New fear unlocked

[TheAv8r]

I've had 2 almost hits with a drone, one at 5500 and the other at 7500. Both whizzed under my wing and missed me by about 20 feet. I reported both to ATC who warned other operators in the area. I could barely see either until it was right by my wing 

[EricJ]

At Deer Valley (DVT) we have permanent paved model airplane fields off each end of the runway.    Usually you don't even know they're there, but one day I was coming home and noticed an Extra that looked like it was going the wrong way in the pattern, and that I couldn't correlate to anybody that was talking on the radio.   I was watching it as it was a potential separation issue with me.    It passed over me and then did a half snap roll and went straight down...and at that moment I realized it was one of those very large RC airplanes and not a real Extra.   I told the tower about it, who seemed a little exasperated as that may mean paperwork for them.

Don't wanna hit one of those guys, or a bird, or anything larger than a big bug.    We have very large birds (geese, turkey vultures, eagles) that seem to enjoy flying at pretty high altitudes, but they do seem to have an awareness about airplanes and some idea of how to get out of the way.    They can hear you coming, and they have self-preservation instincts, so there's a reasonable chance that they're gonna be working with you to avoid a collision.  Can't say that about many of the drones out there.

 

[Sue Bon]

5 hours ago, EricJ said:

They can hear you coming, and they have self-preservation instincts, so there's a reasonable chance that they're gonna be working with you to avoid a collision. 

True. It's amazing how they tuck their wings in and just drop.

[Yetti]

12 hours ago, EricJ said:

At Deer Valley (DVT) we have permanent paved model airplane fields off each end of the runway.    Usually you don't even know they're there, but one day I was coming home and noticed an Extra that looked like it was going the wrong way in the pattern, and that I couldn't correlate to anybody that was talking on the radio.   I was watching it as it was a potential separation issue with me.    It passed over me and then did a half snap roll and went straight down...and at that moment I realized it was one of those very large RC airplanes and not a real Extra.   I told the tower about it, who seemed a little exasperated as that may mean paperwork for them.

Don't wanna hit one of those guys, or a bird, or anything larger than a big bug.    We have very large birds (geese, turkey vultures, eagles) that seem to enjoy flying at pretty high altitudes, but they do seem to have an awareness about airplanes and some idea of how to get out of the way.    They can hear you coming, and they have self-preservation instincts, so there's a reasonable chance that they're gonna be working with you to avoid a collision.  Can't say that about many of the drones out there.

 

Remember Birds will dive.  so you need to go up.  I will usually just lift the wing for the side they are on.  It is quicker than pulling up. 

 

[MisfitSELF]

OP -- don't be so hard on yourself.  I wouldn't call this complacent at all.  You're cruising around and there's something small - almost invisible that's not even suppose to be there that surprises you -- sounds like a normal response to me and it's not your fault.  I've flown past little mylar balloons by less than 100' before that I didn't see until I "cross overed" and it still took about 2-5 seconds to process WTF I just saw.

Bottom line that drone shouldn't have been there at all and I'm afraid not much will be done by the FAA until they have a stack of dead bodies to highlight the problem.

[LANCECASPER]

The manufacturers should be required to set the software to limit them to 400’ and with GPS it would be easy to limit the software to keep them away from airports, etc. The only way around that should be if you scanned in a valid UAT license and then were texted with a verification code to your phone number on file for each flight. This would provide some accountability. I’m generally not in favor of more regulations but in this case with drone sales growing exponentially this is going to be a big problem unless they limit them. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, it will take los of life to get their attention.

[N201MKTurbo]

22 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

The manufacturers should be required to set the software to limit them to 400’ and with GPS it would be easy to limit the software to keep them away from airports, etc. The only way around that should be if you scanned in a valid UAT license and then were texted with a verification code to your phone number on file for each flight. This would provide some accountability. I’m generally not in favor of more regulations but in this case with drone sales growing exponentially this is going to be a big problem unless they limit them. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, it will take los of life to get their attention.

That presents a lot of problems. It would require a terrain database and an airspace database in the drone, or internet connectivity. The onboard database would need to be updated periodically, and internet connectivity usually doesn't come for free. Either way that is a lot of cost to add to a toy...

[LANCECASPER]

1 minute ago, N201MKTurbo said:

That presents a lot of problems. It would require a terrain database and an airspace database in the drone, or internet connectivity. The onboard database would need to be updated periodically, and internet connectivity usually doesn't come for free. Either way that is a lot of cost to add to a toy...

