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I don't think pilots would be entirely opposed to this kind of tech. While I don't think many pilots trust drone operators to be responsible in any way (I don't

I don't think pilots would be entirely opposed to this kind of tech. While I don't think many pilots trust drone operators to be responsible in any way (I don't, since I don't think many of them know the airspace system or where their nearby airports are), they might be okay with unmanned aerial systems operated by the local airport authority, since they could likely geofence them in such a manner that they'd never cross paths with an aircraft. That said, low level wake turbulence from one of these aircraft could probably still wreck the drone if it carried off the side of the runway. However, I doubt this would stop another near-disaster like Cactus 1549. They hit geese on climbout at nearly 3000 feet [0]. Thats pretty far outside of what a drone can enforce, or where I'd be comfortable having a drone flying. Current regulations prohibit them flying over 400 ft AGL, except within tight proximity to structures like radio towers. For background, I'm a private pilot, not an airline guy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#Takeoff_and_bird_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#Takeoff...

mhneu 8y ago
Problem is downside risk: drones get hacked, or someone figures out how to make the drones fly into planes, or herd birds TOWARD planes. As a society we've been pretty cavalier about algorithmic control. Which can work well for a lot of things. But probably shouldn't be trusted (without a TON of validation and regulation, as we've done over decades with airliners) with controlling stuff that can injure people or damage societies.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  You can already do that with your own manually controlled drones(surprisingly, no one has done this yet). There is no need to hack the airports drones.
  - RealityVoid 8y ago
    I think it's not surprising at all. After all, most people are sane individuals who are unwilling to pour time, money, effort and risk their life in order to simply cause suffering on other people. There simply isn't money in downing planes, so most people have no incentive to want to do it.
    - oh_sigh 8y ago
      The surprising was sarcasm ;)
  - userbinator 8y ago
    manually controlled drones How about we just call them "remote-controlled aircraft"... which is what they were called before the whole "drone" fad came along (and "drone" itself used to imply at least some autonomous capability.)
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Indeed. RC planes and helicopters have been around for a very long time. But all of a sudden they're potential weapons of mass murder because... They have a few extra propellers!?
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    There has benn one recorded accidental collision between a Phantom and a military helicopter (the drone exploded) and there is one guy that posted a video of a freestyle drone flying above incoming airliner on landing approach (which outraged the community).
  - Kagerjay 8y ago
    Cost of upkeep and maintenance (not to mention trained personel) is going to be very high if this isn't automated.
- cornellwright 8y ago
  Given the number of times I've personally almost hit birds while flying small aircraft, I'll take the downside risk. Give the tower some sort of override to require the drone to land if it's doing more harm than good. There's lots of easier ways to hack our fragile ATC system than herding birds at airplanes that I'd worry about first.
- skybrian 8y ago
  If we're discussing movie-plot scenarios, it seems like it would be much easier for an attacker to buy their own drone. And maybe figure out how to put explosives on it, too.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    I'm not a big fan of conspiracy ... but I fear this is going to be an all-to-likely scenario. Someone's gonna do it and it will change aviation for a while; restrictions, mega investment in new tech i.e. special radar, anti-drone kind of stuff. Won't be able to fly a drone anywhere remotely near an airport. And there are a lot of airports!
    - mhneu 8y ago
