It is difficult to see how a registration scheme will ever work. These big toy UAS are bought by MTV watchers who take breaks to play call-of-duty and grand-theft-auto. They will not be aware or care about an FAA regulation nor will they hear about large fines imposed as MTV won't carry that and if they did call-of-duty would be played in preference to watching a talking head.

The toothpaste is out of the tube and the ANSPs have been far too slow to act. It was apparent 10 years ago that this could become a problem just with normal full size commercial UAS and model aircraft with payloads. But the bureaucracies preferred to just not take notice and wait out the commercial pressure that would 'go away'. Except it didn't and several enablers became available concurrently, small GPS, powerful small electric engines, and, control electronics for stability of multiple rotor UAS. Suddenly as the draft regulations for sub-55# UAS were being published the world wass flooded with grown up toy UAS being sold everywhere from traditional model aircraft shops to literally anywhere - I saw some in Bed Bath and Beyond.

Even if there was a bad crash due to a UAS/airliner collision, the use of UAS would not be affected there are just too many of them. Standards, regulations and laws could have been in place years ago, but it was easier to just say no. The toy UAS was not considered as ANSPs thought all UAS would be Predator like and need a large commercial organization. Not something that can be bought anywhere and flown by an unsupervised teenager.

The ball was dropped 10 years ago.

To quote Henry David Thoreau: "Were all these vast designs and rapid strides worth it? In truth, no. “They are but improved means to an unimproved end.”

So let me get this straight.

Despite the fact that no drone has yet caused any of the predicted deaths despite millions being operated by morons all over the planet, you are planning ahead for the scenario of not being able to work out who caused the problem despite the fact that finding the culprit has not yet been a problem with any of the drones that have strayed so far?

I bet your pre take-off briefs last for aaaaages......






"Sensible considerations about possibilities"

That is the bit where you are supposed to do a risk assessment based upon actual empirical data rather than preconceptions and fear of change.

Drones are ubiquitous and have caused zero accidents.
In the same period airliners have crashed for a dizzying range of reasons which many on here should be stressed about, but you worry about drones?!

One of the first signs of people operating beyond their capabilities in a cockpit is inappropriate focus on minutia rather than correct prioritisation.......

It is difficult to imagine how a registration scheme could be enforced for any small electronic devices in this day and age.

An invention known as the internet has made it possible, no commonplace, for individuals to import goods directly from the far east one unit at a time. The vast majority of companies satisfying this demand are more than happy to lie on their customs declaration and claim any contents are a gift of less than $5 value, or to falsely claim there are no lithium batteries included in the shipping documents, so relying on the seller notifying an authority of sales is a non-starter.

That means any registration scheme would have to rely on the purchaser notifying the authority of their purchase after the fact. If you were a wreckless drone operator, would you register?

The Economics of Drone Delivery
 

A serious look at the economics of drone delivery by Flexport, a shipping industry blog.

https://www.flexport.com/blog/drone-delivery-economics/

The concept of 'Amazon' delivering parcels by drone seemed something of a pipe dream when it was first made public, but, however, having seen a video produced by a local, the definition is outstanding, and, by adding two-way sound it would seem possible to 'deliver' the parcel to a recipient with them responding to questions of identity and showing ID in return for release of the load - so not so far-fetched?

Google says some Amazon distribution centres handle 35 orders per second. If just 10% are shipped by drone that's at least 3 per second or 10,000 drone flights an hour.

There are other more practical obstacles. Current battery technology would limit drone delivery devices to rather short ranges (perhaps 3-5 miles) with any significant payload (much more than a couple of kilos). They could extend this by fitting onboard generators powered by (say) internal combustion engines, but this would not only be noisy - I think the public acceptability of petrol-containing drones flying around would be even less likely than for the electric flavour.

I also struggle with the implied assumption that delivery drones would be exempt from the vessel-vehicle-structure-person separation rules which currently even apply to a 1 kilo radio-controlled model aeroplane.

PDR

PS - High Colin [it's Pete R]

A drone was spotted at FL070 in the hold at a busy European airport last summer by traffic. Never underestimate the stupidity of people

Amazon's latest prototype drone can already fly 15 miles with a target payload of ~ 5 lbs (2.26 kg). Currently, more than 80% of Amazon orders are under 5 lbs.

