Drones threatening commercial a/c?
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Ok, just a few operational questions.
What is the MTOW of a drone delivering a 1kg package? A 2kg package? A 5kg package?
Can a drone deliver only to a secure site with the recipient present? Or will the drone hide your package as the UPS driver does?
How will the drone deal with a curious neighbor? A curious neighbor child? A pet dog?
When the drone is ready to depart, does it yell, "Clear!"? Will non-aviation types even understand what "Clear" means?
If the drone malfunctions, will it radio for help?
Are drones VFR Only or are they all-weather?
What is the MTOW of a drone delivering a 1kg package? A 2kg package? A 5kg package?
Can a drone deliver only to a secure site with the recipient present? Or will the drone hide your package as the UPS driver does?
How will the drone deal with a curious neighbor? A curious neighbor child? A pet dog?
When the drone is ready to depart, does it yell, "Clear!"? Will non-aviation types even understand what "Clear" means?
If the drone malfunctions, will it radio for help?
Are drones VFR Only or are they all-weather?
MTOW: I have a half-share in one that can lift 1 kg easily, its weight with batteries is 2.5 kg. But flying time at 3.5 kg is on the order of 9 minutes. With 0.5 kg payload another battery pack could be added for 18 minutes total duration. Its cruising speed would be 10 m/s which gives an effective range of 3 km. This is 2015 technology. To deliver 5kg to a destination say 3 km away would probably result in a TOW somewhere in the 25 kg region. Which the CAA consider to be a "heavy".
Problems at destination: Equipped with a video link an operator could monitor the delivery, and do the equivalent of UPS's "no-one in" driveby.
Takeoff: The transmitter for ours says "All clear above and behind?" when the throttle reaches 10%. Takeoff is at about 65-70%. At the delivery end a small speaker could do the same, in fact cover a range of situations. We don't have the facilities to test with dogs; cats are interested but don't come near, too noisy. (This is while motor testing tied to a 50kg garden table with 4 cats hanging around.)
UAV problems: There is a range of telemetry that can be sent back. Some the the larger systems use an Arduino computer for on-board control, and that can be programmed for all sorts of situations. If a motor fails the controllers for 6 & 8 motor UAVS can cope to some extent, generally by landing where they are. Controllers with 3 or 4 motors cannot cope.
IFR?: No reason they can't be made waterproof. Just adds a little more weight for covers and seals. Probably a good idea to make sure the payload can stand being in the vigorous shower from the props though.
However using them for real delivery is just a PT Barnum show. I'm sure it will be done, but expect a brown/yellow/white van at your own door.
'b
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Already waterproof.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg
In answer to some of the other questions, I understand they don't intend to ever land them.
I believe the package will be lowered?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
If you watch the TED talk video I posted above you will see a quadcopter having two of its props cut off with scissors and still flyable in a emergency mode with all axis control possible.
Whether it all happens, who knows, but I do know that for it to be worth doing they have to be autonomous to make it worth the effort. If each one has a pilot then there is no saving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg
In answer to some of the other questions, I understand they don't intend to ever land them.
I believe the package will be lowered?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
If you watch the TED talk video I posted above you will see a quadcopter having two of its props cut off with scissors and still flyable in a emergency mode with all axis control possible.
Whether it all happens, who knows, but I do know that for it to be worth doing they have to be autonomous to make it worth the effort. If each one has a pilot then there is no saving.
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Thats a fair spread of "cocknockers"
From science geeks to engineers to snowboarders to kayakers to octogenarian hillwalkers...
I think you should invest in a few more derogatory epithets for your vocabulary to ensure people know exactly what type of cocknockers you are referring to at any particular juncture.
From science geeks to engineers to snowboarders to kayakers to octogenarian hillwalkers...
I think you should invest in a few more derogatory epithets for your vocabulary to ensure people know exactly what type of cocknockers you are referring to at any particular juncture.
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Nah,
I think the problem is, and increasingly will be....Twerps who launch their little camera-carrying toy-helicopters, 'because I've paid for it, the technology exists, and I can', and stuff the safety of everyone else, both in the air, and on the ground.
To get signed-off as a PPL, (A,H, gliders/balloons), takes a lot of financial input, practical experience, theoretical study and common-sense.
I note from another discussion that you mention MER. What is the MER for 'drone-pilots', and where is it detailed?
I think the problem is, and increasingly will be....Twerps who launch their little camera-carrying toy-helicopters, 'because I've paid for it, the technology exists, and I can', and stuff the safety of everyone else, both in the air, and on the ground.
