Lufthansa / drone near miss in Poland

PukkaStukka

Just saw this on RTE News Website....:eek:

http://www.rte.ie/news/world/2015/0721/716236-lufthansa-drone/

KoolKid

I hear there is software and a system being designed that will prevent all drones entering any controlled airspace.

The One Doctor

KoolKid wrote: »

I hear there is software and a system being designed that will prevent all drones entering any controlled airspace.

Not possible unfortunately. Most drones don't use GPS (mine certainly doesn't). Even if such a system was designed it would be an optional extra that most people wouldn't buy.

In my case, I know where my local airport is and I stay away from it. I don't want my plane sucked into a jet engine. It'd ruin the paintjob I spent ages on.

fr336

The One Doctor wrote: »

Not possible unfortunately. Most drones don't use GPS (mine certainly doesn't). Even if such a system was designed it would be an optional extra that most people wouldn't buy.

Maybe our beloved governments and corporations should have thought of all this before the genie was out of the bottle....oh wait profit....

KoolKid

From what I hear its going to end up being something that will be built into all drones as some form of legal requirement or licencing etc.
I have it from a large company over here who are going to be trailing some drones for their own use shortly.

Cookiemunster

KoolKid wrote: »

From what I hear its going to end up being something that will be built into all drones as some form of legal requirement or licencing etc.
I have it from a large company over here who are going to be trailing some drones for their own use shortly.

All software is crackable. Just because something is programmed not to go somewhere doesn't mean it won't go there.

SpaceTime

fr336 wrote: »

Maybe our beloved governments and corporations should have thought of all this before the genie was out of the bottle....oh wait profit....

The genie came out of the bottle when the tech became cheap enough, especially light, high definition digital cameras.

There is almost an inevitability that there is going to be an airliner taken down by one of these things.

I really don't think it's being taken nearly seriously enough.

shedweller

The drone manufacturers could lose a lot of money if their products get heavily regulated.
No doubt they are bending the ear off various high power people over their caviar to ensure they dont get regulated out of existence. Drones are a high growth area and rest assured there are many investors heavily, err, invested in drone manufacturers. As we've seen with the global bailout, shareholders come first. On balance, peoples lives are at stake here.
Interesting to see how this pans out.

fr336

shedweller wrote: »

The drone manufacturers could lose a lot of money if their products get heavily regulated.
No doubt they are bending the ear off various high power people over their caviar to ensure they dont get regulated out of existence. Drones are a high growth area and rest assured there are many investors heavily, err, invested in drone manufacturers. As we've seen with the global bailout, shareholders come first. On balance, peoples lives are at stake here.
Interesting to see how this pans out.

Can they not make enough profits on these things without endangering airport approach paths?

Gatling

fr336 wrote: »

Can they not make enough profits on these things without endangering airport approach paths?

It's not the drone but the drone operators that's causing the problem .
No amount of software can fix poorly trained people buying and flying one.
Sure you can build your own without the need for manufacturing software

shedweller

I work for a multinational (as do a lot of people!) and i know that profit comes first. Now its one thing to let go x number of people but that gets little or no air time. But if a drone takes down an airliner....airtime city!
Thats why i said it will be interesting to see the outcome of this. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in those boardrooms now. Most of it would go over my head as my eyes glaze over, but still!

shedweller

Gatling wrote: »

It's not the drone but the drone operators that's causing the problem .
No amount of software can fix poorly trained people buying and flying one.
Sure you can build your own without the need for manufacturing software

Very true. Its funny how no rc planes ever caused this problem. I suppose the kind of person that would buy an rc plane (worth talking about!) would have a good understanding of the implications of where he/she flew it.
But these drones / multicopters are drawing in all kinds of people. Some of which have a very poor understanding of the results of flying something in front of a goddamn airliner ffs!!

arubex

Pendantically, at this point we don't even know it was a drone. Lufthansa's official statement was that it was a 'black object' and a subsequent police search produced no results.

Anyway, it was 5 km from the airport. To me that seems a reasonable distance for someone to be conducting their hobby. But the airports and airlines have money and lawyers, so they can lobby for unreasonable restraints on the commoners ( instead of buying additional land around the airport, or certifying aircraft for steeper approches ).

Recent examples are Southend and Norwich airports in England, which recently had CTRs awarded by the CAA which extend from surface to 5,000 ft. So now people who live in that area cannot fly drones? Unreasaonble, but in today's world the corporations always win.

SpaceTime

The issue is that drones are going to proliferate.

Remote Control Aircraft were just used for flying around and were / are mostly used by serious hobbyists. They were also a substantial investment you wouldn't want to crash or lose.

Drones are a different ballgame. They're mostly about photography and videography which brings in a whole new range of interests and a much broader market, especially now that people want to shoot images of everything and post them online.

