Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin3977
Hi guys,
I am an airplane enthusiast as well as a 107 licensed drone pilot. I fly responsibly and by the FAA rules and use common sense. I realize that a lot of you have concerns on the safety over drones and how they are being used . The latest Rash of drones shutting down airports has me concerned and really questioning the validity of all the claims and if there isn’t some sort of hidden agenda. Also what more of a perfect way to get something eliminated then to claim seeing a threat and shutting down an airport. As with most of the sightings, nothing has been proven nor no evidence other than hearsay. All this paranoia over drones need to be stopped and the fact that when a pilot sees something floating in the air ,now it’s automatically a drone, for instance the last sighting over Teterburo, seeing two drones at 3500ft 30 ft off the wing?? Come on guys, let’s get real. This blame drones has gotten out of hand. All it takes is one person to say it looked like a drone , induce paranoia and shut down an airport. But yet it’s amazing that no proof ever comes to light, just hearsay.
Pilots have better things to do than file drone reports if they don't have to. This is a real threat, when you look at the number of sightings, substantiated sightings, and impacts, this is actually happening. You can also plot out a catastrophic/critical situation from those data, looking at probabilities of occurrences (like mid-air collisions between aircraft).
It used to be that putting together a model airplane and learning to fly it was a big barrier that ensured only fairly responsible people operated them. One time, I found one in my traffic pattern at my altitude, just off my wing, but the frequency of those kinds of occurrences were exceptionally rare. Now, the economy of scale and technology allows anyone to go buy and fly, very few controls (like some other industries these days, but I digress). I have talked to pilots that have had encounters and I have no reason to dispute them. The evidence may be hard to get, as it would require radar, some way to pinpoint origin sites, video surveillance, etc., but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
I've done outreach on this myself, to UAS pilots. I've also found situations where they were being operated unsafely, such as over people, in the vicinity of airports, etc.
It's similar to the laser pointer issue. It's a real problem. There aren't enough barriers anymore to keep irresponsible people from gaining this technology. The best thing you can do is advocate within your community, report those that are using them against the rules, outreach to commercial pilots and airports, etc. It is clear to most pilots that if better barriers aren't enacted, there will eventually be a critical event where one goes into an engine, structurally compromises an aircraft, etc. That's just a matter of time given the data that already exists.