To get signed-off as a PPL, (A,H, gliders/balloons), takes a lot of financial input, practical experience, theoretical study and common-sense.
I note from another discussion that you mention MER. What is the MER for 'drone-pilots', and where is it detailed?
Last edited by ZOOKER; 5th Sep 2015 at 20:20.
Ok, just a few operational questions.
What is the MTOW of a drone delivering a 1kg package? A 2kg package? A 5kg package?
Can a drone deliver only to a secure site with the recipient present? Or will the drone hide your package as the UPS driver does?
How will the drone deal with a curious neighbor? A curious neighbor child? A pet dog?
When the drone is ready to depart, does it yell, "Clear!"? Will non-aviation types even understand what "Clear" means?
If the drone malfunctions, will it radio for help?
Are drones VFR Only or are they all-weather?
Just some operational questions.
What is the MTOW of a drone delivering a 1kg package? A 2kg package? A 5kg package?
Can a drone deliver only to a secure site with the recipient present? Or will the drone hide your package as the UPS driver does?
How will the drone deal with a curious neighbor? A curious neighbor child? A pet dog?
When the drone is ready to depart, does it yell, "Clear!"? Will non-aviation types even understand what "Clear" means?
If the drone malfunctions, will it radio for help?
Are drones VFR Only or are they all-weather?
Just some operational questions.
Mechta,
Google and Amazon seem to be getting on splendidly without SUAV's. ATC are often stretched (by staff numbers, driven by cost), to provide ATSOCAS to manned aircraft.
Google and Amazon seem to be getting on splendidly without SUAV's. ATC are often stretched (by staff numbers, driven by cost), to provide ATSOCAS to manned aircraft.
There will no doubt be some very serious lobbying by the courier companies, citing environmental benefits (less vans clogging up roads, delivery as the crow flies etc.), so anyone using a helicopter for a job another drone could conceivably do, had better start putting an extremely good justification for their continued existence together. 'We were here first' won't carry much weight.
Heavier-than-air powered aviation has yet to pass the point that it exceeds every human lifetime. We need to be looking at the next hundred years, not just the next ten or twenty.
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"Google and Amazon's shareholders won't be impressed if the management are not exploiting an opportunity which could give them a considerable return on their investment".
Neither will the folks in Windsor if one of these things accidentally encounters an A319 approaching EGLL and causes it to alight in the high street, as opposed to 09L.
Neither will the folks in Windsor if one of these things accidentally encounters an A319 approaching EGLL and causes it to alight in the high street, as opposed to 09L.
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Birds, PPLs, model aircraft, etc., are all completely irrelevant.
Whatever baseline risk they collectively represent today, drones add new safety concerns above and beyond that baseline.
We're only at the inception of the drone age. There are already over 500,000 drones sold in the US alone and the drone market is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade when shipments of drones are expected to be in the millions (!) of units each and every year.
Casualties due to unregulated drone use is a matter of when, not if.
Whatever baseline risk they collectively represent today, drones add new safety concerns above and beyond that baseline.
We're only at the inception of the drone age. There are already over 500,000 drones sold in the US alone and the drone market is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade when shipments of drones are expected to be in the millions (!) of units each and every year.
Casualties due to unregulated drone use is a matter of when, not if.
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peekay4 is spot on. If something can go wrong.....one day it will.
I'll give you one example.
If you look at the STAR charts for EGGP, you'll see there is a holding-pattern to the NW called 'TIPOD'. But why is it called 'TIPOD'?
When the inbound procedures were changed, (a long time ago), and that holding-fix was introduced, it was originally called 'LIVPO'. "Hang-on" we said, that's very similar to the name of the airfield's NDB, 'LPL', (which also had a published holding-pattern), 4 miles east of the field. We were concerned that one day, someone would get them confused. "There shouldn't be a problem", said the Ops department, (who had developed the procedures), "but we'll monitor the situation".
They didn't have to monitor it for long.
I was on the morning, about 2 weeks later, that someone, who had been cleared to LIVPO, went to the NDB by mistake. The NDB is about 15nm west of a larger airport, and conflicts with several of that airport's SIDS. In accordance with one of 'Murph'y Laws, this happened during the larger airport's westbound trans-Atlantic departure period, and for 5 minutes or so, it got very exciting.
The name 'TIPOD was introduced the following day.
All the professionals involved in that scenario were fully-trained and licensed, all and had the best intentions in The World, but succumbed to yet another 'Gotcha'.
