Drone Crashes

RC aircraft have been flying for years, with accidents. They have been flown mostly by responsible educated operators. The increased technology on "personal" drones to fly basically unaided, just go there! Increases the risk to joe citizen. Liability concerns will follow, you can't squeeze bold from a turnip.

Commercial operation exposes a business to liability risks and that business should incorporate fail safe technology to safely land a drone of a control link is lost.

Military drones range from hand launched Raven to full scale, predator, reaper and Global Hawk. Yes they do crash, just as manned aircraft have. Military incorporates many fail safe procedures and pre launch inspections and in flight monitor of aircraft systems.

Most commercial applications with drones should be low altitude and within line of sight of the operator. Extend out to FPV and you are extending the reach of radio frequency and susceptibility to jamming or interference.

Flying a drone above apx 500ft AGL , or within airport traffic areas, requires The same "see and avoid" capability that GA requires. This will be hard to accomplish without everyone on an ADSB type system with a recieve and display capability, not just ADSB-out.
 
I was flying around Palmdale today (near Edwards Air Force Base) when Joshua appch advised me of a drone with chase Cessna 210 at my 10 o'clock. Sure enough, there to my left was a drone being shadowed by a 210. Quite an awesome sight! Heard the F18's were out also. Sadly, (or thankfully) they wanted nothing to do with me and my 172.
 
It's a complicated situation. More people want to fly drones. Many are flown in safe places, like an RC club located between a farm and the city dump, near the town where I live. Some aren't, and they can pose a safety hazard.

The FAA wants to regulate them, but that isn't expected until late 2015, at the earliest, according to the WSJ.
 
Development of personal drones is outpacing regulation. Aircraft operators have to fly to the regs. Private drone owners have no responsibility . If they do damage they just walk away.
 
I think all you have to do is browse YouTube and you'll see that the drone thing is already completely out of hand. It's only a matter of time before someone takes a two kilo flying GoPro through the windshield.
 
Silvaire said:
I think all you have to do is browse YouTube and you'll see that the drone thing is already completely out of hand. It's only a matter of time before someone takes a two kilo flying GoPro through the windshield.
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They are flying them around here up into the cloud bases at 3000' agl. They think it is so cool. Yes, it is. That is why I fly full scale now too and keep my rc below 400'.
 
I still am curious as to when we switched from calling these "R/C" or "remote-controlled" planes to drones. I guess 'drone' sounds scarier.
 
Timmer said:
I still am curious as to when we switched from calling these "R/C" or "remote-controlled" planes to drones. I guess 'drone' sounds scarier.
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"Drone" includes both remotely manually controlled as autonomous pre-programmed flight plan UAV's.
 
Timmer said:
I still am curious as to when we switched from calling these "R/C" or "remote-controlled" planes to drones. I guess 'drone' sounds scarier.
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The official term these days is UAS or Unmanned Aerial System.

Until they need another fancy name .
 
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