Seriously, you appear to have little or no idea of how things are in a bushfire; you appear to put the safety and survival of the crews and aircraft below fighting the fire. The fire will burn even more uncontrolled should a Helitak be taken out of the equation because of a midair with a drone, then another (letting one in means letting all in), then there will be a self grounding by the remaining pilots.

Aircraft are only part of the equation in fighting bushfires: there are massive ground ops involving direct attack by firefighters, backburning, dozer trails, rakehoes to cut firebreaks, etc etc. They continue overnight when aerial attack is suspended (trials starting soon in Victoria for night flying) so the concept of a short grounding to find and stop illegal drone ops is a small hiccup in the overall scheme of things. Indeed, such a grounding gives a chance for a welcome break for the drivers, a refuel, maybe a shutdown and onceover of the Helitaks, Firebirds, bombers etc before getting back to the job at hand unhindered by selfish and illegal drone operations.

Really? Really?!!!

What the heck do you mean by that; do you discount the speed of the main rotor blades, the tail rotor blades in a machine 'slow moving' between pick up and drop at anything from 90-120 knots? Tail rotor blade vs illegal drone is unlikely to end well for either machine.

When you're in a hole, best to stop digging.

The report was about jet airliners, not slow moving rotory.
Helicopters pilots are trained to see and avoid birds. If a drone was spotted in the area, about the same size as a bird, probably travelling no faster than a bird, surely the pilots would spot the drone because they had been warned to look out for them as they do for birds?
How many actual drone strikes have there been v actual bird strikes recorded? What are the actual chances of a collision with a drone? Having been warned there was a drone seen in the area the pilots could keep an eye out, as they should be anyway for birds?
Therefore why ground operations if the pilots had been warned to look out for them?
Drones share the same space as helicopters for filming power boat racing with no associated hysteria.

http://www.facebook.com/P1SuperStock...5008714202006/

White drone against white smoke?

That statement beggars belief.

"just because a drone was "seen" is over reacting."

Um actually it came within 50 metres of one of the fire fighting helicopters. You are a tool.

I'm pretty sure chopjock is trolling.

Chopjock


Your 100 percent correct that in the speedboat racing world Drones and Helicopters co exists and I'm 100% sure that every morning the Drone operators and the Helicopter pilots sit in a SAFETY Meeting and go over the rule of where everyone will be. Some dork who just shows up at a fire has announced his intentions and the helicopter pilots don't know he's there until it too late.


:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

About a year ago we had a drone operating on a fire that i was working. At the morning briefing the pilots were asked about drones and we all said "hell no". That afternoon they came back with a plan, they were going to have the drone operating overnight surveying, etc, and the drone pilots/operators turned up to see us to ask about weather conditions where they wanted to operate.

We all had a good chat with them and the next morning they showed us what they had produced overnight, very impressive. They also had a plan, along with our AAS and asked if they could operate over a set area of plantation forestry, and we just kept our flight paths clear of their operating area. It worked well, with both helicopters and drones operating in a similar "controlled" airspace. No problem.

However we had a plan, the drone operators had a flight plan, they had an aviation radio, and they even had a couple of spotters so that they could land the drone if a helicopter strayed into their airspace.

At no point did they try to get within 50m of a helicopter, and just being buzzing around helicopters without a plan!

Well, how many birds there are vs. how many drones? Granted.
But:
How much is known about behavior of birds (travelling routes and seasons, resting areas, survival instinct, fear, ...) vs. the behavior of drone pilots in the hunt the next best picture or video to upload to their social networks (which could be asocial behavior documented on social networks...weird)

Do you really want to see a drones last picture of a real crash being being that of a poor pilot's scared face?


Thracian

Not for the first time, either. He is trying something similar over in the Grand Canyon EC130 thread.