CASA warns about drones in bushfires
 

CASA warns bushfire drone operators of potential fines - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


As long as there is stupid people in the world we will need a regulator to regulate against them...


There are plenty of practical applications for drones and bushfires are definitely one of them.

Without being able to see the footage...none of which I can find on google, this sounds very similar to footage aired last year by a couple of firies flying a drone as a surveillance tool....the key wording was flying drone into a building...sounds like old footage.

Regardless, over 10000 drones now flying in Australia, says the CASA. Wonder what the next move will be? Knee jerk from the Transport Minister?

Nose wheel:

You mean there are plenty of applications for drones in bushfire management provided they are flown by trained and responsible fire fighters.

And for the rest of the retards with drones there's this.......

12 ga - 3" Uranium Drone Load - Low Recoil - 1 3/8 oz - Tacnition - 5 Rounds

For every retard with a drone there will be a retard with one of those to shoot it down. 1,000m straight up. Now what's that going to do for aircraft safety? "Sorry about that Mr Cherokee, I was aiming at the drone".

Thats the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

A product that is useless for the advertised purpose.

The big brother drones the advertiser fly at far greater heights than 3500' they are quiet and impossible to see let alone shoot with any kind of shot gun.

Perhaps the small quad-drones that have been used to spy on pig farms etc could be a target, but you do not need special ammo….just be a good shot.

No doubt they will sell plenty of it.

One of RVAC's warriors has a slug mark on the cowling. I believe it acquired it out Coldstream way and a local "person" was spoken to.

Seriously, if its a large drone at high altitude, I would expect it is being flown by a competent and licensed professional. Its the bored teenagers with too much money and not enough sense that are the issue in my opinion.

The rules state that the drone must be operated 30m or more from people that are not associated with the operation of the device.

Surely being higher than 30m meets this requirement?

The requirements also say that you need to be more than 5km from an aerodrome and not operate above 400ft in controlled airspace.

I could easily foresee a situation where someone meets all those requirements and someone gets bent out of shape and tries to prosecute.

The rules are not particularly easy to interpret, so someone with no aviation experience would have no hope in my opinion.

For example - not above 400 ft in controlled airspace. What does this mean? If the lowest level of CTA is 12000ft are you ok to go above 400ft?

The guy who flew his drone up to the top of Q1 on the Gold Coast should have guessed that it would be a problem, being in a populated area and close to the cooly airport, but the state mine out near lithgow isn't as cut and dried in my opinion.

Old news.... we did this to death when the article was actually released back over a year ago :zzz:

they are toys, many operated by kids (there will be hundreds of thousands given as presents this Xmas, just like model planes/helicopters/gliders.


Some remote controls have range of many kms.


No way CASA or anyone else can do anything about them.


Most are tiny.


If they hit an aircraft would anyone notice anyway ?

BNEA:

The answer is yes, they may notice.

- If a drone is ingested by a turbojet the armatures and permanent magnets of the drone motors may be solid enough to start a cascading compressor blade failure.

- If a drone hits the windscreen of a GA aircraft it could cause catastrophic windscreen failure.

- If one touched my AIrmaster propeller with its beautiful Whirlwind blades I would cry.

A. Your aircraft would have to be in the air for that to happen.

BNEA320 - most of the ones that could get over 400ft (taking into account ability to handle wind, endurance, and visibility for the operator) would weigh 300g or more. 300g probably isn't a big deal for an airliner, but for a GA/RA plane it might be worrying.

You can go up to around 3kg before they start getting relatively expensive. 3kg is definitely a major concern for GA/RA; I'm not sure how much it would bother a larger plane. Aluminium or carbon-fibre bars going through the engines can't be good, in any case.

The really tiny ones (sub-50g) aren't much of a concern. Too light to do much damage, and almost impossible to fly anywhere other than indoors. The really big ones probably aren't a major concern either, because they require quite a lot of effort and money to construct and run. This tends to result in them being flown by more mature pilots.


Snakecharma - the regulations also say that they must be flown so that, if one component fails, the vehicle will be able to avoid a populated area. Since a quadrotor with a failed motor falls more-or-less vertically (they're completely uncontrollable) this implies that they cannot be flown over populated areas at all. An octocopter (which can survive a failed motor) should be legal.

All the model aircraft pilots I've met just consider 400ft to be a hard limit, regardless of location. Much easier to do that than to try to understand the regulations, and realistically 400ft is high enough that it's getting hard to visually orient the plane. The only time I've seen someone go higher was with a high-performance glider, and for that they got explicit permission from the local airport.

+1 for what Sunfish said.
Word from RFS is that if there is a drone near a fire, they will ground all fire attack Helos until it is gone.
Drone operators should be aware that the RFS carry shotgun type weapons for fire starting.


400 foot doesn't help, 20 foot above fire with a 100 foot long line equals 120 foot

First law: When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.[2][3]

Second law: The vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration vector a of the object: F = ma.

Third law: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

F=ma

F=ma

The issue here is not the responsible drone operators who know and respect the rules, but rather the I'll-grab-it-off-Ebay-and-give-it-a-go crowd. The same bogans who bought lasers last year and thought it would be fun to point them at aircraft.

I have personally seen one being operated above 400 feet (by my estimate) on a beach*; how do I know - because the helicopters going past at 500 feet seemed to be at the same level or lower.

*not in Australia BTW.

For model aircraft, this isn't true in Australia under CASR101

Andy_RR

I’m sorry but you are wrong. Snakecharma is correct in what he/she says. Without permission from CASA or the ATC service responsible for the airspace in question, you can’t fly a model aircraft above 400ft in CTA or within 3nm (5.5km) of any aerodrome. Period.

Advisory Circular
AC 101-3(0) JULY 2002 UNMANNED AIRCRAFT AND ROCKETS MODEL AIRCRAFT

It depends on how you parse Snakecharma's sentence. Perhaps I misread it some.

However, your statement is still not true either really Titan.

As a model aircraft (CASR101.075 and 101.400) you can

- operate within 3nm of an airport without permission, but not above 400 AGL
- operate above 400 AGL in open airspace without permission by keeping line of sight and avoiding populous areas.

(at least according to how I read it)

In accordance with the above rules quoted, I have personally flown an RC glider to 1875' agl, well away from any airport or CTA. Lismore Model Aero Club is within 3nm of the airport, 400' rule applies flying there. Tingalpa Model club operate within 3nm of YBBN, 400' rule applies there too!

There are a few providers now offering remote piloted aircraft tickets through CASA.... Anyone on here gone and done theirs?


I myself fly these "drones...." and other model A/C.


I am aware of the 3NM and 400' rules however would like to know what privileges you actually get by doing your ticket?