The constant drumbeat of stories about close encounters between airplanes and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) can be described as nothing short of a panic, with pilots and non-pilots alike convinced that a drone disaster is looming, says blogger John Zimmerman of the Air Facts Journal.
“And yet, I am unable to find a single verified story of a drone colliding with an aircraft in the US,” he says, noting this is the latest example of the “safety fad” problem in aviation, a type of industry-wide ADHD. Read the full blog here.
I’m not worried about a 5lb UAV knocking down the airliner I’m in.
I’m worried about a 5lb drone knocking down the 1300 lb Aeronca I’m flying
without the bird proof windshield of an airliner.
And yes, I worry about a 5 lb goose knocking me down too.
DAVID…EXACTLY…RIGHT ON. What is the difference between a 16 ounce drone and a 5 ounce bird. The 16 ounce drone is being operated by a bird brain. The real bird will make a decent attempt to avoid getting sucked into a jet engine while the bird brain operating the 16 ounce drone wants to see what will happen when his $50 toy enters the jet engine. More than likely, the bird might vaporize while the metal and plastic could cause havoc on the fans. GOOD BY AIRLINER
“while the bird brain operating the 16 ounce drone wants to see what will happen when his $50 toy enters the jet engine.”
The odds of being able to deliberately place a drone at the intake of a jet engine are fantastically small. At 200 ft your small drone is a barely perceptible speck in the sky and at a few thousand feet, you won’t even see it from the ground. FPV? your odds just went up a small fraction, but at the closure speed of the jet plus the wide-angle view of the FPV cameras the drone pilot would have to be either damned good or remarkably lucky to be able to maneuver the drone into the engine path in the two or three seconds he can see the aircraft.
The first encounter of a small personal drone with a jet is likely to go unnoticed. (If a tree falls in the forest, etc.)
If a jet engine can survive torrential rain, hail and 5 pound birds, as designed, then a three pound, mostly plastic and liquid drone is unlikely to cause more damage than the bird strike.
The battery in a drone is the heaviest and most dense component on board. It is mostly a thick liquid electrolyte with a density similar to a wet snowball. The motors are about the same size as a large hailstone. The rest of it are frangible plastic.
And, no, birds do not simply maneuver to avoid an aircraft. They don’t know what is approaching them and for all they know, it could be another bird in their nesting territory, so their natural response is to defend it. When aircraft takeoff and land the birds’ natural response to being startled by an aircraft is to fly up to assess the threat to their territory.
No single personal off-the-shelf drone can bring down a multi-engine airliner.
These small personal drones have flown over a million hours worldwide, and there is not yet one, not a single verified incident of contact between a personal drone and a civil aircraft. None. Not one. Not anywhere in the world.
The FAA executive in charge of integrating unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) says that if and when a small UAS (sUAS) and a manned aircraft collide, the manned aircraft isn’t likely to suffer serious damage. Jim Williams was speaking to a nervous audience of helicopter operators at HAI Heli-Expo in Orlando (March 2015) and said that while there’s never been a reported contact between an sUAS and a civilian aircraft, the military has some experience in that regard. In all cases the aircraft was virtually unscathed while the UAS was “smashed to pieces.”
Keep it in perspective and do not contribute to the fear mongering not based on facts. There is not one, not a single verified report of a contact between a small UAS and a civil aircraft. This is a safety record that all other segments of aviation would be jealous to have. According to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, the General Aviation fleet can expect one fatality every 100,000 hours.
There is absolutely no factual evidence to support the fear and ignorance around small personal drones. There have been hundreds of thousands of hours of flight of small drones, yet there is not one verifiable report of a drone crash that resulted in a serious injury as defined by the NTSB to someone not connected to the flight. Not one. (A Band-Aid is not a serious injury- See CFR 49 §830.2).
Where is the blood and mayhem to justify the level of hysteria and fear of small UAS?
I wonder if you will change your mind when one of these 25 pound drones crashes into the windshield or the engine intake of a commercial jet you are flying in.