
Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag' - pj_mukh
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/drone-believed-to-have-hit-british-airways-flight-may-have-been/
======
gregmac
Wow, this is an elected official?

> Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet
> confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320

> Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect
> against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were
> strong enough. He said it would be much easier for terrorists to attack
> airports on the ground with rucksacks or car bombs than orchestrate the
> attack from a drone aircraft.

> He warned that any moves to enforce geo-fencing rules would be vulnerable to
> being hacked by "somebody who could get round that software".

> "And indeed the early reports of a dent in the front of the plane were not
> confirmed - there was no actual damage to the plane"

> "the pilot has a lot of other things to concentrate [while landing] on so
> we're not quite sure what they saw so I think we should maybe not overreact
> too much."

This is a sane, rational response.. I am just not used to hearing it come from
government officials. This should be a model for the type of responses that
government officials have to these types of situations.

~~~
ultramancool
> He warned that any moves to enforce geo-fencing rules would be vulnerable to
> being hacked by "somebody who could get round that software".

Indeed very impressive that an elected official understands this.

Someone with a little reverse engineering talent can patch something like that
without much work for near-free (think bypassing those FCC regulations turning
up TX power in your router firmware). Someone with a little regular
engineering talent can spoof or jam GPS for relatively cheap.

~~~
fabulist
I think the geofencing has the same value as a door lock; it keeps the honest
people honest.

~~~
Caprinicus
So we'll only really have to worry about dishonest terrorists and or plastic
bags

~~~
adrusi
Right, as opposed to also worrying about a careless teenager flying their
drone too close to an airport to get a sick camera angle of a landing plane.

~~~
madaxe_again
Why worry about something that hasn't happened? Why not worry about a careless
teenager wanting to get a sick Camera angle of the inside of your fridge? It's
as valid a concern.

~~~
fabulist
Normally I would agree with you, I often chide people for inventing problems
to solve. But it is a little different when it isn't a hypothetical as much as
an inevitable future occurrence.

As for refrigerators, I am just as worried about people trying to fly drones
around my house as I am about people flying drones around planes, yes. I have
it on good authority that anyone with the funds can purchase access to 3D
drone-generated map of my city, my house included. A gentleman here in town
who replaces windows doesn't bother to measure them anymore; he just uses the
drone photos.

~~~
ryanlol
[https://www.google.com/maps/streetview/](https://www.google.com/maps/streetview/)

~~~
fabulist
Now imagine that without Google Privacy, better cameras, and shot from the
air.

~~~
tamana
That's a public website, no Google privacy is relevant.

~~~
fabulist
Google Privacy is the program which blurs (things that looks like) faces and
license plates.

------
HorizonXP
What a level headed response by the transport minister. I love that he
acknowledges that geofencing rules will easily be circumvented.

That said, I still think it's a good idea to implement. It will make it easier
for casuals like me to quickly be warned when I'm venturing into forbidden
areas. Sure, I could ignore it or hack around it, but at least it's an easy to
implement safeguard that will keep most people away.

~~~
cpncrunch
>That said, I still think it's a good idea to implement. It will make it
easier for casuals like me to quickly be warned when I'm venturing into
forbidden areas. Sure, I could ignore it or hack around it, but at least it's
an easy to implement safeguard that will keep most people away.

Yes, it's definitely a good idea that will stop casual drone users from being
somewhere they shouldn't be flying. Here is a good example (see the
description):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7y8-gkkN0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7y8-gkkN0)

The vast majority of drone users won't bother looking up the aviation charts
to see if they are inside a control zone or other controlled airspace, and
won't have any idea how far away they are from an airport.

~~~
kawsper
I fly my quadcopter in the UK. It would be nice to have an app that told me
about the airspace I was in based on my current position.

However, right now I am not flying higher than 10 meters from the ground.

~~~
6stringmerc
Round up a team and put it in the ApplyHN sector - that could be a really
useful, pay-for-app & updates type service. Definitely has value. The target
market should be able to see the cost-benefit I presume. Good thinking!

~~~
nathancahill
Classic HN. Jumping from someone's annoyance to "create a startup" that
"definitely has value" without knowing anything about the space.

~~~
6stringmerc
> _Classic HN. Jumping from someone 's annoyance to "create a startup" that
> "definitely has value" without knowing anything about the space._

Haha joke's on you buddy, I grew up around aviation and know that log books
and maps are what pilots must always have at all times in all situations
otherwise they'll get popped by the FAA. Only recently have digital devices
been allowed anywhere NEAR professional cockpits, having been slowly tested in
civil aviation. Thus I concluded that an expanding sector with limited
knowledge of traditional expectations - airspace 'n shit - might be
marketable. Watching your comment turn grey and then to vapor is more "Classic
HN" to me.

~~~
CraigJPerry
To be fair to your parent, the feature is already deployed in popular drones
(both dji and 3dr).

It's hard to see a market for something already built in for free (airspace
restrictions) and anyone familiar with current drones would know this.

~~~
6stringmerc
Considering the cost of both DJI and 3DR and the inevitable down-stream
development and access, unless each and every manufacturer is mandated to
include "smart" flight restrictions, then I would say the point stands. Making
a useful application and product is fun to spit ball. Whizzing out some
sanctimonious pontification is feeble.

