Yes, DJI do dominate.

http://dronelife.com/wp-content/uplo...4180202_NS.png

I should have been clearer.

The height is calculated above take-off point. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but you don't want a multi-page description).

The DJI drone has a barometer. Max flight time for the most popular model, the Phantom, is a bit over 20 minutes, so changes in local air pressure are not likely to be significant in that time.

I think you will find those stats relate to sales volume (cash value) rather than units sold. This is clearly indicated by the way they seem to suggest equal quantities of drones sold for commercial and recreational use, which is clearly not the case.

In any representation of sales volume the DJI numbers will be exaggerated because they are massively more expensive than their competitors.

The graph above is complete BS. Sales are now falling...

The graph explicitly says this are market share based on revenue rather than number of units shipped. That's a reasonable approach, too. The £20/$25 drone you can buy in toy shops doubtless sells in more volume. However, you'll be lucky to do much more than fly it around your back garden.

The Parrot Bebop is about 1/2 the cost of the DJI Phantom. However it has less functionality.

That's not massively more expensive; it's price/performance; a Mercedes vs a Golf. The data is clear; at present, DJI dominate.

Have any hard data to support that?

In any event, this thread is not about who dominates in the drone environment; it's about whether a drone is likely to harm an airliner in a collision and how to avoid such a collision happening.

No because nobody will publically admit it...

Attended a trade event in Germany a couple of weeks ago.
Major UK distributor/retailer admitted privately that sales of 'consumer camera drones' since Christmas had "gone into free-fall"...

3DR are effectively giving up on consumer drones, sales of the Solo have been poor.
They've also pulled most of their DIY products.

Which leaves DJI, who are concentrating more on pro/high end consumer.

The latest models are even more sophisticated than I imagined being fitted with an object tracking stabilised camera and collision avoidance sensors to the front of the drone. Airspeeds of 45mph can be achieved with flying times of around 23 minutes per charge. The collision avoidance system is only intended for dealing with stationary objects such as trees, pylons, buildings and people, so no use with something as fast as an aircraft. Collision avoidance also is disabled when the device is operated in "sports" mode. An autonomous route can also be programmed which would allow the drone to fly for many miles and to considerable altitudes without any operator supervision. Fly and forget! :ugh:

Of course this would be illegal in the UK without a speciofic Air Operator Certificate from the CAA as flight beyond visual range and any kind of autonomous flight are prohibited by the regulations. Even a "return to base" function (whether commanded or on loss of signal) is prohibited - any fail-safe device (which is mandatory for the larger ones) can only set controls & power to fixed values to ensure the ensuing crash is (a) gentle and (b) local to the point at which the fail-safe was triggered.

PDR

PDR1
But that is rather the point, the drone involved in the collision with the A320 wasn't being operated legally. People are always going to push the limits of the technology available to them just to see what is possible.

I could envisage a situation where a couple of mates decide to see if a drone can fly a few miles between their back gardens autonomously. Totally against the law, but they aren't thinking about that, they are consumed by the technology and cleverness of it all. Only problem is, they live either side of a regional airport and the drone geofencing software has been disabled because it interfered with their ability to get earlier shots of planes landing and taking off.

No malice intended, just pure curiousity. Not a great deal different to the idiots with other devices; I wonder how far this lights something up? Same mentality!

Indeed. So if these people won't abide by current regulations, and preventing import is a virtual impossibility, what would be gained by adding further regulations?

Surely the solution lies in more effective policing and enforcement of the current regulations rather than adding more unpoliced and unenforcible ones?

And throwing hysterical tantrums every time there's a non-accident isn't going to help. The last 24 hours of pilot-blathering in the press and on these pages has achieved nothing other than to say to the illegal drone-hobbyists "well you know we told you that a drone hitting an airliner would be seriously bad ****? Tirns out we were wrong, so you can just carry on as you were without worrying about killing anyone".

That's kinda inevitable where people turn crying wolf into a lifestyle choice.

PDR

PDR1
Agreed. Shame that enforcement costs money. Best we just ban everthing to be safe.

Clearly the thing we ban is being safe - that would be far more cost-effective...

PDR

Lots of talk about the hard bits in these RC drones but no-one has mentioned that they are mostly powered by large packs of Lithium Polymer batteries. Yes I know they are fairly soft etc etc.
But they do not like impact or puncture damage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFxlf4fXjo

And that is just a tiny one.

