Another Drone Close Call

Juliet Hotel said:
How so? If I'm standing on the beach and watching my drone which is over the water directly in front of me, I would need to turn my head to see approaching the helicopter 2 miles down the beach. Once I turn my head, I can no longer see my drone. I can see one or the other but not both at the same time. Therefore it would be extremely difficult to gauge which action if any I'd need to take to avoid the approaching craft. The issue gets even worse if I'm not standing directly in front of the drone but instead standing somewhere south of the drone. At that point I'd have to look behind me to see the approaching craft. Again, no way to see both the drone and approaching craft at the same time. If you can't see them both at the same time, its difficult to know which way to move so as to be out of their path. You can guess. But you if guess you can guess wrong and make what was a close call into something worse. Standing further North up the beach would have been a better vantage point to see the relative of both at the same time. Unless and until something approaches from the North.

Never said the helicopter shouldn't be there. Never even implied that. Being where he was and going the speed he was going was a poor choice in my opinion. Flying slower if you're gong to be down that low is a better choice in my opinion.

But you don't need to take my opinion for it, you can use the opinion of the USAF instead. When I was a kid they had published low altitude training route that ran along the shoreline of the bay near my house. They would routinely fly down low, in tight and fast as all get out down the beach along this route. That particular route put them more or less smack dab in the same position that the banner planes tended to fly. They knew this but choose to do it anyway. What could possibly go wrong right? One day they found out what could go wrong when one of their jets flew right up the tail of a banner plane. The USAF guy bailed and survived IIRC, the banner pilot did not have that option and died. Never knew what hit him. The AF realized the risk they were taking by flying at the altitude they were and position relative to the beach they were and the speed they were and as result they moved the published training route a little further out over the water. There's being right and there's being safe. Sometimes its better to be safe than right.
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I fly electric jets at an airport that go way higher and faster than the DJ and I can give way to manned aircraft quite easily. Besides, I’m not sure what your argument is over the right of way rules. Are you saying that UAS pilot’s are physically incapable of giving way to manned aircraft? If so, then they either need to get their hearing & eyesight checked or like I said, get out of the hobby completely. Better yet, comply with the rules on FPV and have an observer.

You seem to be contradicting yourself on the helicopter “shouldn’t be there.” You said “If he's going to fly that speed, he should be 100' higher (or lower) and 200' further out over the water IMO.” So should he be there or not???? If he should and legally can, then there’s no argument. Also, you said “Unlike drones, its also perfectly legal for the helicopter to fly 150ft higher.” No, drones can legally fly higher than that as I already pointed out. Unless the operator is operating under Part 107 (doubtful) there is no 400 ft rule for UAS.

Listen, we can go back and forth all day on what we consider to be safe operating practices, this situation is cut and dry. The rules say that the UAS has to give way to manned aircraft. Only argument at this point is, what is considered “giving way.” Everything else about what the helicopter should do is just fluff.
 
steingar said:
How much heavier are these drones than a bird? Flying craft have been hitting birds since to dawn of flying craft. I bet the first bird strike happened to Lilienthal.
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It's the closing speed that will amplify the damage. 100 kts. into a 1 kg. drone will at the very least leave a mark. At 1,000 kts., a one-gram item will leave an even bigger mark.
 
Velocity173 said:
You seem to be contradicting yourself on the helicopter “shouldn’t be there.” You said “If he's going to fly that speed, he should be 100' higher (or lower) and 200' further out over the water IMO.” So should he be there or not???? If he should and legally can, then there’s no argument. Also, you said “Unlike drones, its also perfectly legal for the helicopter to fly 150ft higher.” No, drones can legally fly higher than that as I already pointed out. Unless the operator is operating under Part 107 (doubtful) there is no 400 ft rule for UAS.
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I think I was very clear on it. Being right is not always the same thing as being safe. Where I grew up there are miles of back bays and marsh land between the barrier islands and main land. I can legally go down to 5' off the deck and drag the wheels through the grass tips at 150kts if I wanted to. Doesn't mean its smart, just means its legal.

I've already stated this clearly but since you seem to be struggling with it lets state it again. It is perfectly legal for the helicopter to be flying where he was and as he was. And in my personal opinion and my opinion only its also perfectly stupid. I spent a lot of time working in those sorts of places at those sorts of altitudes and I would not fly that altitude in that place at that speed. If he slowed it down he'd be making a better choice in my opinion. Clear enough now?

You don't have to agree with me and you obviously don't. Well all get to decide for ourselves what we think is safe and what we think is stupid. I personally wouldn't have been doing what that helicopter was doing. Your mileage may vary.
 
