

Heathrow plane in near miss with drone - kartikkumar
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30369701

======
Htsthbjig
10 kilo drones?

Man, I have 1 kilo machines and they are huge and (very)expensive and
everywhere I go people say it is the first time they see such a monster.

What this pilot saw was probably a 120 grams toy that an aircraft engine could
eat for breakfast(engines are tested for much bigger birds impact). It is an
expensive repair but to say that the plane goes "near miss" is a gross
exaggeration(You near miss another plane, like a Cessna).

With 10 kilos we are talking about professional machines, with hybrid power
source, military or highly professional. Probably they are 10 of those in all
UK.

We need drone regulation, today it is in limbo. Professional services also
have to be legalized and regulated(they are not but people are using them
anyway for movies, for electrical grid control, they are so useful).

They don't want to because those machines compete with helicopters and planes
at aerial jobs but much cheaper and without pilot's risk of dying.

Flying 1kg in the air is much safer than flying 600kilos machines. If the
thing crashes, which is really difficult now with GPS and automatic control,
you lose 1000, 2000 dollars, not a life.

Helicopters are very dangerous near the ground, if something goes wrong, like
a gust of wind you are dead.

So you need to get high enough, which means using big and expensive camera
gear.

With a drone it is so much simple.

~~~
objclxt
> "Flying 1kg in the air is much safer than flying 600kilos machines. If the
> thing crashes [...] you lose 1000, 2000 dollars, not a life.

If you're flying a drone in an urban area then no, that's not true. There's a
reason helmets are mandatory on construction sites: a 1kg object heading at
speed towards your head has the potential for serious injury.

You seem to have assumed the only loss when a drone crashes is the cost of the
machine itself, but you're forgetting you'll be liable for any other damage
you cause. Requiring drone operators to have insurance (which I bet you don't
have) seems like a good first step. We require it for cars, why not drones?

~~~
burke
> a 1kg object heading at speed towards your head has the potential for
> serious injury.

I'm not sure sure about this. Most drones are made of such low-density
material (and obviously have some large aerodynamic components) that I have a
hard time buying it could cause much injury even if it fell at terminal
velocity onto someone's head.

~~~
apapli
I've been flying RC planes for years, and have seen many really bad injuries
because people don't consider a plastic propeller spinning at a few thousand
RPM "dangerous".

Most people don't think of drones (quad copters etc) as essentially flying
lawnmowers. If you find yourself at the wrong end of a prop I can assure you
that your opinion will change.

The weight of them is probably the least important factor when it comes to
safety.

~~~
bigiain
I've hit myself with my own 5" and 6" plastic props on my ~400g class
quadcopters with ~120W motors (several times actually), and it _hurts_, but I
haven't "injured myself" (though I have no doubt a mother of a small ch9ild I
hit would view that differently even with identical results - a few red marks
and a bloodstream full of adrenaline).

I have a _great_ deal of respect/fear of friends 12 and 14" carbon fiber props
with ~2000W motors spinning them. One friends main machine is arguable 8
flying lawnmowers strapped together, with all the blade guards removed.

And I fear that uneducated or uncaring owners of that second class of
"unambiguously dangerous machines" are reasonably likely to impact my
enjoyment of the sub 500g class machines.

The "drones bad" meme is already affecting people who fly ~300g gliders - a
lot of people flying F3K handlaunch gliders are getting booted out of various
parks (including, I believe, all US Federal National Parks?). These things
literally weigh 50% less than a football or only 50% more than a Frisbee, and
- and have the added safety of being under active control by the pilot (who
_really_ doen't want to hit anyone with his expensive and delicate toy).

------
dghughes
The word "drone" is such a buzzword, I used to have a radio controlled aka RC
plane as a kid and the US military tends to a military remote controlled
aircraft an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV.

But drone is single word easy to say with some buzz to it and I guess it also
sounds ominous.

My understanding is a drone in the military sense is a flying target a UAV is
not.