Ehhh...no. For the worst case scenario the camera frame, battery pack and lens body are by far the most sturdy and heavy. The most popular Canon DSLR with standard internal battery and memory cards are just over 900g. A 24-70mm lens typically used on the PRAS mounts I´ve seen are between 600 and 700g.

Small stuff with GoPro maybe not so bad, big heavy pro stuff is another matter. And the large drone quoted to be spotted in the London TMA is just the thing that carries that.

You have virtually identical cells in your phone, laptop, e-cig and some of your chordless power tools (although these are more likely to be lithium-phiosphate than the classical lithium-cobalt "lipo").

I've been using lithium polymer batteries for nearly a decade (I would guess I have about 70 lipo packs in my garage workshop right now, from the tiny 130mAh single cells up to some 5,000mAh 6-cell monsters), and videos like that are massively misleading. You really have to try very hard to get a lipo to do that kind of thing. I've actually tried it - I've deliberately overcharged them (charging by direct connection to 6v/cell), I've over-currentted them (charged at 10C and discharged at over 100C by directly shorting them). I've cut the envelopes, banged nails through them, overheated them, given them violent impacts with a brick wall (the most extreme being by way of my best Andy Murrey tennis serve impression from 10 feet).

I've certainly managed to damage these cells so they didn't work any more. Some got a bit hot, and some smouldered slightly. But none did these "greek fire" impressions you see on youtube. And I'm by no means alone.

There's usually a bunch of lithium-cobalt cells in the ELBs on aeroplanes, of course. So I'd stay well away from any aeroplanes if they are a concern to you...

PDR

Quite so. I also have a large array of Li-Po batteries and never any issues. A friend at the club crashed a large EDF (6S) model and it burnt just like video before he could get near it. Not saying its guaranteed to happen but it has been documented to happen often enough.

If there was impact it wasn't a non accident. The AAIB will find out soon enough.

Do you do appreciate that sort of comment doesn't help your cause one bit?


Can I ask - are you prepared to admit there's a potential problem and danger associated with a drone colliding with an aircraft in flight?

It will likely be classed as a Serious Incident, as defined in Annex 13:

Serious incident. An incident involving circumstances indicating that an accident nearly occurred.

Note 1.-- The difference between an accident and a serious incident lies only in the result.

I believe the correct definition is an "incident". ICAO Annex 13 refers:

Accident
An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until such time as all such persons have disembarked, in which:

a) a person is fatally or seriously injured as a result of

• being in the aircraft, or
• direct contact with any part of the aircraft, including parts which have become detached from the aircraft, or
• direct exposure to jet blast,

except when the injuries are from natural causes, self inflicted or inflicted by other persons, or when the injuries are to stowaways hiding outside the areas normally available to the passengers and crew: or

b) the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure which:

• adversely affects the structural strength, performance or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and
• would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component,

except for engine failure or damage. when the damage is limited to the engine, its cowlings or accessories: or for damage limited to propellers, wing tips, antennas, tires, brakes, fairings, small dents or puncture holes in the aircraft skin: or

c) the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible.

Incident.
An occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft which affects or could affect the safety of operation.


So I repeat - this was a non-accident. It's a "knowing what you're talking about" thing. Do you do appreciate that sort of hysterical ignorance doesn't help anyone or anything one bit?

No, I'm not prepared to "admit" anything (because that has connotations of grudging disclosure). I am prepared to STATE that there is such a potential problem. But being a grown-up I also STATE that it is one of a large number of such potential problems, each of which has an associated probability of resulting in "death, serious injury and/or significant property damage" (hereto-under refereed to as "bad ****" in the interests of brevity).

I then observe than of this set of risks the risk of drone-collision has a lower probability of "bad ****" than many other risks which have no been subject to extreme regulatory controls (pilot fatigue and pilot mental stability being the obvious examples). Ergo society has ALREADY determined that further regulations or enforcement actions are not warranted to mitigate the drone-collision threat.

QED

PDR

I expect this thread will have attracted the attention of a fair number of sensible model aviators so the following may be of interest:

Drone ban over London and Windsor during Obama visit

Drones will be banned from flying between 9pm on Thursday (21st April I guess) and 10.30am on Sunday over a large part of London, from Purley in the south to Haringey in the north.

