
FAA records detail hundreds of close calls between airplanes and drones - shahryc
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/faa-records-detail-hundreds-of-close-calls-between-airplanes-and-drones/2015/08/20/5ef812ae-4737-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html
======
tomswartz07
There's a common joke among us multicopter pilots about DJI Phantom owners.

The majority (by quite a large margin) of these 'close calls' are caused by
regular Joes buying a $1000 DJI Phantom and running it with the throttle all
the way open to see how high they can go.

Sure, it makes for a cool shot with the camera, but it's wayyyyy far outside
of the AMA and FAA guidelines of 400' altitude ceiling.

Personally, I'm glad that the FAA is documenting it. I just hope that the
incredibly daft actions of a few don't ruin it for the rest of us.

~~~
danellis
As an owner of DJI Phantom multicopter it makes me sad to hear that we're all
tarred with the same brush.

Out of interest, what makes you "multicopter pilots" and other people just
"owners"?

~~~
nathancahill
That's part of the knock. DJI Phantom owners are stereotypically kids (or
adults) who know nothing about multicopters, but fly them around breaking all
kinds of safety rules.

~~~
danellis
Does anyone know much about multicopters before they buy one? I know I didn't.
Pretty much all I did was look up the regulations in various countries and
then had at it.

~~~
tomswartz07
Agruably, there's a significant difference between:

1: Collecting parts, soldering them together, programming and tuning a device,
learning about how it all works, failing sometimes, then being able to fly
100'\+ in the air

and

2: Buying a pre-built quad and skimming the FAA regulations. Unbox it and walk
outside. Crank the throttle all the way to max and stare with glee as GPS
keeps it at 10,000 feet right over your house.

~~~
mentat
This ends up sounding like "kids these days". Did you build your own computer?
From the gates up? Oh, well then you're not a real engineer... It's usually an
ego based distinction too.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Maybe, but it's hard to argue there isn't something to it. I think for each
technology you can distinguish three types of users. 1) Those who care about
it for itself - in this case the ones assembling their own drones, or willing
to at least understand them on a deep level. 2) Those who treat it as just a
tool, means to an end - think people doing air photos for money with drones.
And 3), tourists - those who don't know a thing about the tech, _don 't want
to know_ about it, but come drooling because it's cool and shiny.

Usually the third group does stupid shit (as in stupid stupid, not smart
stupid), the first one gets angry at "kids these days", and the second doesn't
care as long as it doesn't affect their use of their tools.

I find this model to accurately describe quite a lot interactions in the
general tech sphere. So for instance in programming, the group 1) is what you
call "hackers", and the primary folks who get religious over editors or
programming languages. Group 2) mostly looks at it and says "meh". Those are
the "product-focused" people, the "professionals". Group 3) are kids that try
to flock to CS _because it 's cool and pays a lot_.

Or, Google screwed up the deployment of Glass, because they marketed and sold
it to rich people from Group 3) instead of Group 1) (Glass itself wasn't a
good enough tool to create the Group 2) around it.).

Or all the remarks about how technology companies dumb down everything. That's
Group 1) complaining that Group 2) designs stuff for Group 3).

------
lutorm
Given that aircraft fly faster (in the case of large aircraft, a lot faster)
than these drones, the article's choice of words that makes it sound like the
drones "buzz" aircraft seems pretty misleading. It's the aircraft that fly
into the drones, not the other way around.

The real issue isn't what the drones _do_ , it's that they're around at all,
because the speeds and sizes involved makes it very difficult to see and avoid
them whatever they do. In that sense, they're not that different from birds.

There sure are a lot more birds than drones, but on the other hand I'm not
sure what the relative effect on a small aircraft from the impact of a
(relatively soft) bird versus a (hard) drone is.

~~~
Someone1234
Birds aren't soft at those speeds. Ultimately for both it boils down to weight
(or mass if you'd prefer). In both cases the larger heavier object (aircraft)
will move the smaller lighter one (birds, drones) out of its path. But damage
may be done along the way.

It is possible that the components could damage the inside of a jet engine,
but bird bits (inc. bone) don't exactly do jet engines any favours so...

~~~
dheera
Drones might have actual metal components as well as LiPo batteries, though
...

~~~
acveilleux
And a canada goose will cause a contained failure of a CFM56 turboprop the
likes of which (or equivalents) equip most B737s and A320s. The miracle on the
Hudson was an A320 hitting a flock of geese on take off.

The good news is that for most passenger planes, a drone ingest would be
unlikely to do more than take out an engine or smash the cockpit windows. Both
severe issues but issues which an airliner can be expected to survive.

That said, a CFM56 engine costs somewhere around 5-10m dollars. So how do you
find the drone's owner to bill them for it?

~~~
caf
ITYM turbofan.

~~~
acveilleux
Indeed, was a brain fart.

------
cjensen
At the Hayward shoreline a few weeks back, a guy was using a drone. I ignored
him until he buzzed the area where Snowy Plovers (an Endangered Species) hang
out. Then I went over to talk to him.