There's nothing wrong with that but it has brought RTA to a mass market all of a sudden

The other aspect is they aren't that expensive. They has two impacts:

1. Broadens the market

2. Stops people worrying about losing a drone. If they're only a relatively small outlay and you crash one... Big deal!

That'll lead to a lot more risky behaviour than you'd get with a RTA operator or a professional / serious amateur photographers/ videographer with expensive gear.

You've also got the risk of someone using these things to attempt to disrupt an airport either out of sheer vandalism like some of the laser pointer stuff or, with more malicious motives.

Then add the risk of lots and lots of drones in the air (very possible soon) and you'll have a risk of errors and malfunctions that could easily see a large drone crossing a flight path.

I mean you've got package delivery companies thinking about using them for depot to home deliveries flying automatically...

You don't really want a drone and Internet shopping going through a turbofan engine on take off. A bird is at least rather squishy and usually doesn't contain metal components not is it likely to be flammable.

(Birds can contain stones though as they use them instead of teeth to grind food & for ballast).

All I'm saying is regulation is undoubtedly going to be needed.

fr336

Counter-terror chiefs fear Islamist fanatics plan to launch deadly bomb attacks on the UK’s streets using unmanned toy drones.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-planning-use-toy-helicopters-6119888

the_monkey

They need to introduce some laws on it, amount of idiots with drones these days ..

my friend

Further developments with civilian drones...

http://mobile.extremetech.com/latest/223564-faa-is-investigating-youtube-video-of-a-drone-firing-a-handgun?origref=

This is why we can't have nice things..

SpaceTime

my friend wrote: »

Further developments with civilian drones...

http://mobile.extremetech.com/latest/223564-faa-is-investigating-youtube-video-of-a-drone-firing-a-handgun?origref=

This is why we can't have nice things..

That's really not good, but it's inevitable, especially in countries with very liberal gun laws.

fr336

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's really not good, but it's inevitable, especially in countries with very liberal gun laws.

The big businesses and governments have the best minds in the world among them - why do they release such potential dangers into society? Profit profit profit, uncaring mindless profit. Oh it's the people who do the damage's fault isn't it, yes, but as a society we collectively need to take responsibility so that people's lives aren't either harmed or even ended just so we can go "Well it wasn't the company's fault...it was that guy who did it". Doesn't bring people back from the dead does it. Still it's like a lot of things we don't NEED drones at all, the costs outweigh the benefits, not least putting more people out of jobs. But hey, profit.

shedweller

fr336 wrote: »

The big businesses and governments have the best minds in the world among them - why do they release such potential dangers into society? Profit profit profit, uncaring mindless profit. Oh it's the people who do the damage's fault isn't it, yes, but as a society we collectively need to take responsibility so that people's lives aren't either harmed or even ended just so we can go "Well it wasn't the company's fault...it was that guy who did it". Doesn't bring people back from the dead does it. Still it's like a lot of things we don't NEED drones at all, the costs outweigh the benefits, not least putting more people out of jobs. But hey, profit.

Like i said above, theres a boardroom somewhere with the ceo of an airline and the ceo of a major drone (and a million other things eh?) manufacturer having a major argument over who loses the money. Maybe they agree to both lose some? Maybe one has dirt over the other? Who knows?
Interesting to see how this pans out!

fr336

shedweller wrote: »

Like i said above, theres a boardroom somewhere with the ceo of an airline and the ceo of a major drone (and a million other things eh?) manufacturer having a major argument over who loses the money. Maybe they agree to both lose some? Maybe one has dirt over the other? Who knows?
Interesting to see how this pans out!

Ooh you cynic :pac:

shedweller

Money comes first with these lads. Safety only comes second because they'll lose money if they do things unsafely!

SpaceTime

Oddly enough, I doubt there are many established vested interests making drones. They're mostly made by small, relatively unheard of startups and put together in China.

The big money to lose would be where there's an accident and airlines end up being sued / losing reputation and passengers.

To me this looks like one of those issues where the technological developments have been much faster than the ability for governments and regulation agencies to deal with them.

bkehoe

arubex wrote: »

Pendantically, at this point we don't even know it was a drone. Lufthansa's official statement was that it was a 'black object' and a subsequent police search produced no results.

The Polish police arrested the drone operator and he could face 8 years in jail.

CardinalJ

Airlines/airports bring multiples more money to governments to than drones ever will. I think people suggesting that drone companies profits/tax to the gov will ever supercede how governments view the airline industry are way way off.

SpaceTime

bkehoe wrote: »

The Polish police arrested the drone operator and he could face 8 years in jail.

That's sort of too harsh.

Why can't judicial systems ever strike a balance like taking his drone, giving him a serious talking to about aiviation safety, making him do some kind of training in safe drone operation and then if he does it again, maybe throw the book at him.

A lot of people are just ignorant of the risks involved.