Restrictions are in place for the skies between Windsor and London on Friday - when the Obamas will join the Queen for lunch at Windsor Castle the day after her 90th birthday celebrations - and between Stansted airport and London on Thursday night and Sunday morning.

The regulations prohibit aircraft - including drones - from flying below 762 metres (2,500 feet) within the specified areas unless they are using Heathrow, Stansted or London City airports, London Heliport, RAF Northolt or are being operated by the emergency services.

Pilots of other aircraft wanting to fly in the restricted areas must seek permission from the Metropolitan Police.

You may be right, you may be wrong, but which will be the easiest and most popular to legislate against? The drone community may need all the friends it can get - name calling won't help.

Humans are particularly bad at assessing probabilities and risks. It is an absolute certainty that at some stage in the future a fully laden A380 (or similar large passenger aircraft) will crash with massive loss of life. In fact the odds are far higher than an aircraft colliding with a drone, or said drone being the initiator of the crash.

Do we ban passenger transport on large jets? Of course not.

The fact is, we take a calculated risk every time we step aboard an aircraft or any other vehicle. The chances of being killed in a collision on the way to an airport are far higher than being killed aboard an airliner, but people are still prepared to drive.

At the moment the record stands at airliners 1, drones 0. That is a one hundred percent success rate in favour of the larger aircraft. There is absolutely no supporting evidence the other way, although there is a calculable, non zero, probability that a drone could potentially damage an airliner so as to cause a crash.

Better to worry about things that matter like looking both ways before crossing the road.

Who's doing any name calling? I literally meant what I said. Pilot fatigue has a documented accident/incident history, and the threads on this place alone show that many professional pilots consider their own fatigue levels to be a significant threat to flight safety.

Pilot mental stability has a non-zero accident history (German wings, Egyptair 990, probably MH370 to name but three). It demonstrably has a higher probability of causing "bad ****" than a drone strike. So if we aren't mandating annual pilot metal health checks I suggest we're saying we don't need any more drone legislation either, as both risks are clearly within the tolerable threshold.

The FAA have done a classic "knee jerk" by introducing "drone registration" - each drone must carry the registration number of its owner/operator. Perhaps one of you could ask the flight-deck crew of yesterday's A320 whether they would have been able to read the registration numbers in 10mm-high font as it whizzed towards them at ~180mph? To be honest I'm actually surprised that they could even have determined it was a drone in the very brief time between becoming visible and smacking against the fuselage!

PDR

Ah, but we do. That little informal chat/professional banter with the AME isn't all just making smalltalk any more than than is the polite discusion about 'the old country' with a US immigration officer.

I think there's general agreement between the pilot community and the drone flying community that civilian drones and people-carrying aircraft should not fly in the same airspace (at least until both have sophisticated anti-collision systems).

There are a few aggressive drone flyers who seem to feel they will fly where they like (over neighbour's gardens, in suburban areas, etc) but most are considerate. Some of the aggressive drone pilots will insist that a drone striking an aircraft isn't proved to be a risk : do they want a smoking hole in the ground?

There are a few pilots who want all drones banned but most just want to limit/avoid the risk of sharing airspace with drones.

There are a few pilots (in my limited experience these are helicopter pilots) who like to fly regularly below 400'; as a drone pilot, this makes me nervous; it gives me little time to react.

There's probably more that regulatory authorities could do to raise awareness in the piloting community. Drone manufacturers could put a big sign at the top of the drone box which you'll see the moment you open it highlighting key national rules.

It will calm down.

It will...and FWIW I think there's more common ground here than some might think - some of the more elderly here cut their teeth with single channel R/C (gliders in my case) and have no wish to see the modern equivalents overly restricted or banned...but they do need to be operated somewhere sensible by someone with common sense.

This may seem odd but I am reading forums claiming this to be a false alarm, stating there was no damage to the aircraft, not even a scrape on the paint.

Can anyone confirm.

The Metropolitan Police's own statement (Appeal following incident with aircraft - Metropolitan Police) says:

"The flight landed at Heathrow Terminal 5 safely and was inspected by BA engineers. There was no damage found to the aircraft."

Whether this means no evidence of a collision or simply no damage warranting repair I'm not sure, but it could be the source of the rumours.

