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Drones threatening commercial a/c?

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Drones threatening commercial a/c?

Old 20th Apr 2015, 18:27
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"Professional Drones"


Some may have seen demonstrations of near future drone operations at Dubai. These look as though people MAY be using drones for cleaning the exterior of skyscrapers. Or some others appeared to be used like helicopters, in a human rescue type operation.


When ? But THEY would want to stay away from aircraft, anyway !
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Old 21st Apr 2015, 10:39
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If it is the nutjobs, who think it's fun to buzz an airliner, you want to contain, why not try some education?
Because they're nutjobs, that's why. Your "education" would be laughed at.

One day, probably fairly soon, there will be a multiple loss of life resulting from a collision between a drone and an aircraft. It will be either accidental or deliberate. If US citizens are among the dead, global action to ban the sale of use of these things other than to and by responsible, trained people with a clearly useful purpose will swiftly follow. If European citizens are involved, the same action will eventually be taken, but the bureaucracy will take far, far longer.

What a pity that, as always, we are waiting for the bodies to pile up before acting forcefully to remove a known and obvious hazard. (EG - empty fuel tank ignition.)

No-one has a "right" to own and fly these things for their amusement, where and how they choose. Or if they do, I have an equal right to destroy (12-bore is loaded and ready) any that infringe my space.

I saw a drone being played with in a street in old Gdansk about 10 days ago, narrowly missing people including children, until it was caught and destroyed by an angry group. The stunned, impotent fury of the morons who were disturbing the peace with it was a joy to watch.

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Old 22nd Apr 2015, 17:26
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What a pity that, as always, we are waiting for the bodies to pile up before acting forcefully to remove a known and obvious hazard. (EG - empty fuel tank ignition.)
How else would you measure safety?

The absence of bodies confirms that it's safe enough.

Do you have some other measure that can be applied that is descriptive enough other than emotional words fit for the news?
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Old 22nd Apr 2015, 18:58
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Over 50 years of thousands of RC models flying with no injuries of any person in any aircraft should convince us drones are no great danger. Sully would have rather hit a drone than those darn geese.
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Old 22nd Apr 2015, 23:44
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Traditionally, RC aeroplanes took time and skill to construct and equal time and skill to learn to fly. It was quite an expensive hobby, requiring skill and dedication. Therefore, those that practised it did so with forethought and an understanding of what they were doing. Indeed, the majority were aviation enthusiasts too. Flying mostly took place at club sites.

Now any fool can walk into any high-street store and for a few pounds can purchase a large flying machine that they can fly from their back garden, with no skill required. Their thought processes don't venture beyond their own selves to consider the danger that their actions may present to others.

Tell me, what'll be the difference between a drone going through a turbofan engine and a goose?

I was the captain of one of the jets involved in Monday's incident at Manchester. On a gin-clear day we had to hold and waste plenty of fuel whilst the issue was resolved. We landed to note the huge queue of aircraft waiting for departure. The drone was large enough to be visible to the naked eye even though it was a couple of miles from the airfield on the departure track. Thankfully the only harm done was to the environment, as several tonnes of kerosene was burnt to no end. It won't always be so. I've seen several drones and one large aerobatic RC model flying in sight of Heathrow whilst waiting for departure.

Idiot, chav culture. The same mentality that causes the morons to shine increasingly high-powered lasers at us at night.........

Last edited by Stallspincrashburn; 22nd Apr 2015 at 23:50. Reason: speeling und Gramma
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 04:14
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"Now any fool can walk into any high-street store and for a few pounds can purchase a large flying machine that they can fly from their back garden, with no skill required. Their thought processes don't venture beyond their own selves to consider the danger that their actions may present to others."

You are describing a bird brain .But i don't think airtraffic is ever diverted because of one bird 2 miles away . Why drones are special ?
I think there is much more "drone phobia" than real danger

Whatever , chances are before something silly would happen there will be sufficient arrests and legislation to make flying the hooby grade ones indesirable.
With the proffesional ones there is another thing , robotic aircrafts are desirable and sometime in the future , as their number increases same things that happens to the manned ones will happen to them (mid air collisions)
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 05:32
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Fatalities from model aircraft

Regrettably there have been numerous injuries and some deaths from operation of model aircraft. Admittedly I know of none from a collision between a model and a commercial passenger operation, but there certainly was a death of a hang glider pilot in southern England 20 or 30 years ago. We should not be complacent about this.
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 09:23
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Two articles in today's NY Times about drones, but neither involving aircraft. In one instance a drone, possibly laced with cesium, was found on the roof of the Japanese prime minister's office (http://goo.gl/HP6f5g). The other is about drones being used to smuggle contraband items into prisons (http://goo.gl/i4V1eP). Still, they do highlight the doubled-edged sword nature of these devices.
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 10:05
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Please stop likening drones to birds.

Birds:

Light, squidgy and mostly feathers. When they impact the airframe they usually just go "splat!" They rarely cause any damage. We hit them regularly. I fly about 800 shorthaul hours per year and report bird strikes on average twice per. Most recently were five sparrows on departure from Athens. Most spectacular was a pigeon directly into the centre of the FO's windshield. If they hit a pitot tube then it's a bit more serious, as the gore can block the tube and cause our airspeed indicators to fail.