99.99% of those customers in the 'drone-market' that peekay mentions will not be fully-trained and licensed.
I'll give you one example.
If you look at the STAR charts for EGGP, you'll see there is a holding-pattern to the NW called 'TIPOD'. But why is it called 'TIPOD'?
When the inbound procedures were changed, (a long time ago), and that holding-fix was introduced, it was originally called 'LIVPO'. "Hang-on" we said, that's very similar to the name of the airfield's NDB, 'LPL', (which also had a published holding-pattern), 4 miles east of the field. We were concerned that one day, someone would get them confused. "There shouldn't be a problem", said the Ops department, (who had developed the procedures), "but we'll monitor the situation".
They didn't have to monitor it for long.
I was on the morning, about 2 weeks later, that someone, who had been cleared to LIVPO, went to the NDB by mistake. The NDB is about 15nm west of a larger airport, and conflicts with several of that airport's SIDS. In accordance with one of 'Murph'y Laws, this happened during the larger airport's westbound trans-Atlantic departure period, and for 5 minutes or so, it got very exciting.
The name 'TIPOD was introduced the following day.
All the professionals involved in that scenario were fully-trained and licensed, all and had the best intentions in The World, but succumbed to yet another 'Gotcha'.
99.99% of those customers in the 'drone-market' that peekay mentions will not be fully-trained and licensed.
Last edited by ZOOKER; 6th Sep 2015 at 10:18.
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Peekay
It is not a baseline.
It is merely the current state of affairs.
Why should any new activity have to achieve higher safety than old activities?
Birds we can't really stop, but PPLs we could ban tomorrow.
By banning PPls we would definitely stop major accidents.
That is an incontrovertible fact.
Despite this I hear no calls to do so.
By banning drones we merely have reason to believe that we might stop accidents in future. There is as yet no evidence to prove this.
ZOOKER
You keep coming back to this "PPL pilots are trained" cr@p.
It is entirely irrelevant whether they are trained or not. They keep causing accidents and killing hundreds of people!!
Obviously the training is inadequate.
When a PPL hits an airliner it usually takes it down.
When a toy drone hits a Cessna it barely leaves a dent.
If the head of the CAA was given a £1 Million bonus for every life saved in accidents in the UK and had the power to ban either PPL or UAV, which do you think he would choose?
p.s. Does anybody on here really think that a PPL in any way could be described as "takes a lot of financial input, practical experience, theoretical study and common-sense."
Cash, yes it requires it.
The rest, not so much.
It is not a baseline.
It is merely the current state of affairs.
Why should any new activity have to achieve higher safety than old activities?
Birds we can't really stop, but PPLs we could ban tomorrow.
By banning PPls we would definitely stop major accidents.
That is an incontrovertible fact.
Despite this I hear no calls to do so.
By banning drones we merely have reason to believe that we might stop accidents in future. There is as yet no evidence to prove this.
ZOOKER
You keep coming back to this "PPL pilots are trained" cr@p.
It is entirely irrelevant whether they are trained or not. They keep causing accidents and killing hundreds of people!!
Obviously the training is inadequate.
When a PPL hits an airliner it usually takes it down.
When a toy drone hits a Cessna it barely leaves a dent.
If the head of the CAA was given a £1 Million bonus for every life saved in accidents in the UK and had the power to ban either PPL or UAV, which do you think he would choose?
p.s. Does anybody on here really think that a PPL in any way could be described as "takes a lot of financial input, practical experience, theoretical study and common-sense."
Cash, yes it requires it.
The rest, not so much.
When a PPL hits an airliner it usually takes it down
uncaring of standards Muppet you would ever employ.
He is also a ppl.
He is also a ppl.
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No, not any answers that are valid to me.
Fortunately, It matters little.
Drones are here to stay, and those that are trying to stand in their way are like the Luddites, Saboteurs and similar ilk from the past.
Doomed to fail.
Yes there were accidents on the new fangled trains/cars/planes etc, but new tech is here to stay.
Fortunately, It matters little.
Drones are here to stay, and those that are trying to stand in their way are like the Luddites, Saboteurs and similar ilk from the past.
Doomed to fail.
Yes there were accidents on the new fangled trains/cars/planes etc, but new tech is here to stay.
#344
AVweb now reports that the Illinois incident last week was a bird-strike ("small, non-predatory bird"):
www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Reported-Drone-Collision-Was-a-Birdstrike-224805-1.html
www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Reported-Drone-Collision-Was-a-Birdstrike-224805-1.html