He was very contrite. Apparently his model has a special light that is
supposed to light up in a "no fly zone." I don't know what that means, but he
was in a Wildlife Refuge, directly under the flightpath for Oakland
International (exactly 5 miles from the landing strip) and less than 2 miles
from Hayward airport [1].

Maybe the FAA needs to publish maps for drone guys to show them where it _is_
legal. Or maybe someone should start a Wiki showing legal and interesting
place to use drones as a way of diverting drone users away from silly places
while raising awareness of where not to go.

[1] 37.645292 -122.155191

~~~
maxerickson
They don't advertise it as complete, but the source data for this map is
managed on github:

[https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/](https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/)

~~~
cjensen
Cool. That map treats airports as points rather than areas, so the location in
question is marked as clear on that map, but is no-fly in real life.

Strangely, it only marks major airports. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the no-
fly rules are for all airports.

~~~
maxerickson
Looking closer at the github repository, it isn't very active. It's missing
the regional airport near here which should have restrictions.

If you zoom in, the airports do get a 5 mile radius which, inferring from
linked map in the sibling to my above comment, is not really very accurate
(but does capture much of the zone).

------
melling
Prior HN discussions: [https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-
drones-dai...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-
daily/)

------
tswartz
I think it's good that the FAA is documenting close calls with drones, however
the press is a little overblown. This long time pilot views drones less of
threat then geese or other large birds. That may change if drones get bigger
and heavier, but all things point to drones getting smaller.

A pilot's view on drones: [https://jethead.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/airliners-
vs-drones...](https://jethead.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/airliners-vs-drones-
calm-down/)

~~~
mast
I don't see signs of drones getting smaller. It seems to me they will only get
bigger and heavier especially if companies like Amazon are going to be using
them to deliver products.

~~~
bigiain
I'm an anecdata point for the "my drones are getting smaller" side here: My
first couple of quadcopters were 10 and 12 inch prop sized, weighing in around
2 or 3 pounds - all me recent ones are _much_ smaller - 6 and 5 inch props
with my "light" one being just under 200g (under half a pound) and the other
three in the 1 to 1.5 pound range (depending on battery size and how much gear
it's got on board - gps/video adds extra weight)

Tiny drones are much more common now as well - I've got a drawer full of
Cheerson CX10s which weigh all of 30g or so (about an ounce). I strongly
suspect the bulk of the "700,000 drones sold" are made up of devices closer to
my CX10s than they are to "washing machine sized" ones capable of getting to
10,000 feet.

------
siculars
So what happens when someone(s) decide to automate a drone protest over a
runway. Just set it and forget it. They fly till they drop and block airspace
by just flying 100 ft above a runway and fly back and forth. They would be
able to shut down an airport. That's what.

Kinda like these folks who shit down a river. But there's no one to arrest.

[http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/08/greenpe...](http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/08/greenpeace_protester_was_surpr.html)

~~~
kayfox
Thats a pretty expensive way to protest.

~~~
siculars
Not really. Drones will only get cheaper. Oh, and terrorists have virtually
unlimited money. DIY drone kits with oss nav software. Cheap, untraceable,
highly disruptive.

------
kctess5
While drones colliding with aircraft is not a good thing, aren't most aircraft
rated for bird strikes? It seems like most hobby level drones are
approximately the same size and weight.

~~~
sschueller
Birds don't carry bombs (LiPo battery) with them. [1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQheOtdCTjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQheOtdCTjs)

~~~
Someone1234
"Bombs" is highly melodramatic. And at the speed that burned, it would be tens
of miles behind an aircraft after the collision, and that's assuming that the
impact didn't break up and spread the materials so thin that they weren't an
effective hazard.

------
newman314
This and the drone operators that like to fly at Cars&Coffee events.

Yes, it's a great idea to fly a drone around lots of expensive cars and people
without insurance, skill or experience.

/sarcasm

------
ams6110
_Schumer pledged to introduce legislation requiring manufacturers to install
technology on all drones to prevent them from flying above 500 feet, near
airports or in sensitive airspace. Such technology, known as geo- fencing,
relies on satellite navigation to pinpoint a drone’s location_

Completely unrealistic. Such measures would be easily defeated and many
hobbyist drone-builders would just omit them in the first place.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
> Such measures would be easily defeated

But may protect against casual negligence.

------
PerfectElement
> Aviation-safety experts say that even tiny drones could trigger a disaster
> by crashing into a propeller or windshield, or getting sucked into a jet
> engine.

Does it mean that birds could also cause a similar disaster?

~~~
MaulingMonkey
Birds caused this:
[http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/plane_crash_red...](http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/plane_crash_redux/plane_crash_redux_01.jpg)

------
rasz_pl
..and not a single crash

~~~
therobot24
does there need to be one in order for something to change?

~~~
rasz_pl
I just want to remind you FAA (and military) has a lot of UFO reports as well,
not a single confirmed crash tho.

------
robmiller
Interesting that a story disparaging of drones is being written in a newspaper
owned by the biggest commercial proponent of the technology. What am I
missing?