There's really no point in trying to assign blame here. If the drone pilot had the responsibility of yielding right of way then technically he did that by staying where he was. There is however one possible violation - look at the video, see the cars on the road? Can you see the license plates on any of the cars? Can you even tell what kind of car any of them are? The DJI Mavic is about the size of a license plate and there is no way the operator could see it. The question is, what is VLOS? There are no obstructions between the operator and the drone but I have a Mavic and it's tiny. I don't care how good your eyesight is, you're not going to be able to see it from that distance. This is something the drone people are constantly talking about, it doesn't take long before you lose sight of your Mavic, you are mostly relying on the FPV on your phone or iPad to determine where it is and how to get it back without pressing the return to home panic button.
 
It appears that the helicopter was just a few (10? Less?) feet under the drone, yet the drone never even bobbled after it went under. Are drones that good a t stations keeping in unstable air? The air above a helicopter is also disturbed quite a bit by how much air they move downward to support the aircraft. Just wondering how that works? (My primary instructor warned me about flying above helicopters even a few hundred feet because they disturb the air... was he wrong?)
 
jsstevens said:
It appears that the helicopter was just a few (10? Less?) feet under the drone, yet the drone never even bobbled after it went under. Are drones that good a t stations keeping in unstable air? The air above a helicopter is also disturbed quite a bit by how much air they move downward to support the aircraft. Just wondering how that works? (My primary instructor warned me about flying above helicopters even a few hundred feet because they disturb the air... was he wrong?)
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My Phantom 4 will hold a spot well up to maybe 25 mph of wind.

That being said, they have camera gimbals that work very well. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a video shot from a drone that was staying still and one yanking the stick back and forth in crazy directions at max rate. The camera stays very level. About all I can say is that the drone didn't flip over, and from how far away the reference points are (the beach, the buildings, etc) it would be hard to tell changes in flight.
 
jsstevens said:
It appears that the helicopter was just a few (10? Less?) feet under the drone, yet the drone never even bobbled after it went under. Are drones that good a t stations keeping in unstable air? The air above a helicopter is also disturbed quite a bit by how much air they move downward to support the aircraft. Just wondering how that works? (My primary instructor warned me about flying above helicopters even a few hundred feet because they disturb the air... was he wrong?)
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Airflow during a hover vs forward flight, are vastly different and effect power required greatly.

During a hover, there’s an incredible amount of induced flow being pulling down through the rotor. Same as there is an incredible amount of downward rotor wash at a hover. Once the helicopter transitions forward through effective translational lift (16-24 kts ish), both of those are greatly reduced. If you ever seen a helicopter hovering over water, you’ll see a tremendous amount of water spray but yet one at high speed creates very little disturbance below it. Same reason why we shoot for a landing in the desert above ETL to try and minimize down wash.

Also in the vid there could an off shore breeze taking the 407’s disturbance towards land.

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The camera gimbals on these things are incredible I've watched mine making constant corrections in gusty winds yet the video is rock solid.
 
So, if the drone is required to "give way to the manned aircraft", how far is "way"? 10 meters? 100?
 
Kenny Phillips said:
So, if the drone is required to "give way to the manned aircraft", how far is "way"? 10 meters? 100?
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And that’s what I’ve been saying every time with these drone stories. What is exactly the criteria. Why I might consider a near miss could be completely off the wall for another pilot. I suppose you could use 500 ft but even that’s subjective. In this particular case, based on the fact it surprised the drone operator and it appears to be about 10-20 ft away, I think it’s safe to call it a near miss and not giving way to the helicopter. Definitely a violation of AMA guidelines if this operator happens to be a member.

There’s an FAA interpretation somewhere about operating recreational drones within 5 miles of an airport. In it, they say if a pilot in the downwind looks down and sees a drone over the approach end, if that pilot has to extend his downwind, the drone pilot is in violation of right away rules. I’ll have to dig up that document later.
 
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[Yielding the right of way means that the small unmanned aircraft must give way to the aircraft or vehicle and may not pass over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear.]

The UAS here did not pass over, under, or ahead of the helicopter. The helicopter passed under it. The helicopter pilot is not relieved of his responsibility to see and avoid just because the other aircraft is a UAS.
 
Lindberg said:
...The helicopter pilot is not relieved of his responsibility to see and avoid just because the other aircraft is a UAS.
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And the size of a cellphone? Let’s not leave that part out. The helicopter pilot wasn’t doing anything wrong and I can tell you for certain the drone pilot did not have his craft in sight, he was looking at his screen.
 
Silvaire said:
And the size of a cellphone? Let’s not leave that part out. The helicopter pilot wasn’t doing anything wrong and I can tell you for certain the drone pilot did not have his craft in sight, he was looking at his screen.
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And basically flat from the side...
 
ktup-flyer said:
CGI. I'm in the FB group he originally posted it in
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Well he did a good job then. A strange coincidence also since the aircraft I posted has the exact same paint job, is based right down the road in Hollywood and it flew along that beach a week ago.
 
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