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A 30 lbs / 15 ft glider can probably cause very serious injury when landed on a highway. Any propeller plane / fast glider can cause death in a crowd. Maybe a

A 30 lbs / 15 ft glider can probably cause very serious injury when landed on a highway. Any propeller plane / fast glider can cause death in a crowd. Maybe a model airplane can cause a real plane to crash. A firearm can probably do some serious damage to a flying plane too. But... is it likely? does it happen? often? When so-called risks are not measured, they're often mentioned to justify blind repression. In the startup world, it's commonsense to measure things before taking action. It should inspire politics. BTW, I recently saw a video titled "a drone almost crashed into an airplane" (or another catchy headline). Judging by the video, the distance between the two was at least 100 to 300 yards...

ceejayoz 12y ago
That's not a catchy headline, that's accurate per the FAA: > A near midair collision is defined as an incident associated with the operation of an aircraft in which a possibility of collision occurs as a result of proximity of less than 500 feet to another aircraft, or a report is received from a pilot or a flight crew member stating that a collision hazard existed between two or more aircraft. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/aim0706.html https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/aim0... At 200 mph, a distance of 100 yards is closed in about a second.
- VLM 12y ago
  The direction of the velocity vectors matter a bit. You mean the min impact time is about a second. Obviously impact time is infinite if the paths don't converge.
zzzeek 12y ago
are you suggesting that shooting guns at planes should have been entirely legal until a "measurement study" were run that could confirm in fact that harm could be done? E.g. to prove that the bullet could in fact pierce the window of a plane 20 feet off the ground and kill a passenger, for example. Well we haven't tried yet, how can we know such harm is even possible? Or how likely is it that shooting a gun at a plane will actually kill one of the passengers in the plane, or blow out the engine and cause a crash, perhaps it's just so rare? Therefore it should be legal! Else repression! seriously?
- shkkmo 12y ago
  Shooting a guns at a plane (even shooting a laser pointer at a plane) is illegal already. The correct analogy would be: making firing a gun within 5 miles of an airport illegal because shooting a gun at a plane could cause harm.

ceejayoz 12y ago

That's not a catchy headline, that's accurate per the FAA: > A near midair collision is defined as an incident associated with the operation of an aircraft in which a possibility of collision occurs as a result of proximity of less than 500 feet to another aircraft, or a report is received from a pilot or a flight crew member stating that a collision hazard existed between two or more aircraft. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/aim0706.html https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/aim0... At 200 mph, a distance of 100 yards is closed in about a second.

VLM 12y ago
The direction of the velocity vectors matter a bit. You mean the min impact time is about a second. Obviously impact time is infinite if the paths don't converge.

zzzeek 12y ago

are you suggesting that shooting guns at planes should have been entirely legal until a "measurement study" were run that could confirm in fact that harm could be done? E.g. to prove that the bullet could in fact pierce the window of a plane 20 feet off the ground and kill a passenger, for example. Well we haven't tried yet, how can we know such harm is even possible? Or how likely is it that shooting a gun at a plane will actually kill one of the passengers in the plane, or blow out the engine and cause a crash, perhaps it's just so rare? Therefore it should be legal! Else repression! seriously?

shkkmo 12y ago
Shooting a guns at a plane (even shooting a laser pointer at a plane) is illegal already. The correct analogy would be: making firing a gun within 5 miles of an airport illegal because shooting a gun at a plane could cause harm.