There is also the possibility that after the collision with the aircraft, the RPAS 'residue' falls to Earth and seriously injures persons or causes damage to property on the surface. Pedestrians, vehicle windscreens, conservatory roofs etc.

A quick look on Youtube will reveal 100s of videos of various multirotors crashing back to earth intact due to a variety of malfunctions. It seems to me you're far more likely to become the victim of one of those than whatever's left after a >160kt impact with an airliner.

I operate a kit-built aerial photography quadcopter in the 1.5kg range and whenever flying I operate under the assumption that it might fall out the sky at any moment. This means never flying over anyone or anything which might be injured or damaged in a crash and a careful risk/benefit analysis in terms of what images I'm going to capture before operating it over an area where uncontrolled descent could result in a total loss of the craft, ie. tall trees, water etc.

IMHO anyone who doesn't follow this line of thought is foolish in the extreme, but sadly Youtube serves as proof that a lot of people would disagree.

Somewhat larger lumps fall off aircraft on a regular basis including stowaways.

The impacted drone may have survived the encounter (unlikely), was completely disintegrated (probable), ingested by an engine and atomised without causing any damage (possible), or bits fluttered to the ground over open countryside without causing damage (likely).

The lumps of ice, biological remains and metallic parts that fall from aircraft present a higher risk, particularly on approach paths to landing.

Struggling to find a web-site containing information on the co-efficient of flutterability for say, Lithium batteries or a 'Go-Pro' camera?
Ingested by an engine..........Well that's all right then, nothing to worry about.

Eight pages of outrage and yet the basic premise justifying the outrage has not been demonstrated. How about we all refrain from demonising drones and their controllers until someone proves that there has been, or even that there is likely to be, a collision between a drone and an aircraft? And no, I don't own a drone.

Did once almost hit a paraglider.
Wouldn't have been great if he'd gone into an engine; esp for him :E

I am probably one of the very few people on this planet who have actually brought down an aircraft with a drone (RC model).
I was flying a scale RC aircraft on the runway of an airfield after hours (with permission of the airfield authority). At the same time a hot air balloon took of at the other end of the runway, more than 1800 m away. The wind was blowing in the runway axis and I was doing circuits. My maximum altitude was probably less than 100ft in downwind. RC scale aircraft are difficult to fly and you cannot let one out of your sight for more than a second or two.
I saw the hot air balloon (about 100ft diameter) coming in low over the runway and tried to make my downwind even lower. I thought I was going to pass well clear of the balloon, but because of optical illusion (100ft balloon against 5ft wingspan of my RC model) I managed to hit it right in the middle of the envelope. There was a tear in the envelope, my model came down in a spin and the balloon descended slowly and managed an emergency landing remaining clear of the surrounding buildings.

Obviously the balloon pilot and his passenger came to meet me and ask questions. It was clear that there were no bad intentions whatsoever and the passenger was an old instructor of mine. My insurance paid for the repair of the balloon, several thousands. Obviously this could have been much worse if the envelope would have opened further.

This happened over thirty years ago, in over fifty years of flying, I have never put even a scratch on any of the aircraft or passengers. I cannot begin to imagine what damage a drone would to if it hit my windscreen at 180 kts.

That definitely qualifies as one of the most unusual, perhaps bizarre 'accidents'

In The Daily Telegraph 'letters' last Saturday was this contribution. Is it correct?

'Bandit Drones.'
"A drone flight made over a garden was already illegal. Drones are regulated by CAA (UK) under ANO and unlicensed drones are prohibited from flying over property or people." Chris Attwell...Bristol.

I'm only the messenger. Hold your fire.

No they don't. That data is for US drones used for commercial purposes in 2014, based on dollar value.

But the vast majority of drones today aren't being used for commercial purposes. And using dollar value doesn't correlate with the number of drones actually being sold (and flown) in the market.

For every DJI drone there are probably 20 more drones sold by companies like Syma, UDI, Hubsan, etc.

On another forum, someone said he didn't want a drone with geo-fencing, but would agree to it if the airlines would pay him for use of his airspace.

I calmly said it isn't his airspace, and the airlines do indeed pay for services associated with their use of airspace.

It's gone quiet, so maybe I won't get into an argument about abstruse concepts like controlled and prohibited airspace, or worse ...