
Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small drones - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/researchers-say-faa-is-really-overblowing-risk-posed-by-small-drones/
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Johnny555
There's no downside to the FAA for overblowing risks -- just like they've
overblown the risk of cell phone use for years.

Even if there's one chance in a million of a cell phone affecting avionics or
a small drone damaging a plane, the FAA's job is to minimize that risk. They
aren't responsible for cost or inconvenience to anyone outside of the aviation
industry.

They wouldn't mandate that Boeing install expensive and complicated parachutes
in every plane due to the huge cost to the industry and dubious benefit, but
there's really no drawback to the FAA for imposing a drone ban.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
genuinely curious (not trying to pick at your point at all), how many USA
plane crashes could have been prevented if a parachute was present and
working? (The amount of instant drag that parachute deploying would product at
a jet's stall speed (> 150mph) is probably more than a fuselage would handle
well, given the lightweight engineering.)

~~~
artmageddon
Depends; are we talking about small engine planes or big jet liners? Some
Cirrus aircraft have them, but that's only one particular brand. As for larger
aircraft, I'll refer to this link below [0]:

"taking into consideration the added complexity of design, installing and
maintaining an emergency parachute system for a typical passenger jet, the
amount of revenue lost by carrying at least 40-45 fewer passengers to
compensate for installing such a heavy system, and the extremely unlikelihood
such a recovery ever would be required, I can't see trying to scale up a
parachute recovery capability for airliner use."

[https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-airplanes-have-giant-
parachut...](https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-airplanes-have-giant-parachutes-
attached-to-them-to-save-the-plane-and-its-passengers-in-times-of-emergency)

------
kylehotchkiss
This article seems too statistics-y and not practical:

* Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before

* There's a difference between a jet sucking in a drone at cruise altitude (somebody got a cheaper model up 11000 feet last week, so not out of the question one of these days) and a jet at critical speeds (landing or taking off) sucking in a drone. Also, a drone into a windshield could cause panic in a pilot, a cause similar to the 2014 derailment ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Philadelphia_train_derail...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Philadelphia_train_derailment#Investigation)). A drone could probably do a number on a radome or pitot tube as well, which wouldn't cause a terrible situation but an expensive fix.

* My friend who is a drone hobbiest has told me several stories of his drone "falling out of the sky" due to improper battery management. While newer drones address this with autoland, a sudden power failure still means a heavy piece of metal and plastic barreling out of the sky.

* People have a poor comprehension of 3d space from the ground. As drones get faster, operators could experience more tunnel vision trying to avoid an immediate collision and face a collision in their "blind spot"

I think FAA trying to make _some_ regulations for this is okay, just like I
think the FCC regulating radio communications is okay (so you can't hear some
15 year olds radio chatter when you watch TV-highly illegal but technically
possible if you built your own transmitter before TV went digital). A drone
into an engine is not very likely to happen, but that's not the only bad thing
a flying toy that can go up to 55mph can do.

~~~
jjoonathan
* Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before

That's what you would think from reading the headlines. "Hobbyists Imperil
California Firefighters", "Firefighter-interrupting Drone Pilots...", "Drones
Are Getting In The Way of Firefighters", "Drones impede air battle against
Californian wildfires", etc. Here's a description of what actually happened:

> On the evening of June 24, he recalls, they noticed a drone. The aerial
> attack was immediately called off, out of fear of a midair collision; the
> three air tankers attacking the Lake Fire were parked the rest of the day.
> And the fire grew as a result.

A helicopter pilot saw a drone and grounded the helicopters.

The papers took a _judgment call_ and twisted it into a story of active
interference between drone and helicopter. And even that makes the generous
assumption that this was an honest judgment call and not an intentional (and
highly successful) attempt to grandstand.

While most reasonable people would agree that drones need to be regulated in
some form, I'm afraid that they will be regulated with the goal of restricting
their use rather than of ensuring people take reasonable precautions to reduce
risk.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
I wouldn't drive myself + passengers on the same freeway as amateurs trying to
weave RC vehicles around my own. And I wouldn't be driving through the air
hundreds of feet above the ground.

The fact that professional pilots and helicopter operators _have_ to make that
judgment call for safety reasons because there are no regulations ensuring a
safe flight is a concern.

~~~
jjoonathan
The sky is a bigger place than a road. 3D vs 1D. No comparison.

My problem is not with the judgment call; my problem is with the fact that
their judgment call is being used as evidence that they were in danger. As you
yourself point out, nobody really knows how dangerous the situation was.
Extreme uncertainty makes conservative action reasonable, but it doesn't make
drones inherently dangerous.

It would be nice to get some laws on the books to eliminate the uncertainty.
My fear is that the laws will lean absurdly on the side of caution; an analogy
would be putting a literal tin-foil-hatter in charge of the FCC.