It took 20 years for people to stop calling anything tech/Internet related
"cyber" now calling anything that flies is a drone that word will be with us
until 2034.

~~~
Evolved
Drone appears to be more of a colloquial term but also seems to be widely
accepted to mean the same thing as UAV[1][2].

British [1]
[http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/drone](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/drone)
English [2] [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/drone](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drone)

Regarding "cyber" you may want to tell retailers to stop using Cyber Monday,
the FBI to rename its Cyber Crimes division, the CIA to rename its Cyber
Security division and the NSA to rename its Cyber Operations unit. I agree
that cyber is an old-school term and even sounds reminiscent of _The Net_ and
_Hackers_ but it's doubtful it will go away any time soon.

------
kartikkumar
This is an interesting issue to me moving forward. Regardless of whether this
was a "real" near miss or not, the fact of the matter is that
drones/UAVs/whatever-you-call-them are going to be a much more pervasive part
out our reality in the near future. Should we be regulating their use? What
should the legal framework be? Should you be required to have a license with
proven flying hours, much like required to become a pilot? Should the CAA, FAA
and other such bodies hold complete jurisdiction? Or should it fall under the
purview of a dedicated organ?

I think from a technology perspective this is going to be very interesting.
I'm starting to work on proximity operations in space, specifically designing
robust Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) systems to ensure safe and
effective operations. I just got off the phone with a friend who's startup is
in stealth mode at the moment, looking at developing GNC algorithms for UAVs
that offer real-time, autonomous operations with collision avoidance etc. in
the absence of GPS.

Going to be fascinating to see how the technology in this space develops.

 _EDIT: Fixed typos_

~~~
jschwartzi
Insofar as the FAA has jurisdiction over civilian airspace, I think that UAVs
which are operating within that airspace must be subject to the same rules and
regulations as manned aircraft, or there will be an accident. Just because
it's unmanned doesn't mean that the Pauli Exclusion Principle doesn't apply to
it.

~~~
xxxyy
Can confirm this with respect to Polish aviation law. Flying a drone, or just
any other aircraft - manned or unmanned - in a controlled space without prior
authorization is a criminal offense. There is no question about it. Heathrow
CTR/TMA is obviously a controlled airspace. The law in the rest of the EU
should be similar, as we are all governed by EASA.

------
super_sloth
The reference to the unmanned large planes at the bottom:

"Mr McAuslan said there was an urgent need for rules to be tightened before
much larger unmanned cargo planes - potentially the size of a Boeing 737 -
took to the skies."

sounds intriguing. Are we really close to that happening? I was under the
impression the CAA restrictions around unmanned aircraft were still very
tight.

~~~
petercooper
As an aside, I found the reference quite funny. In an article about how a
random drone endangered a plane, it read more like "we need to urgently
tighten the rules before people try and fly 737-sized drones over Heathrow!"

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

~~~
wsc981
Heh, I wanted to link that one as well. Though you might get down voted, not
everyone here seems to like funny posts that relate somewhat to the linked
article.

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nakedrobot2
I have heard about so many of these "airplane nearly hit a drone"
scaremongering stories that I simply don't believe it anymore, period. I think
it could have been a bird, or something else that simply passed by too quickly
to be identified by the pilot, and they're calling it a "drone" just because
they wouldn't mind getting those things banned anyway.

~~~
lafar6502
I havent heard of any plane that nearly missed a drone

~~~
neurotech1
I've only heard of two incidents. One was investigated by the NTSB and (IMO)
both the pilots of the manned aircraft and the RC aircraft were partially at
fault. NTSB report blamed the RC pilot. No injuries but the manned aircraft
was damaged, and the RC aircraft destroyed. This occurred at low-level ( < 50
ft) over the runway.

The second was that the small military UAV was blown off course due to
changing winds, while a jet was doing a ground power run. The RC aircraft
crashed short, with some debris hitting the aircraft wing. UAV operations were
authorized, although the Tower controller and Ground (Movement) controller
didn't foresee the hazard.

------
rasz_pl
I nearly got pregnant

GCHQ intercepts nearly all of the intern... oh wait, this one is actually true

More regulatory capture incoming. It is already illegal to fly RC models near
airports, but hey A DRONE and NEAR MISS, lets label them airborne terrorists.

~~~
harryh
That's not what regulatory capture means.

