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Thread: Not a great day for freedom from regulation for drones

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    Default Not a great day for freedom from regulation for drones

    Not a great day for freedom from regulation for drones

    Category A near miss with a passenger jet:


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30369701

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    Its only getting worse and worse now that drones are getting cheaper and more popular without proper regulation.
    I feel its a requirement that unlicensed *self built too* drones need to be equipped with gps and only allowing firmware that has the no fly zones hardcoded .

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    This is very similar to the laser pointer "abuse" debate". Please, let's not start with the regulate the hell out of these things solution. Someone with bad intentions or reckless abandon could stand in the low altitude flight path of an airport and fire all sorts of stuff to an intercept altitude that is otherwise not hard-wire limited in certain areas. Anyone with the skill to build a DIY drone will not be prevented from reckless use, just inconvenienced by GPS "no go zones". I am afraid that such interference will be turned into a limitation such as "you don't need to photograph the riots in Ferguson" etc.

    The individual who did this stupid thing needs to be prosecuted and if found guilty punished with a substantial penalty. The laser pointer "nuts" are getting slapped pretty hard.

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    So I'm setting on a Boeing product as part of my work. A burnt smell comes into the cabin, after a disconcerting yaw to one side on a steep climb out. We recovered from the yaw and once we made it through the 10K foot "Sterile Cockpit" altitude, the pilot came on and announced we had ingested part of a flock of sparrows on engine and the engine numbers at first took a dive then looked fine. He apologized for the burn smell coming in from the pressurization and conditioner pack, which feeds on Bleed air from the engine. So a few sparrows or the proverbial chicken might not do much damage. I shudder, however, to think what you happen if the mass of the drone approached a goose.

    One drone manufacturer has led the way in adding GPS based exclusion zones. But that does not come in the Hobby programmed, home made units.

    This will all balance out in the end, but do we need to loose a plane first? There are plenty of laws on the books to prosecute a drone owner who does wrong.

    Who is doing the education to prevent incidents? When I work at a major lab, we get forced into safety classes on a yearly and monthly basis. It does a nice job of re-affirming the basics and imparting new knowledge. Is it perfect, no. In my state, after a certain birth year, you need a safety course to hunt or to take out a boat with a motor. Every kid I've talked to called the hunting class great fun, and educational. I've talked with many women who took the live fire concealed carry and basic gun safety courses at the range. Most of them said it was a blast, and more then a few said it was a great way to spend time with their guys.
    So what the heck is the problem with establishing a drone rules course?

    After all, no one in their right mind would want to be on the road at 110 MPH of collision speed with anyone who skipped the driver's training course. I'd really like it if my surgeon was board certified, too....

    Well taught classes with a good mandatory curriculum would help.

    I feel sorry for the classical model airplane guys. They have co-existed remarkably well with airports for years.


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    So what the heck is the problem with establishing a drone rules course?
    Nothing. And your points re training for other "dangerous" activities are good ones. I find the exclusion zone approach is distasteful in exactly the same way a auto speed limiter (70 MPH?) on cars that "can" travel over 150 MPH is distasteful. No one SHOULD care because no one should be driving over said limit. When hunting, discharging a firearm within 150 yards of a dwelling or a road is unlawful and should be respected and is covered in firearms training courses.

    This is all so similar to the response to the laser pointer threat. Same cause as well. You were not likely to have some post doc fire an ion laser up at an approach path 30 years ago and the classic model airplane guys were generally a class act as well.

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    Maybe the answer is to jam RC frequencies just outside of the boundaries of airports so anything that tried to fly over the boundary would crash to the ground. I guess the issue here is whether any Air Traffic, Airport or Aircraft systems use RC /near RC frequencies.

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    That's the 2.4GHz ISM band. Jam that and every homeowner around every airport in the country would scream bloody murder since their WiFi wouldn't work anymore.

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    This is a slippery slope.
    There is no easy answer. When ever a new technology hits main stream this sort of thing is likely to come up. Laser pointers are a perfect example as stated earlier.

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    Dumb question. Why don't airliners just put something siimilar to 2" x 4" gavanized fence wire over the inlet? Maybe form it into a bit of cone pointing out so objects like birds stand a chance of bouncing off rather than being sucked in? I realize there is an awful lot of suction created but, similar to the vents on the front of Nascar cars, wouldn't that at least help to create less risk?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    Dumb question. Why don't airliners just put something siimilar to 2" x 4" gavanized fence wire over the inlet? Maybe form it into a bit of cone pointing out so objects like birds stand a chance of bouncing off rather than being sucked in? I realize there is an awful lot of suction created but, similar to the vents on the front of Nascar cars, wouldn't that at least help to create less risk?
    Not practical -

    The turbine inlets are too large, and you would wind up with an equally-large metal mesh that is only supported at the edges, which becomes a huge FOD (foreign object damage) hazard in and of itself. A relatively minor impact on the mesh could cause the whole thing to be ingested by the engines, which would be potentially much worse than the birds they were intended to keep out.

    The biggest reoccurring hazard is dumbass multi-rotor "pilots" flying intentionally, or cluelessly, where they could interfere with smaller general aviation aircraft, helicopters, etc. Aircraft designed for lower flight altitudes generally don't have the thicker windscreens that are found on high-altitude pressurized aircraft, and would be much less tolerant to a strike with a multi-rotor or other heavy RC model ~ I've seen helicopter windscreens pretty much destroyed by bird strikes with birds that are no bigger than some of the multi-rotors being flown by hobbyists these days.

    I for one would definitely NOT want to be in the cockpit if something the size of my "off the shelf" camera-equipped Blade 350 QX quad hit the windshield at typical helicopter cruise speeds.

    Kind of like lasers, guns, etc. -
    The general public is basically filled with dumbass, clueless, and often completely indifferent morons, and legislation gets passed to try to take over for the lack of common sense. Unfortunately, the folks that already played by common-sense rules wind up paying the price...
    Last edited by Stuka; 12-12-2014 at 06:46.
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