Which makes me want the restrictions even more. Making so many of them that the cost has dropped so much is making the problem worse. They should have everything you mentioned, and adding that to the cost may keep a few parents from buying one for their 10 year old child. It wouldn’t bother me if at the time of purchase you had to show a UAT license and register the drone at that time. Selling them to people with no training or proof of license is not a good idea. You have to show your driver’s license in most states to buy a car.

[N201MKTurbo]

12 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Which makes me want the restrictions even more. Making so many of them that the cost has dropped so much is making the problem worse. They should have everything you mentioned, and adding that to the cost may keep a few parents from buying one for their 10 year old child. It wouldn’t bother me if at the time of purchase you had to show a UAT license and register the drone at that time. Selling them to people with no training or proof of license is not a good idea. You have to show your driver’s license in most states to buy a car.

That would work for most of them, but there are quite a few home built drones flying out there. There is a vibrant industry selling quadcopter parts for the home builder. Along with the software to run them. And the homebuilt ones are the monsters.

 

[LANCECASPER]

30 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

That would work for most of them, but there are quite a few home built drones flying out there. There is a vibrant industry selling quadcopter parts for the home builder. Along with the software to run them. And the homebuilt ones are the monsters.

 

You'd need an elephant gun to shoot that thing down. And if you happened to miss the drone and hit the guy in the video . .  oh well. . lol

[whiskytango]

1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

The manufacturers should be required to set the software to limit them to 400’ and with GPS it would be easy to limit the software to keep them away from airports, etc. The only way around that should be if you scanned in a valid UAT license and then were texted with a verification code to your phone number on file for each flight. This would provide some accountability. I’m generally not in favor of more regulations but in this case with drone sales growing exponentially this is going to be a big problem unless they limit them. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, it will take los of life to get their attention.

If you are a Part 107 drone operator you can apply to the FAA for a waiver to operate in controlled airspace on a specific flight basis, so there is accountability for those operators.  It is the non-Part 107 operators that I suspect are creating all of the problems.  As others have mentioned, some of them have no idea what they are doing with regard to airspace regulations.  These guys will continue to fly their older drones with no Remote ID, no accountability and will continue to put aircraft at risk.

[NewMoon]

This past Tuesday we flew from SWFL up to SC, us at 15000. United calls in at FL210 and reports a drone passing underneath them at FL200. No one at ATC seemed alarmed but I guarantee the United Crew was very alarmed. 

[Pinecone]

How many millions of them are already out there?

Even if you require everyone sold in the US to have ADSB and registration, it can't get all the ones already sold.

[Fly Boomer]

48 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

How many millions of them are already out there?

Even if you require everyone sold in the US to have ADSB and registration, it can't get all the ones already sold.

And I doubt the FAA could provide separation, ATC, enforcement, or anything else.

[A64Pilot]

19 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

That presents a lot of problems. It would require a terrain database and an airspace database in the drone, or internet connectivity. The onboard database would need to be updated periodically, and internet connectivity usually doesn't come for free. Either way that is a lot of cost to add to a toy...

I’m not very smart and I can think of an easy way.

Every one I have seen and that’s not many, but they need to initialize the AHARS or whatever it is they use to sense accelerations etc, during that initialization that also corresponds to GPS initialization, the software accepts this altitude as zero, then the drone could restrict itself to a max altitude of 400’ above the initial ziti on altitude.

Personally I think there is no need to be over 200’ max, at 400’ you probably can’t see most of the things.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

6 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

I’m not very smart and I can think of an easy way.

Every one I have seen and that’s not many, but they need to initialize the AHARS or whatever it is they use to sense accelerations etc, during that initialization that also corresponds to GPS initialization, the software accepts this altitude as zero, then the drone could restrict itself to a max altitude of 400’ above the initial ziti on altitude.

Personally I think there is no need to be over 200’ max, at 400’ you probably can’t see most of the things.

 

That would work.

I have a friend who goes hiking every weekend with his drone. He often launches it from mountain peaks and has it fly a pattern around him. It is like a giant selfie stick. He does produce some spectacular videos. It is almost always more than 400 AGL. But it is so far out in the sticks that nobody cares. Even though he is never more than 100 feet or so above the launch point.

