Vocal Voices

Another reported today.

The number of these has become frightening. There were 29 last year, but 56 up to October this year. That comes to 85 potential disasters! There could be more. These are daylight sightings, nobody knows how many went unseen at night.

Under normal circumstances a "near miss" is defined as a separation under 500 feet/150m. Aircraft are fitted with a warning system, TCAS, to avoid "near misses", drones do not so cannot comply with TCAS. Drone "near misses" are line-of-sight. Some have been reported as being as close as 3m and some at heights of 3000m! The vast majority are reported on the final approach to an airport.

A big problem for the authorities is who is flying these things. Are they aviation-naive amateurs who made mistakes or are they something else?

Well it is a big problem. But, in the end, what will be the result of a collision with a plastic drone and a battery?

Yes it might hit something like the pilot's screen. If it hits the engine it's going to be eaten and spat out the other side as smoke. Unlikely to really damage the engine beyond an emergency landing.

Yep, it's a nuisance. But, in the end what is the risk profile?

I do take the point about who though. At 3,000m you can't see the drone. However you can see what the drone see's if it's carrying a camera and a wifi transmitter. A bomb would be a bit more worrying.

However I'm wondering if there is any evidence of a bomb??

Or is the operative word "yet".

When I was in the RAF, we had birds in the engines of jets, some of which did a lot of damage.
So a drone could have similar effect.
Should be banned from within five miles of an airfield. But would be difficult to police.
Something serious is going to happen.Hope I am not on the plane.

As Cruiser says, airfields spend a lot of time and money scaring away pigeons, gulls and other birds precisely because of the damage they can do to a plane taking off or landing. A drone would be just as bad. At one RAF station I was at we had a falcon and at another we played bird distress calls. The best was a set of strategically positioned air blowers with scarecrow type things, a bit like those blow-up figures seen outside garages.

Approach speeds are typically 220-260km/h so it would be very difficult to position commercially available drones in a direct line and at the same height as an approaching aircraft. For those reasons I suspect that most of the "near misses" are either drone pilots who do not know what they are doing or drone pilots pushing the limits, but not all.

Suff wrote:However I'm wondering if there is any evidence of a bomb??

Or is the operative word "yet".

I believe it is.