Drones over Kaiapoi and in the Flight Path

[ozziekiwi]

Surprised that nobody has posted this so far.

What can we do to curb these damn Drones ?????

Looks like it could be the same drone that took footage
over Kaiapoi a while ago - that was at 6000 feet too !!!!!!!

Near miss between drone and Air NZ flight | Stuff.co.nz

[Ultralights]

not many drone capable of getting to 6000 ft.. i cant think of any consumer grade one that will.

[ozziekiwi]

Be that as it may - there was a TV item here a few weeks back
(not sure which channel now) that showed the earthquake damage
in Kaiapoi (which is on the flight path outbound 02 or inbound
20 over the Woodend beacon) and it was taken from a drone at 6000
ft so perhaps it won't be too difficult to track down the culprit !!!!

Hope they get the b@#$%^&!@#@ and soon !!!!!

[slackie]

Hang on chaps... let's just be clear that there's nothing at all wrong with drones... the problem is with either the idiots flying them without any regard for the Rules and/or the retailers selling them without ensuring the consumer knows that they aren't able to just go out and fly them without due regard to CAA Rules. I recently purchased a drone and hidden in the bottom of the box was an Airways pamphlet on the topic, but it could have easily been overlooked, and I doubt anyone purchasing one online from offshore would even get that!

Many readily available UAVs are capable of flying up to 2km away from their base stations... further if they operate autonomously. A 2000m dome around the base station extends up past 6000'.

[Snakecharma]

I struggle with the idea that someone could positively identify something as small as a quad or multicopter from the flight deck of a jet on descent.

It must have been either really big or really close.

The news article said the crew manoeuvred around it, but that may just be poetic licence, but if that is the case then it must have been identified well in advance - a mile or two at least, in which case it must have been huge.

If they didn't see it until I was really close, it would have zipped passed so quickly that identifying it would have been a struggle I would have thought.

I recall some years ago popping out of cloud on descent into Gladstone as a "unknown" person zipped past in his Pitts scud running. It was much bigger than any commercial drone I know of and it came and went from view quite rapidly, we only identified it because it went straight across the nose at a very close range....

[Offcut]

I have personally identified many things from the cockpit of a jet zipping along, including many species of birds, balloons and a sheet of corrugated iron on final to WLG among others. I don't see why a drone would be implausible to spot.

[flyinkiwi]

Oh great, now the CAA has to regulate corrugated iron...

[First_Principal]

flyinkiwi Oh great, now the CAA has to regulate corrugated iron...

Not necessarily.

As it was on final, presumably under control, then it was either in direct command or it was RPAS.

In either event the commander would have to have had a suitably qualification, or sign-off, to operate said iron (RPAS require such within 4km of [controlled] aerodrome).

Now whether said iron itself was appropriately certified, had a current ARA/100hr etc is another question, however I'm sure there's already a regulation to, er, 'cover' it

FP.