FWIW, he got some spectacular shots of the eclipse. He was trying to find the best place to see it. He figures he succeeded when he got to his chosen spot and a group of vans from NASA were parked there.

[A64Pilot]

I bought mine to take pics / videos of the sailboat underway, with the theory of landing it on the Solar panels.

By altitude I mean AGL, not MSL. Mine has some kind of altimeter as it displays distance from you and altitude so it “knows”. If it knows then imposing a ceiling would be easy. I think it has a barometer that resets to zero on initialization.

It’s a “bugs clone” so small and inexpensive. This thing , under $200 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CSNSLHC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Never did though, pretty useless device in my opinion, unless you’re into photographing yourself, which I guess I’m too old for that as I don’t get the whole gopro videoing your flight thing. It’s a Millenium thing I think. I did Gopro a couple of cave dives, but never watched much of it, it’s pretty boring actually.

 We went out to get a Pizza in Panama City 5 yrs or so ago, sat at the table I guess for 20 min. A young girl sat near us, she spent the whole time looking at selfies of herself . My generation never had that high opinion of ourselves, young girls back then woukd see a picture of themselves and stress that they weren’t pretty, now they look at selfies and admire their beauty it seems.

[Pinecone]

14 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Under the regs older drones that weight more than 249g are supposed to have a Remote ID modules attached to them after the implementation date of Remote ID.  And all drones above 249g or used commercially are already supposed to be registered.  

Again.  The problem here is with recreational flyers who unbox their drones and launch them with no training or even awareness that the regs even exist.  The regs are already in place and make sense.  For those who educate themselves and desire to follow them. But those are not the people who are causing all of these problems.

 

 

That is my point.  No way to get all the ones already sold to comply.  

[A64Pilot]

The difference in RC aircraft and drones is skill required.

RC you don’t just take it out of the box and fly it successfully, it takes training, so most join a club that most often requires AMA (American Modeling Association) membership for the insurance and in this club people know, teach and most often follow the rules. Used to be and still somewhat there were at least several full days of building before it was ready to fly. There are RTF (ready to fly) models now, but usually those are cheap foamy jobs

You don’t fly a drone, it flies itself, you merely direct the thing, so you can take it out of a box and fly it with zero training or knowledge, 20 min to charge and your flying.

I think Drones fulfill that instant gratification that’s so popular now and why most often you see old men flying RC and kids flying Drones, not always of course but most often.

My Wife teaches and has done so for 20 years. There has been a very significant change in the way kids view rules / laws in the last several years, a huge sense of entitlement exists now that didn't use to, so I think even if they are aware of the rules they don’t believe they apply to them.

[tmo]

On 10/20/2023 at 7:59 PM, NewMoon said:

United calls in at FL210 and reports a drone passing underneath them at FL200. No one at ATC seemed alarmed

Was it possibly traffic known to them, and a drone in the sense of an e.g. Predator, not a wimpy quadcopter from HF?

[tmo]

On 10/20/2023 at 1:05 AM, Yetti said:

Most of the time.   I did see an instructor and student where the windscreen was broken and they were sorting out bird parts from the cabin area.

It gets worse, much worse: https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/183669 - a TB20 with 4POB, all perished; quoting from the accident report (from Spanish equivalent of the NTSB): The investigation has determined that this accident was caused by the loss of control of the aircraft following the loss of part of the left wing after an impact with a vulture.

The TB20 is not a light sport plane with a wimpy wing...

[NewMoon]

9 minutes ago, tmo said:

Was it possibly traffic known to them, and a drone in the sense of an e.g. Predator, not a wimpy quadcopter from HF?

not exactly sure, they indicated it was "a drone flying south a 1000ft below us". they did they did not see it any screen, only visually as they passed over it

[carusoam]

We get vultures in NJ…

Slow soaring Turkey sized birds…

giant risk to leading edges an windshields…

they like to hang out near roads that produce nice deer meat for their diet…

the deer are getting better at road crossing… and teaching their young?

they must have learned what a car is in the last decade…. Just not better enough…

best regards,

-a-

[0TreeLemur]

In 2019 in cruise at 7500' I passed a drone about 30 miles east of Little Rock.  Here's the link with details of my comms with the FAA.

 

[Fly Boomer]

6 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

There has been a very significant change in the way kids view rules / laws in the last several years, a huge sense of entitlement exists now that didn't use to, so I think even if they are aware of the rules they don’t believe they apply to them.

Not just kids.