Commercial Unmanned Drones Approved by the FAA

[Echo Tango]

It is my hope that they require them to fly in areas covered by adsb and are required to broadcast their position to atc and all adsb users. Im guessing they'll just issue a notam though. Everyone reads those, right?

[az_gila]

Originally Posted by walkman

There's always the trick the Spit guys used to do to upset the V1 Buzz Bombs. Fly up along side them and flip 'em with your wing

I think gyro systems have improved in the last 70 years.....

[mannanj]

Originally Posted by walkman

There's always the trick the Spit guys used to do to upset the V1 Buzz Bombs. Fly up along side them and flip 'em with your wing

Along with improved gyros they have Hi-res cameras and they'll nail you like the "red light" cameras. The ticket won't come in the mail though, the jack-booted thugs will just beat your door down.

A Sidewinder from a couple of miles back would work better.

[panhandler1956]

I wrote a short editorial recently on this very subject at:

http://iflyblog.com/2013/08/08/drone-wars/

[Andy Hill]

Anybody interested, or more likely having difficulty sleeping, here is the (UK) CAA's viewpoint / rulset on UAVs CAP 722 Link

[flyboy1963]

great discussion. Love the 110 page document from the UK ( which appears to be an excellent use of 10 pages of info, 30 pages or so 'intentionally left blank', and a couple flowcharts.)

I hope to see somewhere that these things need to be painted fluorescent yellow with black stripes, and a ton of strobes in every direction.
......so far, I've only seen them painted 'sky blue/grey', with the obvious reaction to that....( are they crazy?)
We're not in Afghanistan anymore guys! of course the pipeline patrol ones will be high-viz, but I'm sure the rest are hoping for some degree of stealth to sneak up on the bad guys. ( CBSA etc.).
Just hope I don't run into one.

[CATPart]

I have been involved with "hobby" drones for quite some time now. There is actually quite a large community of people making home made drones, and honestly it is technically very easy to do (nowadays). People can fly these things very high and very far away, if they want. Many people have the goal of going as high as they can, or as far as they can. I personally have a system that could allow over 10 miles of live streaming data and video. These are basically foam RC airplanes or quad copters, weighted with electronics and batteries. Simple toys filled up with hobby electronics for stabilization, autopilot, and guidance, and whatever else you can dream up.

Anyway, the points I want to make is that a large number of people are operating drones regardless of the FAA. Many of these people have no idea about aviation airspace.

The discussion would arise "what if an airplane hits your drone?" Many people maintained that the drones are too small and insignificant to harm an airplane. I would argue the opposite, that the motors in the drones are a dense chunk of metal, which could easily damage a full size aircraft..in a prop strike, or windshield strike, or a fuel tank strike, etc.

I guess you never know what you will come across in the sky. I would say most people are pretty safe with their toy drones, and would rather keep their 500-3000 dollar toy out of harms way. But there are those rogues out there who will do what they want. I can think of a guy in LA whose goal was to send his drone round robin to a very popular nearby island. I have personally flown a full sized aircraft around that island at low level, and kept an active lookout for a tiny toy drone. Im not sure if he has yet succeeded.

[topgun260]

I found this notice from the FAA http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives...notice_uas.pdf
which says in part that "In general, this means the pilot or observer must be, in most cases, within 1 mile laterally and 3,000 feet vertically of the unmanned aircraft. Direct communication between the PIC and the observer must be maintained at all times. Unmanned aircraft flight above 18,000 feet must be conducted under Instrument Flight Rules, on an IFR flight plan, must obtain ATC clearance, be equipped with at least a Mode C transponder (preferably Mode S), operating navigation lights and / or collision avoidance lights and maintain communication between the PIC and Air Traffic Control (ATC)."

I like the wording "In general" and "in most cases".

I wonder if the operations approval for these two UAS's are based on the above notice or if they have some sort of special approval allowing deviations from it.

[David Paule]

The AR.Drone 2.0, a commonly available quadcopter, comes with on-board cameras. Gross weight is less than a pound. An option includes GPS and the ability to store significant amounts of video. The option also includes the ability to follow a preprogrammed course autonomously.

It might even have the range to exceed that rule.

If you run into that thing while it's hovering and you're at 180 mph, the kinetic energy at impact is somewhere around 900 foot-pounds.

And there's not a chance you'll see it before hand. It's too small.

Dave

[Andy_RR]

I like to compare the risk to that of bird-strike and wonder (out loud) whether 10,000 new drones, most of them not more than a few pounds, represent a significant proportion of airborne collision risk compared with the tens, probably hundreds of million birds flying (in flocks) at similar altitudes and speeds and also oblivious to the class of airspace they are using...