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This article seems too statistics-y and not practical: * Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before * There's a difference betwe

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_derailment#Investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Philadelphia_train_derail...). 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.

bsder 11y ago
> Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before Exactly. Bird statistics don't mean anything in this case because jackasses are flying the drones in "interesting" areas rather than random areas. Having to have an FAA license that shows you understand airspace and its laws is not an undue restriction.
strathmeyer 11y ago
> Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before Are you sure?? Every story about this turns out to be FUD. Airports use drones to scare away the birds. Whenever there is a story of a pilot spotting a drone.... they forget to mention if they figured out if it belonged to the airport.
- jonesb6 11y ago
  I've seen video footage of it. Don't have the link but it was bad enough to throw me into a fit of rage at the drone operators. There were like three or four drones flying directly in the path of a prop plane dropping some kind of retardant on a forest fire.
  - the_ancient 11y ago
    >bad enough to throw me into a fit of rage at the drone operators. Then I would advise you to seek anger management help as soon as possible
patcheudor 11y ago
>I think FAA trying to make _some_ regulations for this is okay... YES! I recently built an acro/FPV hexacopter and am all for my right to fly, however, I understand I have some responsibilities when doing so and the FAA spelling out those responsibilities isn't a bad thing. Unfortunately others don't quite "get it" in quite the same way and pose a serious risk without rules and the threat of law. As an example, someone I'm associated with decided he'd take his new DJI out of the box on Christmas, toss in a newly charged battery (the most likely to fail in my experience) and have it follow his car from his house to town in a small community via the autonomous flight option. Along the way of course it flew within a mile of an airport, directly across the flight-path for the takeoff runway, without him even having eyes on his craft. He got excited and shared the video and of course everyone who knew anything about RC flight freaked out. He never understood any of the concern and thinks everyone was overblowing the situation and it was absolutely okay because DJI has an airport database. The problem is of course, that airport database doesn't contain listings for every airport. That and you should never toss a multi-rotor in the air without direct line of sight or a spotter for the entire flight and expect things will go as planned.
jjoonathan 11y ago
* 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.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  I dunno, I think the people fighting a forest fire have a point when they say that they do not want to deal with some guy taking video (what better justification could the drone operator have?).
  - jjoonathan 11y ago
    Imagine a hypothetical headline: "Black cat steps on mirror, firefighters let house burn for fear of upsetting spirits." This would probably upset you and your frustration would probably not be aimed at the cat. Let this be one end of a spectrum and put "drone interferes with firefighting helicopter" at the other end. I don't see one vested interest's hunch as strong evidence that reality lies near to one end or another of this spectrum.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      I don't understand what you are getting at. What's the equivalence between a random black cat on a mirror and an intentionally operated drone? If there was some meaningful need for random everybody to operate drones by forest fires, I might care that the pilots are serving some weird agenda, but I don't see any need for (especially private, unregistered, non-communicating) drones to operate near forest fires, so I don't even care if the pilots are just objecting for the lulz.
lutorm 11y ago
This article seems too statistics-y ... Except that safety is a statistical problem. The question is always whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The FAA actually recognizes this. For example, you can build an airplane yourself for your own recreational use without having to comply with almost any of the rules for certified airplanes that are sold commercially, the rationale being that you know what you're getting into and you're risking mostly harm to yourself. However, when it comes to risks imposed by third parties, like buying an airplane from a manufacturer, or an airplane being endangered by people on the ground as is the case with drones or people pointing lasers at airplanes, they are much more conservative. And I think that makes sense.
rasz_pl 11y ago
NO they DIDNT. Presence of one drone lead to scared people with agenda grounding whole operation. Do they ground those same planes in presence of birds?

bsder 11y ago

> Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before Exactly. Bird statistics don't mean anything in this case because jackasses are flying the drones in "interesting" areas rather than random areas. Having to have an FAA license that shows you understand airspace and its laws is not an undue restriction.

strathmeyer 11y ago

> Drones have interfered with firefighting activities in California before Are you sure?? Every story about this turns out to be FUD. Airports use drones to scare away the birds. Whenever there is a story of a pilot spotting a drone.... they forget to mention if they figured out if it belonged to the airport.

jonesb6 11y ago
I've seen video footage of it. Don't have the link but it was bad enough to throw me into a fit of rage at the drone operators. There were like three or four drones flying directly in the path of a prop plane dropping some kind of retardant on a forest fire.
- the_ancient 11y ago
  >bad enough to throw me into a fit of rage at the drone operators. Then I would advise you to seek anger management help as soon as possible

patcheudor 11y ago

>I think FAA trying to make _some_ regulations for this is okay... YES! I recently built an acro/FPV hexacopter and am all for my right to fly, however, I understand I have some responsibilities when doing so and the FAA spelling out those responsibilities isn't a bad thing. Unfortunately others don't quite "get it" in quite the same way and pose a serious risk without rules and the threat of law. As an example, someone I'm associated with decided he'd take his new DJI out of the box on Christmas, toss in a newly charged battery (the most likely to fail in my experience) and have it follow his car from his house to town in a small community via the autonomous flight option. Along the way of course it flew within a mile of an airport, directly across the flight-path for the takeoff runway, without him even having eyes on his craft. He got excited and shared the video and of course everyone who knew anything about RC flight freaked out. He never understood any of the concern and thinks everyone was overblowing the situation and it was absolutely okay because DJI has an airport database. The problem is of course, that airport database doesn't contain listings for every airport. That and you should never toss a multi-rotor in the air without direct line of sight or a spotter for the entire flight and expect things will go as planned.

jjoonathan 11y ago

* 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.

maxerickson 11y ago
I dunno, I think the people fighting a forest fire have a point when they say that they do not want to deal with some guy taking video (what better justification could the drone operator have?).
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  Imagine a hypothetical headline: "Black cat steps on mirror, firefighters let house burn for fear of upsetting spirits." This would probably upset you and your frustration would probably not be aimed at the cat. Let this be one end of a spectrum and put "drone interferes with firefighting helicopter" at the other end. I don't see one vested interest's hunch as strong evidence that reality lies near to one end or another of this spectrum.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    I don't understand what you are getting at. What's the equivalence between a random black cat on a mirror and an intentionally operated drone? If there was some meaningful need for random everybody to operate drones by forest fires, I might care that the pilots are serving some weird agenda, but I don't see any need for (especially private, unregistered, non-communicating) drones to operate near forest fires, so I don't even care if the pilots are just objecting for the lulz.

lutorm 11y ago

This article seems too statistics-y ... Except that safety is a statistical problem. The question is always whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The FAA actually recognizes this. For example, you can build an airplane yourself for your own recreational use without having to comply with almost any of the rules for certified airplanes that are sold commercially, the rationale being that you know what you're getting into and you're risking mostly harm to yourself. However, when it comes to risks imposed by third parties, like buying an airplane from a manufacturer, or an airplane being endangered by people on the ground as is the case with drones or people pointing lasers at airplanes, they are much more conservative. And I think that makes sense.

rasz_pl 11y ago

NO they DIDNT. Presence of one drone lead to scared people with agenda grounding whole operation. Do they ground those same planes in presence of birds?