The drone is a hybrid design -- it is an octocopter with vertical takeoff / landing, but also has wings and a pusher prop to fly like a conventional rc aircraft to/from the destination.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-worth-noting/

I think it is facebook that has nearly perfected facial recognition. So, just stand and look at the drone camera and the delivery is done.... although, it could be a .22 head shot from the drone...:ooh:.......... villainous opportunity is boundless.




.

Drones. Are. Dangerous. Always.

Pandora’s Box has been opened, and even the most ardent drone users and those who support them will eventually realize how wrong they are.

Remember the recent (Dec. 22, 2015) incident in which the world’s best downhill skier almost got hit by a 22-pound camera drone operated by a newsman that fell out of the sk ust behind the skier? (It apparently fell because of radio interference.) It is terrifying to think what could easily have happened to that skier had that drone either fallen right in front of him or actually hit him. It missed him by inches! Remember -- he was going more than 90 mph at the time the drone fell near him, and that drone was being operated by a supposedly responsible person.

There is absolutely no justification for using these things anywhere -- except in rare circumstances -- and even then they are dangerous. Getting news out is not, and will never be, one of those rare circumstances. And Jeff Bezos and Google’s top execs and everyone else who uses or wants to use these very dangerous things should be ashamed of themselves for putting making lots of money or having fun ahead of caring intensely about everyone’s safety.

Cars. Are. Dangerous. Always
Guns. Are Dangerous. Always.
Lasers. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Tigers. Are. Dangerous. Always
Spiders. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Stars. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Trousers. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Children. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Nerf guns. Are. Dangerous. Always.
Vajazzles. Are. Dangerous. Always.




This is a great game!!

It would be even better if these risks were ranked in order of deaths/serious injuries caused in the last decade. That way we could have relative risk shown which would provide us with a way of showing the stupidity of knee jerk reactions.

Or, we could just ban everything which has any risk associated with it.

That would, of course require the destruction of every gram of matter in the universe including ourselves, but that is a small price to pay in the search for safety......

Humm. I've been a model flyer on and off for 40 years. It's very common to claim interference caused a crash.... Oh look I have no control therefore it must be interference and can't possibly be my fault... when in reality there could be any number of causes. Low receiver battery, faulty wiring, faulty mechanics, unseen previous crash damage etc

I haven't bothered to investigate what model of drone was involved in the above incident but don't many that size claim to have some sort of fail safe, hover on the spot or return to base function in the event of loss of valid signal? Why didn't that work?

If Amazon end up making 20,000 flights an hour (see above) then they will need to be exceptionally reliable to avoid having a lot of crashes. One crash per million flights equates to about one crash a week. Would most be over cities? Would that be acceptable?

Evil Drone -- Spoof
 

I highly doubt the crash was due to signal interference. If it was the operating company is completely unqualified to be operating drones around people.

The flight software can be programmed to do any number of safer things given a loss of signal: hover, land in place, return to base, maintain course and altitude. I can hardly believe a professional drone filming company would set their drones to "plummet to the ground" on signal loss (and yes this is an option).

I would guess it was caused by some sort of mechanical failure. Like any other machine, parts can fail, solders can crack, propellers can shatter, etc.

The crashes won't happen in the calm sunny days that Amazon show in their advertising and presumably in which all their testing has taken place. It will happen in the bad weather, wind, heavy rain, hail showers, snow, sleet etc.. In cities the Venturi effect between buildings can be extreme with a benign 15kt wind becoming random funneled 50kt gusts. Anyone who has flown helicopters in cities will be aware of these issues, an automated UAS with less than 30kt max speed has no chance.

There are going to be days or even weeks when the UAS delivery system will at best not work at worse will deliver dead UASs and packages to unwilling recipients. One person killed by an Amazon UAS and all the investment will be wasted. I cannot see this delivery UAS idea passing even a cursory safety assessment. That is before we get to the security acceptance of anonymous autonomous UAS flying 5lb packages around major cities like DC, New York or London.

That is before we get to the security acceptance of anonymous autonomous UAS flying 5lb packages around major cities like DC, New York or London.