      Yes, agreed. What we've learned over the past few years that where algorithms exist, there are incentives to try to exploit them. Ad and PR firms: Google search algorithms, Twitter ranking algorithms. Political orgs: Youtube ranking algorithms, ad placement algorithms. Repressive govts: Facebook abuse reporting algorithms (done in Ukraine), Twitter hashtag algorithms, tweet ranking algorithms (bots pushing particular political tweets). Humans may be in some ways easier to influence, but once an algorithm gets big enough, it can be worth attacking if the impact would be huge.
    - skybrian 8y ago
      I guess. But then you have to ask why IED's are apparently only used in certain war zones? Many technically possible attacks seem not to happen all that often.
      - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        It's almost as if the risk of being killed by terrorists is blown out of all proportion to further some kind of political agenda. You're orders of magnitude more likely to get hit by a bus.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      Why would anyone be a fan of conspiracy? Or did you mean conspiracy theory? Huge difference.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  > Problem is downside risk: drones get hacked, or someone figures out how to make the drones fly into planes, or herd birds TOWARD planes. All of these things are way harder than simply buying a drone yourself and doing illegal things with it.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Except if the drone you hack has the "access code" to let it fly in sensitive areas.
    - prawn 8y ago
      Drones by default have that "access code" now. There are guidelines/rules to generally keep us away from airports, but it's not a physical restriction for the device.
asteli 8y ago
I'm not a pilot, but at 3000 feet AGL, you have a lot more room for emergency maneuvering / diverting back to origin or alternate right? I remember hearing something about how many small aircraft incidents occur at low altitude on takeoff or landing, partly because it's harder to recover from a stall condition (perhaps engine-out as well?) at low altitude...
- repiret 8y ago
  One way of thinking about altitude is how many mistakes you have time to recover from before hitting the ground. The higher you are the safer you are - you haven't crashed until you hit the ground. For a single-engine plane, 500' AGL depending on the plane and wind is enough to make a 180° turn and land on the takeoff runway if its clear. 1000' AGL will let you do it on just about any suitable surface at the airport - other runways, taxiways, grass clearings adjacent to them, etc - and give you a few seconds to be confused before deciding that you need to make an emergency landing. Most birds fly quite low, and drone-based bird abatement at airports would be a safety win if done right (DO-178-B style software quality), but I've heard of bird strikes above 20,000', and been taught to expect that you're never flying above _all_ the birds. Edited to reply directly to your 3000' comment like I meant to: At 3000' AGL, you can almost always glide to a safe landing point, unless you're over mountains or a dense urban area. But unless you happen to already be near an airport, you probably won't be able to glide to one. Glide ratios much higher than 10:1 are uncommon, so thats 5.7 statute miles. Lots of places are more than 5.7 miles from an airport.
  - woah 8y ago
    What kind of birds fly above 20,000 feet???
    - keithnz 8y ago
      https://themysteriousworld.com/10-highest-flying-birds-in-the-world/ https://themysteriousworld.com/10-highest-flying-birds-in-th...
usaphp 8y ago
> don't think many of them know the airspace system or where their nearby airports are) Don’t you think they can’t learn that just like you did?
- blktiger 8y ago
  It's not a matter of whether drone operators _can_ learn. It's more a matter of many of them _not_ learning. Why do firefighters still have trouble with drone operators running drones in areas where they are actively fighting fires? Not that all pilots are good about following the regulations all the time even though they should, but the consequences to the individual for not following FAA regulations as a private pilot are generally much higher than they are/should be for drone operators.
  - sand500 8y ago
    Sure, random drone people are a problem but in this case, I don't see why the airport themselves cannot hire trained professional drone operators. Drones opperated by the firefighters themselves might prove to be useful.
    - blktiger 8y ago
      There are professional drone operators out there and they have been deployed to help out with emergencies.
- inamberclad 8y ago
  I don't think they're motivated to learn.

