The unconfirmed report is that a “company survey” aircraft impacted a small UAS at 2,500 feet near Lewis University (KLOT) on August 27, 2015 causing damage to the leading edge of the manned aircraft wing.
More as we get it but this is what we know
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My 2 cents:
1. The damage on the left tail wing is right behind the left motor/propeller. Any object that would have hit it would have most likely gone through the props which would have taken the brunt of the damage.
2. Can't be a bird since that would have left biological material.
3. They would get an idea of what it could have been by looking at the damaged area for material.
4. If its a UAS, it would most likely be a fixed wing on FPV or fixed wing in Auto mode.
5. Minimum altitude an aircraft is supposed to maintain in cruise is 3000ft AGL (I have a PPT). So this happened either in takeoff or landing unless he was low for some other reason.
If it was a UAS, so be it. Nothing can be said except that that UAS pilot should have been more prudent (unless it was a runaway) and its a sad precident (would have happened sooner or later)
Also Gary's point about the difference between MIL UAVs usage and civilian UAVs usage makes sense
But I strongly recent the fact that it is being claimed as a UAS hit when no one knows what hit the aircraft and is also so mentioned in the report.
Interesting that there are two distinct damage areas probably about 150-200mm apart and one less than another. I don't know what this might imply of the object that hit it, but I would suggest that whatever it hit needs at least two concentrated mass points with one being substantially larger than another. Not very conclusive, I know...
Also, the airflow circulation around the fuselage is pretty non-intuitive, so that it hit only the HS is not very meaningful. With prop wash and wing downwash and tailplane interaction, the chances of something being "sucked" into the path of the HS whilst avoiding everything else is quite some distance from non-zero, I would suggest.
Its hard to tell what really struck that leading edge, but it would be interesting to know though.
Gary,
FPV + twenty something = lets try it, trust me I know some local flyers that have done it. I've also raise three boys and have seen things they and their friends have gotten up to. When I was young Evil Knievel was bad ass, now kids do things that would make him cringe.
We are talking one possible drone strike and all of a sudden it is impossible, no the odds are against it, but that means it is possible. This may not occur for another 20 years now for all we know. Also remember birds have a built in collision avoidance system and I'm sure if you have ever driven a car you'll have seen it in action.
I close my comments on this by saying if the odds were 1:10^100000000000000000000000000000000 this may have been the one.
Hi Greg,
I had hoped to drop this, but what you are saying is nonsense, a Phantom basically disappears somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet and if they can't see it they can't control it, most of them do not really want to lose sight of their $500.00 + Phantom investment and the little lightweight much less dangerous toys disappear a lot closer than that.
You can fly over any city you wan't right now and you are not going to see "drones" popping up over a thousand feet anywhere.
and that goes for 1850 feet as well although they have still not clarified AGL or ASL.
As I said the problem was not whether the "drone" was physically capable of reaching those altitudes, it is just the severe problem with them being totally not line of sight or visible.
The exception is the guys who fly their AMA RC gliders who are trying to get high enough to find the right thermals and they are almost always over their RC clubs field.
In the future when the FAA permits flight above 400 feet, they will only do it under very controlled circumstances and in the meantime the problem for manned pilots flying above 1000 feet just doesn't exist. (And the only place manned pilots are ever allowed to be under 1000 feet is on approach to or taking off from an airport or over uninhabited areas (which are 500 feet AGL minimum).
Frankly the only way we are likely to see a collision at these claimed high altitudes is when one of the pilots opens his window in flight and throws a Phantom out of it so it will hit the tail - Hmm!
If the infinite numbers of drones thing was working here, there would be several thousand times more bird strikes than their are.
Yes Hal if you look at the chart the accident happened at about 1850' AGL since aircraft reference ASL and the ground looks to be about 650 ASL.
Problem is drones are mainly concentrated around populated areas, low level manned flight mainly occurs around populated areas. The uneducated drone flyer is exactly the guy that will try to go higher and farther soon as they get bored. They will mainly get away with it because odds are in their favor.
This whole bored scenario is why it is in the best interest of commercial operators to play safe and when approached by the curious promote the hobby of FPV racing. Explain the aerobatic and speed elements, seal it with mentioning the leagues and the million dollar investment from the owner of the Miami Dolphins. So many people grew up with first person shooter games and FPV racing is a perfect adrenaline rush for them.
We can make the skies safer by telling people how boring our toys are :-)
Hi all,
Greg, military drones in military circumstances are kind of the exact opposite of the circumstance we have here, they are in fact often pursuing or being pursued by manned aircraft, collisions are bound to occur.
So, all bets are off for military drones.
But civilian and far more likely hobby "drones" are another matter entirely, presuming (reasonably) that they aren't purposely targeting an aircraft and noting that the current and widely accepted upper altitude limit and FAA rule is 400 feet, at any given moment the number of civilian drones in the entire US airspace at or above 2500 feet AGL is most likely zero.
Probably on a daily basis 1 might illegally impinge on 2500 feet from error, mechanical failure or just plain stupidity and I think that is a generous estimate at that.
Also its latency at or above that altitude is most likely to average less than 5 minutes.
Reasonably you could extrapolate that under current circumstances extended over several thousand years you might expect maybe 1 drone strike or close contact with a manned aircraft.
When you are talking about manned aircraft, of course the odds are much much better, their are a lot of them and they are all flying at the same altitude and most of them are VFR without flight plans and they have really big blind spots in 3 dimensions.
It is only due to the relatively high competence and vigilance of your average private pilot that a lot more in air mishaps don't occur.
But at present at least, this represents exactly the opposite of the situation with "drones" civilian or hobby ones at least.
At first, a few stupid people flew their multicopters near airports to take pictures of the planes and because it seemed cool to do so.
But even there the sightings were often reported at extremely high altitudes (2500 up to 15,000 feet), either most those really were military drones or they were true UFO, because nobody is flying that high, yet anyway.
I am afraid the drone has become the new UFO and is lumped into an explanation for occurrences that are not understood or as an excuse for some that are.
Don't get me wrong, there is a real danger, but that is going to be from people deliberately trying to do this, not us and not even the uninformed and uneducated Walmart Phantom buyer.
And that last sentence is what we and the FAA and HS really will end up needing to worry about.
Best,
Gary
It's all about the boredom factor: "Okay I've taken some photos now what can I do?"
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