?
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I was out at Basrah when the Hermes was flown into the terminal building. It was a very foggy morning. I did hear the operator was asked by Air tragic if he wished to be talked down onto the runway. He did not. I saw the wreckage later in the day. Very funny!
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Originally Posted by Davef68
(Post 10176228)
Don't these 'fly' autonomously and just respond to directional commands from the operators?
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Originally Posted by Alber Ratman
(Post 10176949)
I was out at Basrah when the Hermes was flown into the terminal building. It was a very foggy morning. I did hear the operator was asked by Air tragic if he wished to be talked down onto the runway. He did not. I saw the wreckage later in the day. Very funny!
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US Army point if view from recent copy of AW&ST: .......”Another concern is airworthiness. This was not an issue when UAS were purchased and delivered into war zones, but it became a problem when the service wanted to bring the systems home and train with them in domestic airspace. The Army has three levels of airworthiness for UAS. Level 1 is the same as for manned aircraft and calls for a loss rate not higher the 1/100,000 hr. Level 2 is 1/10,000 hr., and is the minimum required if the platform is weaponized. Level 3, at just 1/1,000 hr., is the minimum acceptable level of safety, says Dave Stephan, associate director for technology with the Army’s Aviation Engineering Directorate. The Army’s most capable and expensive UAS, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ MQ-1C Gray Eagle (pictured), is a Level 2 system—and that is for the kill chain, from sensor to operator to weapon. The air vehicle itself is only Level 3, which means the Army has to treat the Gray Eagle as expendable, “which is hard when it costs $10 million,” Stephan told the forum. The reason for this low level of airworthiness qualification is historical. The Gray Eagle is a program of record, but many of the system capabilities and upgrades have been developed by the manufacturer and acquired outside the normal procurement system, he says. “Our legacy UAS were developed to meet urgent needs, and they have flight restrictions,” Stephan says. “Software certification is not possible, or too expensive, and propulsion certification may be in progress but will not meet Level 1.” They were not fielded with the intent of flying in U.S. airspace, and when it trains with these systems, the Army “accepts risk at multiple levels,” he says. Future UAS is an opportunity to reset the safety bar and could have broad implications for industry. “Future UAS is expected to be Level 1 and to meet the manned safety requirement,” he says. Industry is already grappling with how to certify commercial UAS, but progress is being paced by the types of operation the FAA will allow. There is limited demand for certified UAS, while the FAA places strict limits on UAS operations. And the limits are unlikely to be relaxed until there are certified UAS. It is a chicken-and-egg situation the Army’s emphasis on airworthiness could help hatch sooner rather than later by raising the bar for UAS safety.“........ |
Its a few years ago but I got the chance to listen to someone from the US Army who had airworthiness responsibility for their aircraft and the scale of the issue was surprising. If I remember correctly, they had 12000 air vehicles to consider of which, 7000 were unmanned.
EAP |
Originally Posted by SlopJockey
(Post 10177002)
So not autonomous then ;)
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Thank you ORAC for the AW&ST quote in your #32 above. It would seem that the UK is in much the same situation as described in the piece, ie that unmanned aircraft systems may not meet domestic airworthiness requirements, but are flown in domestic airspace for training, testing, or development purposes. The solution of ingenious routeing previously mentioned does not seem viable, if only because of the ever presence of sod's law. What is acceptable in an operational area (clinging to the outside of an Apache on a rescue mission into a firefight for example) is often a no-no back home. From what has been said about the issues with Watchkeeper I would suggest that it fails to meet the most basic of airworthiness definitions (EASA):-
"Airworthiness is the measure of an aircraft's suitability for safe flight." |
First, autonomous drones are those that require no external intervention by a pilot or operator beyond the initial programming of the flight; they work entirely on their own once you hit the go button. Remotely Piloted Air System is a better description (even though I don't like it!) of what goes on with the larger platforms such as Watchkeeper.
On the airworthiness front, 'suitability for safe flight' depends on the level of 'safe' you are trying to achieve. There is an ongoing debate across the industry about equivalence (ie an equal level of AW assurance with manned flight), as the current risks from drone ops are self-evidently 3rd-party only. That position will change when RPAS (or possibly autonomous drones?) start carrying passengers, as is now being explored in UAE, because the systems will need to meet the relevant weight-related CS standards applicable to CAT platforms. Until then, the use of intelligent routing as a means of mitigating the 3rd-party risks appears to be both ALARP ('practicable' not 'possible'...) and proportionate. What really does need to be better handled is the professional aviation knowledge of those operating Watchkeeper and the like. The report on the Bastion accident pointed clearly to this. Whilst the root cause of the engine failure was the blocked oil pipe, an individual witth better knowledge and training might have understood the implications of rising temperatures more quickly and protected the engine thereafter. Easy to say with hindsight etc, and I am not trying to point fingers here. Similarly, the Boscombe fog accident may have been avoided had people (at all levels of the procurement and operating processes) thought about the potential pitfalls of flying a system designed for Israel in the prevailing weather conditions of N Europe. All it needed was a line in the RTS to say 'landing in visibilities less than X metres is not permitted'. |
Fortissimo:-
On the airworthiness front, 'suitability for safe flight' depends on the level of 'safe' you are trying to achieve. "The ability of an aircraft or other airborne equipment or system to operate without significant hazard to aircrew, groundcrew, passengers or to the general public over which the airborne systems are flown". I would suggest that all embracing wording would include UAS's, and if you exclude for the sake of argument all except the general public you cannot exclude them. I believe that the original concept of airworthiness was for 'the protection of those wot was down below'. With the coming of the drones time perhaps to revisit that concept. |
Being a newbie I'm unable to post urls at the moment but there are a couple of reports which have been recently added on the Defence Safety Authority website regarding the WK042 and WK043 incidents in Feb/March 2017. Apologies if this info has been previously posted.
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Interesting stuff, bit of a theme with these WK accidents; remarkable how a piece of kit which, on the face of it, looks so simple can be apparently so complex and poorly understood.
Does anyone fully understand how this thing works; do the Israelis themselves not really know how the final system integration all works or are they simply reluctant to pass on that knowledge to their customers (not just MoD but Thales/UTacS) simply leaving them to find out themselves? Not too sure anyone would have managed these situations any better than the guys that were there did? |
Links are easy these days - just cut and paste from the URLs https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-24-march-2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-february-2017 |
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