mhneu 8y ago

Problem is downside risk: drones get hacked, or someone figures out how to make the drones fly into planes, or herd birds TOWARD planes. As a society we've been pretty cavalier about algorithmic control. Which can work well for a lot of things. But probably shouldn't be trusted (without a TON of validation and regulation, as we've done over decades with airliners) with controlling stuff that can injure people or damage societies.

oh_sigh 8y ago
You can already do that with your own manually controlled drones(surprisingly, no one has done this yet). There is no need to hack the airports drones.
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  I think it's not surprising at all. After all, most people are sane individuals who are unwilling to pour time, money, effort and risk their life in order to simply cause suffering on other people. There simply isn't money in downing planes, so most people have no incentive to want to do it.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    The surprising was sarcasm ;)
- userbinator 8y ago
  manually controlled drones How about we just call them "remote-controlled aircraft"... which is what they were called before the whole "drone" fad came along (and "drone" itself used to imply at least some autonomous capability.)
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Indeed. RC planes and helicopters have been around for a very long time. But all of a sudden they're potential weapons of mass murder because... They have a few extra propellers!?
- jobigoud 8y ago
  There has benn one recorded accidental collision between a Phantom and a military helicopter (the drone exploded) and there is one guy that posted a video of a freestyle drone flying above incoming airliner on landing approach (which outraged the community).
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  Cost of upkeep and maintenance (not to mention trained personel) is going to be very high if this isn't automated.
cornellwright 8y ago
Given the number of times I've personally almost hit birds while flying small aircraft, I'll take the downside risk. Give the tower some sort of override to require the drone to land if it's doing more harm than good. There's lots of easier ways to hack our fragile ATC system than herding birds at airplanes that I'd worry about first.
skybrian 8y ago
If we're discussing movie-plot scenarios, it seems like it would be much easier for an attacker to buy their own drone. And maybe figure out how to put explosives on it, too.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I'm not a big fan of conspiracy ... but I fear this is going to be an all-to-likely scenario. Someone's gonna do it and it will change aviation for a while; restrictions, mega investment in new tech i.e. special radar, anti-drone kind of stuff. Won't be able to fly a drone anywhere remotely near an airport. And there are a lot of airports!
  - mhneu 8y ago
    Yes, agreed. What we've learned over the past few years that where algorithms exist, there are incentives to try to exploit them. Ad and PR firms: Google search algorithms, Twitter ranking algorithms. Political orgs: Youtube ranking algorithms, ad placement algorithms. Repressive govts: Facebook abuse reporting algorithms (done in Ukraine), Twitter hashtag algorithms, tweet ranking algorithms (bots pushing particular political tweets). Humans may be in some ways easier to influence, but once an algorithm gets big enough, it can be worth attacking if the impact would be huge.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    I guess. But then you have to ask why IED's are apparently only used in certain war zones? Many technically possible attacks seem not to happen all that often.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      It's almost as if the risk of being killed by terrorists is blown out of all proportion to further some kind of political agenda. You're orders of magnitude more likely to get hit by a bus.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Why would anyone be a fan of conspiracy? Or did you mean conspiracy theory? Huge difference.
jdminhbg 8y ago
> Problem is downside risk: drones get hacked, or someone figures out how to make the drones fly into planes, or herd birds TOWARD planes. All of these things are way harder than simply buying a drone yourself and doing illegal things with it.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Except if the drone you hack has the "access code" to let it fly in sensitive areas.
  - prawn 8y ago
    Drones by default have that "access code" now. There are guidelines/rules to generally keep us away from airports, but it's not a physical restriction for the device.

asteli 8y ago

I'm not a pilot, but at 3000 feet AGL, you have a lot more room for emergency maneuvering / diverting back to origin or alternate right? I remember hearing something about how many small aircraft incidents occur at low altitude on takeoff or landing, partly because it's harder to recover from a stall condition (perhaps engine-out as well?) at low altitude...

repiret 8y ago
One way of thinking about altitude is how many mistakes you have time to recover from before hitting the ground. The higher you are the safer you are - you haven't crashed until you hit the ground. For a single-engine plane, 500' AGL depending on the plane and wind is enough to make a 180° turn and land on the takeoff runway if its clear. 1000' AGL will let you do it on just about any suitable surface at the airport - other runways, taxiways, grass clearings adjacent to them, etc - and give you a few seconds to be confused before deciding that you need to make an emergency landing. Most birds fly quite low, and drone-based bird abatement at airports would be a safety win if done right (DO-178-B style software quality), but I've heard of bird strikes above 20,000', and been taught to expect that you're never flying above _all_ the birds. Edited to reply directly to your 3000' comment like I meant to: At 3000' AGL, you can almost always glide to a safe landing point, unless you're over mountains or a dense urban area. But unless you happen to already be near an airport, you probably won't be able to glide to one. Glide ratios much higher than 10:1 are uncommon, so thats 5.7 statute miles. Lots of places are more than 5.7 miles from an airport.
- woah 8y ago
  What kind of birds fly above 20,000 feet???
  - keithnz 8y ago
    https://themysteriousworld.com/10-highest-flying-birds-in-the-world/ https://themysteriousworld.com/10-highest-flying-birds-in-th...

usaphp 8y ago

> don't think many of them know the airspace system or where their nearby airports are) Don’t you think they can’t learn that just like you did?

blktiger 8y ago
It's not a matter of whether drone operators _can_ learn. It's more a matter of many of them _not_ learning. Why do firefighters still have trouble with drone operators running drones in areas where they are actively fighting fires? Not that all pilots are good about following the regulations all the time even though they should, but the consequences to the individual for not following FAA regulations as a private pilot are generally much higher than they are/should be for drone operators.
- sand500 8y ago
  Sure, random drone people are a problem but in this case, I don't see why the airport themselves cannot hire trained professional drone operators. Drones opperated by the firefighters themselves might prove to be useful.
  - blktiger 8y ago
    There are professional drone operators out there and they have been deployed to help out with emergencies.
inamberclad 8y ago
I don't think they're motivated to learn.