Most birds ingested into modern turbofans cause no damage whatsoever. Eighty-plus percent of the air flowing through the fan is bypass flow. The fan on the front is simply a glorified propellor. Only about a fifth of the air actually goes through the core. The soft bird is minced by the whirling knife blades of the fan and spat out in the cold, bypass flow. Only in the unlikely event of a small or medium sized bird going through core of the engine is damage or failure likely.

Large birds through the engine are a slightly different matter as their weight can damage the carefully balanced fan, bending blades and leading to rapid failure. I witnessed a heron go through a (Monarch?) 757 motor at Manchester a few years ago. The resulting sheet of flame as it disintegrated was terrifying.

Most birds, however, have some level of intelligence. Certainly more than those individuals presently flying drones within a few hundred meters of airports. When they see a larger bird, their first reaction is to avoid it and avoid becoming lunch. Again, larger birds have less fear. We regularly see swans crossing Heathrow at low level. But that's why airports employ bird scarers.

Drones:

Any drone hitting the fuselage, wings or empennage will cause damage. The heavier the drone, the greater the damage. Any drone going through the fan will destroy the engine.

We have legislation that makes it illegal to operate any flying device within a certain distance and height from an aerodrome. A few, professional drone operators undertake the proper training and respect the law. But the great majority neither know nor care about said laws. When a large and heavy drone can be purchased for a couple of hundred pounds or dollars by the same individuals who twenty years ago bought minimoto bikes to ride on residential streets and roads, do you really think you'll be able to persuade them to operate them with care and caution and within the law?
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 12:08
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Very true but I was comparing the standard cheap (1000$ , 1 kg) drone to a single large bird .Both are dangerous but diverting traffic because of one or the other seems to be excessive . Better call the cops, usually a drone operator is very conspicuous , then the press will crucify him and scare the likeminded others .
200$ will get you a 100-200 gram toy , unable to climb over 20-30m and with some 8mins autonomy .
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 15:41
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Birds:

Light, squidgy and mostly feathers. When they impact the airframe they usually just go "splat!" They rarely cause any damage. We hit them regularly. I fly about 800 shorthaul hours per year and report bird strikes on average twice per. Most recently were five sparrows on departure from Athens. Most spectacular was a pigeon directly into the centre of the FO's windshield. If they hit a pitot tube then it's a bit more serious, as the gore can block the tube and cause our airspeed indicators to fail.
just a snippit quote from a post above.

But way off the mark!!

Nobody worries much about bird feathers .... it's what holds the feathers together that causes all the bird damage problems.

At least drones aren't expected to come in flocks and take out all your engines at once.

Summary

some birds cause damage and are a lot more populated than drones.


drones are expected to cause damage and are extremely rare to be hit

We need data to sort this out.

anybody willing to fly a four engine B747 into a flock of two drones and document the effects?
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 16:51
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In this kind of collisions mass is all that counts . Every drone past 500g is dangerous . But what startles me is the loudness around the perceived threat to the passenger aviation (ridiculously small because of redundancies and the small intersection of flight envelopes - and that intersection is in protected and guarded space , at the airports ) and the relative silence from the small recreational aircraft and heli operators . They are flying closer to drones and probably have seen enough to judge them better . My 2 cents - drones are photographing earth objectives , closer means more resolution , there is no point on going past 100m alt . Ofc there will be some nuts breaking the norm , once every a couple of months in all the world but remember that large birds are breaking it daily at hundreds of airports .
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Old 23rd Apr 2015, 17:30
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The absence of bodies confirms that it's safe enough.
The Bible, John, Chapter 11 Verse 35 says all that can be said about this view of how to know when something is safe. You could say the same about Trident missiles. Perfectly harmless, they are; look, no bodies.
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Old 24th Apr 2015, 08:09
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We should not talk too much about things, we do not know too much about

As a professional pilot since 30 years and former RC hobby pilot, as a youth, I am surprised about part of the nonsense posted here....

For example: "Somebody could clearly see the drone in a distance of 2 miles." I assume NM.
Congratulations to your good vision.

I fly a big bird for a major carrier and I fly a DJI drone since one year. I even take it with me on some trips where I can fly it by local law. By law, you got to have in my country insurance for RC aircrafts. ( 60-70 US$/year). I think a good idea. But I think the idea of the insurance was mostly for the risk of damage on the ground.

The drone I am flying is very advanced and very stable in flight. You let the controls go and it stands still. Most of the time people use drones, they are hovering and then move to another position slowly. They are slow moving because video is better if you are not flying with max speed ( ca. 40mph ).

The drone has a distance and height information transmitted all the time to your control device. If you are flying higher then 150m (450ft) you got a problem to see your drone. Flying out of clear sight is unlawful in every country I had been flying. The maximum distance I had been flying in a height of 55m was 300m and this was definitely too far, only with my heading information transmitted as well, I could fly back. The drone was to small and was way smaller then the size of a needlepin. ( I tested this only for you ! )

To me the drone is no thread other then a kite, if it is flown within eyesight. If you are flying outside of eyesight you are risking loosing it.