~~~
darpa_escapee
I'd argue the safety threat is greater for a helicopter's passengers when both
the operator and the amateurs are trying to reach the same target.

I'd also argue that the ability to navigate that 3D space competently doesn't
exist from a fixed point at a distance by an amateur. Especially in an
emergency situation, especially if there is limited visibility due to smoke.

They were in a dangerous situation. The uncertainty makes it an inherently
dangerous situation.

Drones are no inherently dangerous, no one is arguing that. Drones can create
inherently dangerous situations, however. This was one.

------
maxcan
This "research" has a glaring statistical error, principally that the
researchers assumed that UAV locations are either uniformly distributed or
follow the same distributions as birds. The problem, especially for small
aircraft, is that the sites which attract concentrations of small aircraft -
like Golden Gate Bridge, Hudson River, etc, are the same places which attract
UAV operators.

Also, they seem to neglect the growth in populations of UAV. UAVs are
exploding in popularity and capabilities. These numbers are going to get worse
and the FAA is taking its usual caution-first approach.

~~~
Houshalter
I wonder what the true risk of flying a drone is. Lets say their number is 50
times greater than realistic. The 1.87 million years divided by 50 would be a
more reasonable 37,400 years of flight time per accident. Assuming every plane
has 200 passengers, that's about, or about 6.105×10^-7 deaths per hour of
flight time. If I did my math right, that means it's about 0.6 micromorts per
hour. By comparison, the average person has about 1.6 micromorts of unnatural
causes of death per day, so it is a fairly large relative increase in risk.

If you were to require every drone operator to pay for insurance, assuming an
economic value of life at about $9.1 million, then it would cost $5.56 per
hour of flight time. Not cheap!

~~~
matheweis
As with many things, there are a number of factors. Just of few of these
include the weight and speed of the drone, the location that it is being
flown, the competency of the operator, and so on...

You're also assuming that a drone vs aircraft incident would result in the
complete loss of the aircraft. I would imagine that we will eventually see
such an incident, but it probably won't result in catastrophic loss...

~~~
Houshalter
Well we are doing a (very rough) estimate of the _average_ expected risk of
flying drones. Obviously some people would be far more riskier than others.

As for the number, I just took that from the article. It's probably an
overestimate of the risk, and certainly most planes don't have 200 passengers.

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andrewstuart2
I'm not sure they've demonstrated adequate support that a bird strike can be
equated to a drone collision. Drones are plastic and metal, versus the very
light and porous structure of avian bones and musculature.

Additionally, you can't just do this sort of probability calculation when the
human operator is an integral part of the equation. Birds don't fly in an area
limited by their operator. And birds aren't (as far as we know) going to try
to fly their drone over an airport (for one example) to get some unique
footage that has market value.

This really seems like a vast oversimplification of the issue at hand. I'd
much rather see them firing a drone out of a canon at high velocity into an
aircraft cockpit (a la MythBusters chicken gun) to show what the actual damage
of a comparable drone strike would be rather than just assuming "drone ==
small bird" based purely on a mass of 2kg.

~~~
niccaluim
Birds also know how to dodge airplanes. The correct response to a collision
course with a flock of birds—a situation I've been in on final more than a few
times—is not to try to maneuver out of the way. Birds will always dive or
climb as they close with the airplane.

~~~
lutorm
"always" seems like a bit of an overstatement there, given that bird strikes
in fact do happen, even to small GA aircraft.

~~~
niccaluim
I didn't say they always miss, just that they always dive or climb. ;) But
trying to out-maneuver them will pretty much guarantee a collision.

------
NelsonMinar
The FAA is a famously risk-adverse organization. But there's a huge cost to
that conservatism; the FAA's foot-dragging has stalled the unmanned aircraft
industry in the United States. There's a lot of commercial value in drones for
things like agricultural surveys. FAA did finally take one baby step towards
legitimizing commercial drone use but it's not nearly enough.

~~~
ghaff
Commercial air travel is also incredibly safe--due in part to said
conservatism.

------
danielvf
The Miracle on the Hudson airliner took four 14 lb geese into the engines
which was clearly too much. But it would have been able to land at an airport
if the damage had been restricted to one engine.

FAA standards require airliners be able to safely withstand a 4 lb bird
strike.

By comparison, a DJI Phantom drone weighs around 2 lbs and is unlike to be
flying in dense enough flocks to damage both engines.

