Clamped Mooney wing and really fast quad copter

[Mooney in Oz]

This subject is close to my heart as it almost happened to me exactly 2 weeks ago, not in my Mooney but in the ATR at Sydney International. Turning final while intercepting the LLZ at 1400’ and 6 miles out, the FO saw a white and red drone fly over the right wing during the turn at about 50 feet above from right to left. If it had been lower and smacked into the right engine with the potential to take out 6 carbon fibre prop blades at such a low altitude followed by a possible disaster with 68 souls on board.

After landing I rang the Tower manager who told me they have previously received reports of drones up to 6000’ above Sydney harbour.

These things are becoming a serious issue for all of aviation throughout the world with the potential to cause not only serious damage but a serious accident until the authorities pull their fingers out and do something more conducive about it, including high, mandatory judicial penalties and not wait until the inevitable happens.

The higher the population the higher share of idiots who don’t care proliferate.

Please be careful out there, particularly those of you who regularly fly over high populated areas.

[ShuRugal]

On 10/5/2018 at 11:14 PM, Mooney in Oz said:

This subject is close to my heart as it almost happened to me exactly 2 weeks ago, not in my Mooney but in the ATR at Sydney International. Turning final while intercepting the LLZ at 1400’ and 6 miles out, the FO saw a white and red drone fly over the right wing during the turn at about 50 feet above from right to left. If it had been lower and smacked into the right engine with the potential to take out 6 carbon fibre prop blades at such a low altitude followed by a possible disaster with 68 souls on board.

After landing I rang the Tower manager who told me they have previously received reports of drones up to 6000’ above Sydney harbour.

These things are becoming a serious issue for all of aviation throughout the world with the potential to cause not only serious damage but a serious accident until the authorities pull their fingers out and do something more conducive about it, including high, mandatory judicial penalties and not wait until the inevitable happens.

The higher the population the higher share of idiots who don’t care proliferate.

Please be careful out there, particularly those of you who regularly fly over high populated areas.

I wonder what the FCC would say if planes started equipping low-power 2.4 GHz jammers with high-gain antenna in the forward direction... knock out any co-altitude RC devices before they becomes close enough to be hazardous...

[Yetti]

The FBO and all the houses with wireless phones would hate you.  Lots of baby monitors would be broken.

[jaylw314]

On 10/7/2018 at 5:00 PM, ShuRugal said:

I wonder what the FCC would say if planes started equipping low-power 2.4 GHz jammers with high-gain antenna in the forward direction... knock out any co-altitude RC devices before they becomes close enough to be hazardous...

That won't help any drones flying by GPS program.  If you knock out GPS frequencies, in theory there is the ability to use navigation by AHRS and/or a downward facing camera.  Spread spectrum receivers are common as well, and are more resistant to jamming, and some receivers use a completely different frequency

[ShuRugal]

9 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

That won't help any drones flying by GPS program.  If you knock out GPS frequencies, in theory there is the ability to use navigation by AHRS and/or a downward facing camera.  Spread spectrum receivers are common as well, and are more resistant to jamming, and some receivers use a completely different frequency

I've been out of the hobby for a while, but 2.4 GHz FHSS was the most common means of control - I can't see 5 GHz being desirable (less range) and that's the only other general-purpose band designated by the FCC.  I suppose there might be some people still using 72 MHz for extremely long-range ops, but the mass-produced drones are all operating in 2.4.  A band-wide jammer would knock those offline.

 

It is true that anything relying 100% on an internal per-programed GPS route would not be impacted by jamming the wireless controller, but when I was last keeping up with these products, all the receivers making use of GPS routing would failover to a "return home immediately" or "descend and land right here" mode if connection to the controller was lost - triggering that would be sufficient to protect most fullscale ops.

 

of course, the best solution would be to require ADS-B integration of all RC ops conducted above the local Class G line.  The argument being that any RC operations are automatically IFR ops, because full scale pilots cannot see an RC device until it is too late to avoid a collision. 

[jaylw314]

42 minutes ago, ShuRugal said:

I've been out of the hobby for a while, but 2.4 GHz FHSS was the most common means of control - I can't see 5 GHz being desirable (less range) and that's the only other general-purpose band designated by the FCC.  I suppose there might be some people still using 72 MHz for extremely long-range ops, but the mass-produced drones are all operating in 2.4.  A band-wide jammer would knock those offline.