It might be a thread to helicopters flying low. My hometown is next to a clinic with two helicopter stationed there. Yes they are flying often below the minimum required above cities, but if they would fly over cities in the allowed altitude there shouldn´t be a problem.

Talking about real drones ( military style ) I definitely think we should imply more regulations here. These drones scare me more then the little toys you can buy.

Something that scares me too, is the weatherballons that I had already two near miss with in cruise flight. The just pass by in an altitude where you do not expect anything.

Last but not least, I would forbid bird flying in an altitude of 7500feet, this is dangerous.
Had a birdstrike that damaged the front of my wing. Rubberboot was O.K., but behind the boot, the material was crumbled in the size of a football.

If drones stay away from airports, which most better drones have in their software implemented ( nofly zones and altitude restrictions in the vicinity )
I think this is fine to fly.

As a helicopter pilot I would try to avoid altitudes below 150m when cruising, but I think safe pilots prefer higher altitudes anyway.

Otherwise, ban kite flying as well and get everything out of the sky except us.
By the way, the most sold drone, a DJI Vision drone has a weight of less then 1200 gramms and a size of 35cm with props installed and 24cm without. And the body of the drone is even smaller.

Something I also want to explain here, you usually got a wide angle mini camera on the drones. With a wide-angle camera, everything appears further away and you got to stay closer to the object if you are making a video or picture. If you go to an altitude of 75meter you already got a very, very wide view. More then you probably want.

Come with me and I show you how great this hobby is.

Last edited by BigShip; 24th Apr 2015 at 08:14. Reason: typo
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Old 24th Apr 2015, 11:14
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We should not talk too much about things, we do not know too much about

As a professional pilot since 30 years and former RC hobby pilot, as a youth, I am surprised about part of the nonsense posted here....

For example: "Somebody could clearly see the drone in a distance of 2 miles." I assume NM.
Congratulations to your good vision.
Well, I prostrate myself before you and your superior knowledge. I've only held my ATPL for twenty years (although I had a licence and flew some varied and interesting machinery seven years prior to going commercial). And I presently only skipper a narrow-body jet for a major carrier. And I only flew RC aircraft, as a kid/youth, for about ten years. And it was my First Officer who first spotted the drone as we taxied in.

But I must have imagined: seeing it myself, the queue of traffic (all heavies and mediums) waiting to depart 05L as some pillock flew his drone at approximately 1000' at 2nm on the extended centreline, the further delays to departures as the departure runway was switched to 23R with a 7kt tailwind and the subsequent police helicopter that was dispatched to find the numpty.

I apologise for talking about things that I do not know much about.....
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Old 24th Apr 2015, 15:19
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Hmm

Something is off here . The visual resolution for human eye is 3-4 arcmins . And this is when are looking hard at the object in cause , not glancing it from the sky . 4 arcmins equals aproximatively 3.5 meters at 2 miles . I think what you have seen wasn't the drone , but the police helicopter. As for the "drone" a party ballon blown by the slow wind inside the airport would fit the scenario nicely .
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Old 24th Apr 2015, 18:29
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This baby UAV seems very well-behaved while it is sucking in fuel in midair:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=21&v=rIRwsOG_AYQ

I am sure it must have been mentioned before in this thread, but UAV's, just like aircraft, are probably as safe/unsafe as their operators
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Old 28th Apr 2015, 16:05
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Facts.

Drones which can achieve more than a garden distance flight away costs $1000 and up. SO a few pounds model will only get you a few meters away.

You cannot see them at more than 300 meters distance even with binoculars so the ability to see one at 2 miles is not likely.

Anything larger than the size of a football and the costs spiral upwards very rapidly. Way beyond any chav's means.
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Old 28th Apr 2015, 17:36
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Airport police to drones

Few days old...

London airport police to use surveillance drones - BBC News

Police guarding London airports will start using drones for surveillance following a review by counter-terrorism officers.

An 18-month analysis by the National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters, which helps develop police policy, found the technology could be "transformative".

Privacy campaigners said they were concerned about the plans.

Police are also to take over investigations into drone misuse.
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Old 29th Apr 2015, 20:09
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Not sure if this has been reported already - but an aircraft on approach to Love Field encountered a drone at approximately 4-600ft.

Virgin America Pilot Reports Seeing Drone on Approach Into Dallas Love Field

A Virgin America pilot reported seeing a quadcopter drone ascend above him Tuesday night while on approach into Dallas Love Field Airport, city officials and the FAA say. According to a statement from City Manager Jose Torres, Dallas police were notified by the Love Field tower that a pilot on Virgin Flight 769 from New York LaGuardia to Dallas reported seeing the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as they passed over the 19-story Crescent Hotel.

Video report here - with ATC recording:

Virgin America Pilot Reports Seeing Drone on Approach Into Dallas Love Field | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
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