~~~
cmurf
Why is foreign object mass alone more relevant than its mass and density when
it comes to ensuring turbine engine containment in an ingestion event?

Bird have a known density. Drones have variable density. And since the tests
thus far are done with birds I think it's unknown what happens when drone X is
ingested into a turbine engine.

The other fallacy is comparing birds were have minimal control over, vs man
made aircraft that should be as capable of avoidance as the current regime.

~~~
danielvf
Turbine engine containment isn't about containing the foreign object - it's
about containing the ludicrously energized turbine blades. What breaks the
blades is almost irrelevant.

I'm more concerned about damage to the non engine areas of the aircraft, but
they routinely survive 18 lb bird impacts in the wild. Even with lithium
batteries being about four times denser than a bird, the weight being so much
less means that the penetrating power should be less than a half that of a
goose.

------
sathackr
I don't know what the new proposed regulations are, but, for recreational use,
I think the current set are fair and appropriate:

Don't fly outside your unaided line of sight.

Don't intentionally fly over people.

Stay away from sensitive areas (Stadiums, etc...)

Don't fly near an airport without contacting the airport.

Stay under 400ft

Register it and label it, so that if it does fall and hit someone on the head,
they can find you and let our legal system handle the repercussions.

Given the lack of inspection, that most of these rolled off an assembly line
in China, have Lipo batteries that are prone to instantly shutting off if
malfunctioning or overloaded(to prevent runaway thermal effect) meaning that
these likely might fall out of the sky at any time, the restriction on flying
within line of sight and not over people seems reasonable, along with the
sensitive area restriction.

I can't think of a major recreational use for flying over 400ft AGL, besides
wanting to snap a picture of your neighborhood from the air.

The most heavy handed one I can think of (and this one is enforced in DJI
firmware) is the airport restriction. The official line is 'Don't fly within 5
miles of an airport without contacting the airport' \-- There are enough
airports that this covers a good bit of area, and, if a plane is below 500ft
more than a mile or so from the airport, drones are probably not going to put
it at any more risk.

A DJI drone will not leave the ground if it detects it's within a couple miles
of an airport's radius, and there is no way to override it, even with the
airport's consent.

The commercial regulations, as I understand them, are a bit more ridiculous. I
haven't found the relevent text in the CFR, but I'm told that to fly a drone
commercially(say, for a photographer to take pictures at a wedding) actually
requires a full blown pilot's license, at least a 'sport pilots license'[1].
This seems a bit ridiculous for a photographer flying a drone 10ft above the
ground. I hope some changes to this portion are coming.

[1] [http://uavcoach.com/drone-
certification/#pilot](http://uavcoach.com/drone-certification/#pilot)

~~~
tibbon
I agree, the airport restriction is heavy. It isn't really '5 miles of an
airport' but just not 'in regulated airspace', which is frequently around 5
miles around an airport. Sadly, there's no provision for just flying under 100
feet.

~~~
sathackr
I didn't pull from the actual CFR, but, from the FCC UAS section[1]:

    
    
      Don't fly within 5 miles of an airport unless you contact the airport and control tower before flying
    

But, for example, there is an airport near me that is not a controlled field,
yet it is marked as a no-fly zone in DJI firmware. Some helipads are marked
also even though they are not controlled fields

I paraphrased the rest from memory, left out the 55lb restriction(55lbs is
pretty reasonable I think). If you are flying large(>55lbs) model aircraft,
there is a clause that permits it as long as it is designed, inspected,
tested, and flown within 'community-based safety guidelines'

[1][https://www.faa.gov/uas/model_aircraft/](https://www.faa.gov/uas/model_aircraft/)

~~~
tibbon
Boo :(

I assumed it was, "Don't fly in regulated airspace" which would make sense.
Some airspaces KSEA have a floor of 2,000ft pretty near them since planes
pretty much always take off north/south

------
dirktheman
I'm a big drone enthousiast. I'm all for some form of regulation in the form
of registration or a license, provided that the cost won't prohibit getting
into the hobby too much.

However, I'm afraid it's not going to work. The people that do crazy stupid
things with their drones are the same people that buy their RTF drone at
Walmart, thinking it's just a toy. Or import it from China. You can't regulate
that. There have been adequate rules for decades, for instance that you can't
fly near airfields with your RC plane.