 

It is true that anything relying 100% on an internal per-programed GPS route would not be impacted by jamming the wireless controller, but when I was last keeping up with these products, all the receivers making use of GPS routing would failover to a "return home immediately" or "descend and land right here" mode if connection to the controller was lost - triggering that would be sufficient to protect most fullscale ops.

 

of course, the best solution would be to require ADS-B integration of all RC ops conducted above the local Class G line.  The argument being that any RC operations are automatically IFR ops, because full scale pilots cannot see an RC device until it is too late to avoid a collision. 

I think 900 Mhz is also available for RC work in the US, IIRC

The other (major) problem, of course, with the idea of a forward full-time effective GPS jammer--you'd knock out the GPS of any other aircraft in that cone.

[ShuRugal]

8 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

I think 900 Mhz is also available for RC work in the US, IIRC

The other (major) problem, of course, with the idea of a forward full-time effective GPS jammer--you'd knock out the GPS of any other aircraft in that cone.

oh yeah, I'm definitely not advocating knocking out GPS - that would create far more problems than it solves.

[Yetti]

Just add ADSB requirement to anything flying above 50 feet.   https://uavionix.com/products/ping2020/

[jaylw314]

21 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Just add ADSB requirement to anything flying above 50 feet.   https://uavionix.com/products/ping2020/

The FAA and Academy of Model Aeronautics already publish guidelines requiring:

• Flights under 400' AGL
• No flights in controlled airspace
• Flights only within visual distance of operator

Based on the YouTube videos out there, it's clear that the problem people are the ones who don't give a s--t about those guidelines in the first place, so it's hard to imagine those a-shats would feel safety conscious enough to install even an ADS-B solution, even if it was free.  Likewise, even if you turned those guidelines into rules, how would it be enforced?  You could require companies making drones and kits to include ADS-B equipment, but what about manufacturers outside the US or DIY builders?  And who would be surprised if the above a-shats disabled or did not install the ADS-B equipment anyway?

Sorry, getting into rant mode.  Having an interest in drones and RC as a hobby, it upsets me when I share the same interests as stupid people.   As bad as it sometimes seems with GA aviation, this is like utopia in comparison.

[aviatoreb]

That sure is a perfect (perfectly bad) direct hit.  I always figured a quadcopter could do exactly that - bore straight in and find the main spar structures.  I don't think it is impossible that it could sufficiently fracture a main spare so as to cause the wing to utterly fail.

I wonder if tks helps.  Nice titanium leading edges.

I was remarking with a person I flew with the other day when a big bug went SPLAT on the wind screen.  Bugs sure flatten to smithereens at 200mph vs what they do on a car windscreen at 60mph.

[1964-M20E]

As for the ADSB out on drones other than home grown drones make it a requirement for the manufactures to add it or use a built in limiter on the drone to keep it at or below 100AGL.  Not sure how to deal with the idiots close to airports.  Yes there are many out there without it but they eventually they crash or land in the water.

[jaylw314]

2 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

As for the ADSB out on drones other than home grown drones make it a requirement for the manufactures to add it or use a built in limiter on the drone to keep it at or below 100AGL.  Not sure how to deal with the idiots close to airports.  Yes there are many out there without it but they eventually they crash or land in the water.

The problem with the idiots is that the Darwin Awards don't catch up with them at all.  When a drone crashes, you can just replace the broken parts and fly again.

As to altitude limiters, most of the current hardware uses a pressure altimeter to measure altitude, and only uses GPS to determine geographic location.  There is no terrain or map data kept on the drone, so it would have no way of knowing it's AGL (or whether it is in any controlled airspace).  There has been some experimentation with ultrasound altimeters, but I've not heard of any production drones using that so far

[Yetti]

16 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

  Not sure how to deal with the idiots close to airports.  Yes there are many out there without it but they eventually they crash or land in the water.

Meh.   My $100 walley world drone with 4K $50 amazon camera already did that.

Left it out in the sun to dry for a couple days.   Flies as good as new. (which was not as good as the homebuilt with DJI controller)

 

[ShuRugal]

On 10/10/2018 at 1:52 PM, jaylw314 said:

The FAA and Academy of Model Aeronautics already publish guidelines requiring:

• Flights under 400' AGL
• No flights in controlled airspace
• Flights only within visual distance of operator

Based on the YouTube videos out there, it's clear that the problem people are the ones who don't give a s--t about those guidelines in the first place, so it's hard to imagine those a-shats would feel safety conscious enough to install even an ADS-B solution, even if it was free.  Likewise, even if you turned those guidelines into rules, how would it be enforced?  You could require companies making drones and kits to include ADS-B equipment, but what about manufacturers outside the US or DIY builders?  And who would be surprised if the above a-shats disabled or did not install the ADS-B equipment anyway?