There is also the social disturbance/invasion of privacy topic you read about. Camera toting drones over-flying private areas, taking photos/spying, and then posting them on some titivating 'no-one gives a toss' social website. If you could trace the owner you could take some action, especially if it dumps itself on your property. One sure way to capture said pesky intruder is to engage the use of a trusty shotgun. It will happen, especially in some of the more outlying properties where people like to 'look after themselves' and not trouble local services with trivial complaints.

Already happened:

"Kentucky man arrested after shooting down $1,800 drone with shotgun"
"Taking place in a town called Hillview just south of Louisville, Kentucky, 47-year-old William H. Merideth used his shotgun to fire on a drone that was hovering over his property during late Sunday afternoon. According to an account of the incident, the shotgun blast hit the drone and the hardware crashed in a field in the vicinity of Merideth’s home. When police arrived to investigate the weapon fire, Merideth admitted that he shot down the drone because it was flying over his home."
Man arrested after shooting down $1,800 drone with shotgun | Digital Trends

Addition:
And never ones to miss a marketing opportunity:

Man vs. machine: New shotgun shell being marketed for shooting down drone
"Hobby drone usage is on the rise, with its privacy implications causing some discomfort. However, an ammunition company has apparently devised a solution: a shotgun shell marketed specifically to shoot down nosy camera drones right out of the sky. The shells are given the name “Dronemunition” by their seller, Snake River Shooting Products. The packaging encourages buyers to “prepare for the drone apocalypse” with a subheading clarifying that they are referring to “the invasion of privacy” apocalypse that camera drones will bring.
The shells are 3-inches long and are full of #2 steel shot -- about .15 inches in diameter. The ammunition is relatively large, so firing it at a drone will smash it into a pile of useless metal and plastic. " :eek:

You are not thinking this through intelligently.

Currently, vast numbers of packages are delivered by road vehicles. Those vehicles kill people on a daily basis.


Note, not might kill.
Not have potential to kill.
They do kill.
1 million people die in road accidents every year.
Delivery vehicles are involved in those statistics.


A quick perusal online finds this document from the UK Office of National Statistics.
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...36/ras20001.xl



Some Amazon drones will undoubtedly fall out of the sky.


Of those that do, a vanishingly small amount of them (the surface of the earth covers many millions of square feet, and relatively few of those feet have a person standing on them) will actually hit a person.


Of that tiny number, some will be hurt.


Of that number, some will die.



That "some will die" would be a big deal if they were extra deaths, but they are not. They are potential drone of Damocles deaths compensated for by the reduction in actual road delivery deaths.


A look at the table linked suggests that Amazon drones can kill at least 2000 people per year before we should consider them a more dangerous option than light delivery vehicles.......





p.s. Your point about security doesn't even bear the briefest consideration.


Does it make a difference to you if a drone rather than a delivery man delivers your bomb or sarin?

Methinks Tourist has an undeclared interest in drones. Pray do tell.

RAT 5, yeah, certainly reads that way.

What I see in the posts are the same familiar statements from those who only have commercial interests at heart but don't seem to have a first notion of how the remarkable levels of safety have been achieved in aviation over the decades.

The argument (re methods of delivery and numbers of fatalities, etc.), is understood, but what I see is the reliance upon statistical concepts to justify a continuing acceptance of a known, (and growing) risk.

It's not the kind of thinking that yields continuous improvement in any endeavour, but particularly aviation.

Despite an encouraging responsible use of drone technology by large commercial interests, there remain some drone users who seem incapable of, or unwilling to exercise responsible use and so these kinds of arguments certainly are not going to delimit drone use and curtail regulatory involvement.

Satellite Tracking Is Weighed For Drones - WSJ article
 

From an article from the Wall Street Journal, Dec 30, 2015, page B1:

Regulators Weigh Satellite Tracking for Delivery Drones - WSJ

To me: "automatically", "receivers wouldn’t broadcast the drones’ location", "confound" and "overwhelm" sounds like a bad recipe.

That's good to hear.

Until two drones collide with each other ...

Er, not all manned aircraft have ADS-B. Isn't that so?

And if that was the means by which drones and aircraft were going to safely share the same airspace, doesn't that mean that ADS-B (and everything behind it, such as the GPS, etc) then becomes safety critical equipment? And doesn't that then mean that jamming GPS becomes a good way of creating dangerous airspace?