~~~
nathancahill
Thanks for putting "Intellectual Wannabe Inventor" in your profile, it wasn't
clear from that comment.

------
k-mcgrady
Slightly misleading headline. Basically they haven't confirmed it's a drone so
they can't rule anything out, or as he puts it "it could have been a plastic
bag or something". They don't seem to have any evidence suggesting it's a
plastic bag and not a drone (and vice versa).

~~~
jobu
It's unclear to me why they think it was a drone or a bag instead of a bird.

This whole thing seems overblown. They have no idea what they hit, and it
didn't cause any damage to the plane.

~~~
stupidcar
Um, the whole point of the article was that "they" don't think it was a drone.
The idea that it was a drone seems to have come entirely from a single tweet
by the local police force, which the media jumped on.

------
TillE
"there was no actual damage to the plane and there's indeed some speculation
that it may have even been a plastic bag or something."

This is an amazingly flimsy basis for a headline.

~~~
dingaling
No flimsier than the original drone-claim headline.

Contrary to popular conception, most airline pilots are very poor at
recognising anything that isn't in their company fleet. A few are aircraft
enthusiasts, a few are bird spotters. The remainder have knowledge of
unexpected flying objects no better than most laymen and a lot worse than a
school-age plane spotter.

I used to run aircraft recognition training for a local cadet squadron. The
'pro-pilots' were uniformly awful.

~~~
fabulist
Aren't they trained to judge size and distance by eye, though?

------
philovivero
Ah. It's a drone discussion.

Is there any advance in drone tech to make it quieter? Any time I've been near
a drone in operation, the loud buzzing hits a particular psychological
frequency (probably the "it's a large flying insect!") that stresses me out.

I don't think I'm alone in this. Other animals seem to dislike drones.

I think most of us animals would mind them less if they were more pleasant-
sounding, or closer to silent.

~~~
petra
There's a way to spin each propeller at 180 degree phase so they would
cancel/reduce each others noise.

~~~
danieltiIlett
How difficult is it to do while adjusting each propeller's speed for steering
etc?

~~~
petra
I've only heard about for wing based uav's , not quadcopters. Maybe this is a
good sign for Google's drones, which use wings, but rotate their rotors for
landing.

------
CrazyCatDog
Awesome RC pilot here(1).

Hitting a commercial jetliner with an off the shelf drone is impossible--
especially at that altitude. With $8K it becomes feasible, but I'd put the
level of difficulty at about the same as driving a Bugatti Veyron at 70mph in
reverse and executing a j-turn (think Hollywood 180 spin) into a tight spot
between two SUV's at the grocery store--3 times in a row.

As rare as plastic bags are at 1700 feet, if it was a sunny day in London in
an area with a lot of jet traffic, then it was in all likelihood a bag that
was kicked up by a car, caught a massive thermal and managed to get blown
around by jet traffic.

(1) Fly fixed wing RC in excess of 180mph weekly and have flown quads for 3
years.

------
smoyer
I'm happy that they're backing off the drone regulation but it's going to be
pretty inconvenient for the locals when plastic bags are banned within 2km of
an airport.

------
awinter-py
This wouldn't be a problem in california

[http://plasticbaglaws.org/legislation/state-
laws/](http://plasticbaglaws.org/legislation/state-laws/)

------
leecarraher
damn kids flying their plastic bags near the airport... there should be a law.

------
pj_mukh
If airports/pilots are really that paranoid perhaps they should install sensor
system (low range radar?) to capture particular drones (and birds).

For drones, they have systems now that they can deploy to take them down
immediately. [http://www.skysafe.io/](http://www.skysafe.io/)

And please, leave the rest of us who live/visit nowhere near airports alone.

~~~
dredmorbius
To what end?

It's all but impossible to take evasive action, you'd have a second or two
warning, and quite likely many false alarms.

Rain, bags, random ground echos. Too many targets.

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f_allwein
would be ironic since the number of plastic bags in the UK decreased
dramatically since a 5p charge was introduced in October:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/12034574/P...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/12034574/Plastic-
bag-5p-charge-cuts-usage-by-almost-80-per-cent-first-data-shows.html)

------
techterrier
That's 5p we'll never see again. What a waste.

------
MrPatan
Now I want to see all those blowhards calling for a crackdown on the Drone
Menace for a crackdown on the Plastic Bag Menace. Disgusting.

------
pete622
What next? Were the geese Sully's plane nailed actually newspapers?

------
ageofwant
Plastic bags, not thats one thing I won't mind being banned...

~~~
chippy
...they should charge people to buy them in the supermarkets instead of giving
them away for free.

------
MKais
FAA issues new rules stating all plastic bag owners must register each bag
with the FAA

------
elcct
Maybe the bag was protesting being essentially a 5p class citizen.

------
awinter-py
Is 'plastic bag' not a derogatory term for drones anymore?

~~~
djsumdog
fucking toasters

------
aaron695
If you weren't calling bullshit on the original articles you really need your
view of the world examined.

This is just D&D is the devil panaroia for 2016

1000s of 'near misses' and no hits is a industry that plane lies.