Until a couple of years ago, flying RC planes was both rather expensive to get
into, but there was also a steep learning curve. Nowadays you can buy a drone
for under 200 bucks and it will practically fly itself. Anyone with half a
brain can fly it. I'm torn about this. I love the fact that the entry point
for getting into the hobby is lowered so more people can enjoy flying. OTOH,
the entry point is now so low that there is a large group of people who are
hurting the hobby with their thoughtless behaviour.

A couple of months ago I saw an ad for the Lily drone, I'm sure you saw it
too. In the ad they launch and land BY HAND. If you value your fingers I
wouldn't recommend this, it's really dangerous.

It's a bit like gun control in a fictional state where you can buy guns
without a permit. You can regulate and registrate all you want, but that won't
stop loonies from doing stupid things.

------
TrevorJ
I'm a bit torn about this. I almost always come down on the side of 'less red
tape' but I strongly suspect that putting in place a lightweight licensing
framework for drone pilots is the best way to ensure the greatest amount of
freedom for hobbyists going forward.

The other alternative is no regulation at all, and wait for the inevitable
idiot to cause an incident and then the whole enterprise gets shut down as a
knee-jerk reaction.

~~~
dbcurtis
It is interesting to compare drones to the state of wireless a century ago.
100 years ago, every hacker with access to an oatmeal can and an old Model T
spark coil was building a spark-gap transmitter. There was no licensing. It
was pretty crazy with commercial wireless companies trying to contact ships at
sea, the Navy, and hackers all on top of each other.

So, the Commerce Department regulated radio. It basically outlawed personal
wireless. The "hams" put up a fuss, and the government gave them everything
from "200 meters and down", subject to a license. This is because all the
World Famous Professors had said that any wavelength shorter than 200 meters
was completely useless and of no value. The hams whined a bit, but then got on
with discovering short wave propagation. At which point, most of the short
wave spectrum was taken away from them, but they were able to retain slivers
this time.

So here we are again. Hackers have cool technology. Government takes it away
as much as they can get away with, licenses a little bit back to the hackers.
Next move: hackers.

The cycle continues.

~~~
TrevorJ
That's an interesting point. I think there's definitely a give and take on
both sides here and good points to be made all around.

------
rkangel
The FAA isn't looking at the current level of risk - they're looking at the
trajectory of that risk. The number of drones is rising rapidly and they're
trying to get ahead of the problem before there's a serious incident. Can you
imagine the headlines if they ignored the problem and even a single seater
light aircraft was brought down?

The results of a study by the "Academy of Model Aeronautics" is probably
fairly predictable, likely to have some bias (in the same way that a study by
the FAA is likely to have bias the other way).

The FAA is aware that drones are not the same as birds. I remember recently
reading that the FAA has commissioned a study into the effect of drone strikes
and how the damage might be mitigated, but I now can't find the reference.

------
cs2818
When will actual testing be conducted on this?

My understanding is that bird strike tests are conducted against jet engines.
Am I missing something that prevents us from conducting a few tests with these
everyday "drones"?

I have seen some experts speculating that apart from hitting the windscreen, a
collision would not lead to complete catastrophe [1].

Regardless, I personally support these regulations, but would really like to
see the outcome of a few empirical tests.

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/what-
migh...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/what-might-happen-
if-airliner-hit-small-drone)

------
artmageddon
I'm all for the advancement of drone technology, and I think that the FAA was
perhaps a little too conservative with the way they handled the usage of cell
phones on flights for quite sometime, but I can't blame them for their stance
on small drones as they don't want to bear any responsibility for the loss of
life due to some miniscule probability of a phone causing a problem in-flight.
It's worth looking at a the cause of the Flight 1549 incident:

"the bird encounter occurred at 3:27:11, when the airplane was at an altitude
of 2,818 feet (859 m) above ground level (agl) and a distance of about 4.5
miles (7.2 km) north-northwest of the approach end of Runway 22 at LGA." [0]

This could've easily been a drone which caused the incident. Now, it's
possible that the FAA can put limits on drones(e.g. 400ft AGL or whatever it
is now), but there may be people who attempt to circumvent this. The fact that
people will shine laser beams into flight decks from the ground doesn't
inspire confidence that people will respect their usage in high traffic areas.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549)

~~~
pravda
Well, it would have to be a swarm of drones. I don't think it was one bird
that took out both engines.

------
Mikeb85
The low probability of an incident is outweighed by the potential damage
caused by an incident (large loss of life).

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anentropic
Better than they underestimate it

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merpnderp
I for one am shocked, _shocked_ , that a government agency would misinterpret
the data to create arbitrary rules and law enforcement opportunities.