Sorry, getting into rant mode.  Having an interest in drones and RC as a hobby, it upsets me when I share the same interests as stupid people.   As bad as it sometimes seems with GA aviation, this is like utopia in comparison.

It's been my experience that the brain-dead "I'll do what I want" crowd all opt for the GPS-controlled self-flying garbage.  Mandate that any GPS-aware model controller must self-limit to 400' AGL unless it has built-in ADS-B capability.  the technology to enable ADS-B compliance is already installed in these things (software-defined transceivers) - a simple in/out solution that only provides position reporting out and conflict-avoidance info to the GPS controller would not add appreciably to the cost of most units capable of flying in a manner hazardous to full-scale ops.

 

As far as enforcement goes... I am holding in my hand a can of housing-grade expanding foam, clearly marketed for housing, that has a warning label "not for use in aircraft" marked on it... the FAA has a pretty broad reach, when it cares to exercise it.

[jaylw314]

41 minutes ago, ShuRugal said:

It's been my experience that the brain-dead "I'll do what I want" crowd all opt for the GPS-controlled self-flying garbage.  Mandate that any GPS-aware model controller must self-limit to 400' AGL unless it has built-in ADS-B capability.  the technology to enable ADS-B compliance is already installed in these things (software-defined transceivers) - a simple in/out solution that only provides position reporting out and conflict-avoidance info to the GPS controller would not add appreciably to the cost of most units capable of flying in a manner hazardous to full-scale ops.

 

As far as enforcement goes... I am holding in my hand a can of housing-grade expanding foam, clearly marketed for housing, that has a warning label "not for use in aircraft" marked on it... the FAA has a pretty broad reach, when it cares to exercise it.

Again, barometric altitude is the only widely used altimetry for drones, there is no widely used sensor for AGL measurement, nor is any terrain or map data stored on board.

I don't think WAAS GPS is widely available, nor is there any present compatible hardware to transmit ADS-B Out.  Since that function is TSO'd, home-grown transceivers are unlikely to meet that requirement.

[Yetti]

4 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Again, barometric altitude is the only widely used altimetry for drones, there is no widely used sensor for AGL measurement, nor is any terrain or map data stored on board.

I don't think WAAS GPS is widely available, nor is there any present compatible hardware to transmit ADS-B Out.  Since that function is TSO'd, home-grown transceivers are unlikely to meet that requirement.

You can get WAAS GLASNOS  GPS with 3D fix for $11.00   Probably more accurate than the expensive panel mount GPS in your plane.  https://www.amazon.com/Frontier-Compass-APM2-6-Pixhawk-Controller/dp/B01LYX5ZQB

[jaylw314]

1 minute ago, Yetti said:

You can get WAAS GLASNOS  GPS with 3D fix for $11.00   Probably more accurate than the expensive panel mount GPS in your plane.  https://www.amazon.com/Frontier-Compass-APM2-6-Pixhawk-Controller/dp/B01LYX5ZQB

Are you sure those are WAAS?  I'm pretty sure those are not, you'd need a separate receiver for the WAAS signal?

[Yetti]

Yes on WAAS.   It is part of the GPS message.  Ground stations send corrections to the satellite.   The WAAS is sent down as part of the messages to the GPS receiver.

Because the Ublox7 also receives the GLONASS Russian satellite network some of the accuracy is derived from there.

The accuracy bit is 2 for WAAS.   It also has altitude as part of the 3D fix.    I would have to look up what $sentences they are.

[ShuRugal]

16 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Again, barometric altitude is the only widely used altimetry for drones, there is no widely used sensor for AGL measurement, nor is any terrain or map data stored on board.

I don't think WAAS GPS is widely available, nor is there any present compatible hardware to transmit ADS-B Out.  Since that function is TSO'd, home-grown transceivers are unlikely to meet that requirement.

unless things have regressed since two years ago when i was still following new developments in that field, most of these devices use their elevation at bootup as "ground".  Fairly crude, but for the way the overwhelming majority of people are flying them, sufficient.