I think there would have to be more to it than "just" ADS-B.

never mind the collisions
 

Once they find it more rewarding than clays or tasteless sinewy birds, the field sportsmen will probably see off the menace. Could injure the odd lab though..... If they don't, the Vinnies of the inner city will! It is too tempting.

Let's see: There are 24 bits of address for ADS-B. USA has a 20-bit address space, or just over 1 million unique addresses. 915,000 of those correspond to N-numbers that are, or can be, issued. That leaves 100,000 for all the drones.

I'd be very interested to hear about any evidence demonstrating that any individuals have progressed from using laser pointers to flying small UAS in close proximity to manned aircraft.

As there have been many recorded cases of small UAS (aka Drones) flying close to airliners and the UAS 'pilots' have not been caught such proof may be difficult. Even after an incident it will be impossible to identify the 'pilot' of the UAS. The point I was making was that while we (or most here) have an innate knowledge of aviation and what the basic rules are, a significant minority of the population do not. Children shine flash-lights into the air to see the beam, l@ser pointer owners do the same, some see if they can 'illuminate' an aircraft, I doubt very much that they are deliberately trying to cause vision problems for the pilots; they just don't think about that, they are trying to show a green spot on the aircraft flying overhead.

It is the same lack of thought and similar ignorance of effects that will have a toy UAS 'pilot' see if they can get a close up picture of an airliner. If you find some of their websites you will see examples of such idiocy - I saw one in UK where the 'pilot' liked flying the UAS up through the cloud base to see if the UAS could get above the cloud layer. :rolleyes: There was zero thought that being in London might mean that the UAS was now at the same level as final approach patterns into one of the airports.

All airports with final approaches over towns are at risk of this mindless 'play'. It is just the same lack of thought that leads to the l@ser pointer 'play'. All 'players' involved will be able to give you detailed breakdown of the programs. charts and performers on MTV - but have zero knowledge of aviation. Fulminations here or in governments, severe sentences even given, are not going to stop these 'players' as they will be ignorant of them.

Last night, at 00.00 there were many people letting off the new fad of Chinese Laterns (mini hot air balloons powered by an internal flame). I was 500m south of the centreline of a major international hub. The wind, a healhty 5-10kts was from the south. I watched as a squadron of these lanterns scrambled on their flight path through the centreline what I'd estimate was not far off the 5-700' of the ILS.
We all accept, in our profession, that Murphy's Law is alive and well and it needs our vigilance & provocativeness to safeguard against its consequences. If it can then someday it will. It's a when not if philosophy, to be delayed as long as possible.
It does not, IMHO, seem a negative attitude to apply this philosophy to drones and their mis-use. There are more ignorant muppets out there than intelligent ones.
Most model aeroplane flyers have a strong code of ethics and common sense. They feel part of our industry and respect it. I'm not sure the drone fraternity shares that same culture.

EGLL operations suspended for 10 minutes today due to "drone activity". Can't imagine the disruption that caused.

I suspect it's no coincidence that 09L was in use for landings today. Same runway that the BA A320 had a drone encounter on finals for in July 2014.

ATC advised the drone was spotted at 1000 feet to the east of the airport.

More of a problem for 09R.

And me, waiting to push back the last aircraft of my shift :mad:

'Tourist'
Come on in......Are you receiving? This is 'Luddite'...over?

There is a similar thread on Jet Blast. Why not combine them on there? Some comments are repeated.

Hmm, since my responses are being removed by moderators with a "little" bias, I have become less interested....



However, yes, can I help you?

Have drones suddenly caused mass death to confirm your pre-conceived ideas?

Have Heathrow decided to stop flying for buzzards too?

Intel joins Qualcomm in Rush to Create "Smartphones with Wings"
 

Intel announced the acquisition of German drone maker Ascending Technologies.

Intel Follows Qualcomm into Drone Market, Buys German Startup

Meanwhile, Parrot has introduced a fixed-wing drone capable of autonomous take-off and flies at 50 mph:

Parrot's new Disco drone ditches quadcopter design for a fixed-wing aircraft

How low can a drone fly without being shot at?
 

Most drones are designed to be no danger to people on the ground by using GPS with return home capability and are very stable so merely releasing the controls on the remote will bring it to a rapid hover at the altitude it was flying.

Shooting down a drone makes it a falling object that could hurt people on the ground. Therefore the shooter should be charged with endangering the public by creating a hazard by his stupidity.