After spending time today watching amateur drone videos on YouTube, I got to thinking (and I probably shouldn't be doing that). One of these amateurs admitted to flying his drone above 4000 feet! These drones are getting bigger/heavier and can contain multiple high-definition cameras, gimbal stabilization equipment, and radio equipment.

The military already has had mid-air collisions between UAVs and fixed-wing aircraft -- luckily the fixed-wing aircraft survived the encounter (just barely I might add).

Do you think these amateur drones pose a significant risk to civil and commercial air traffic?

Discuss...

Survived? Not the story I heard. I was told in confidence, so I won't reveal my source, but yeah, totally fatal, military came in with cleanup team within minutes, hauled away all the evidence, paid off surviving family members for their silence, nothing to see here, move along. Very scary stuff.

Significant risk? Right now, probably no more than geese. But by 2014? Oh yes, bigtime.

AOPA has an air safety online course that paints a very rosy "nothing can go wrong" picture of UAVs. I don't know why - this makes no sense to me.

Too many of these critters go off link. ASRS Callback today was about exactly such things.

That UAVs supposedly stay VFR is nice, if true, but I've yet to see the flight simulator with definition to match looking out a real window for bogies at 2-3 miles, and I suspect the remote pilot's monitors are merely comparable to the best simulators.

Anyone else notice that ground observers have to have a 2nd class medical? This strikes me as typical government overkill.

I guess we'll have to use the tried and true method of letting body counts determine policy only after [more] people die.

I am reminded of an event couple of decades ago when I was wearing fatigues for a living. On our Sheridan Tank (Official name: M-551 Armored Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault Vehicle) we were able to fire MGM-51 Shillelagh Wire Guided Missiles.

Once while on the range we fired one of these puppies off, but then fifty yards out of the gun it pulled a ACME/Wile E. Coyote left turn and seemed to zero in on a -fortunately unoccupied- hillside Outpost about five clicks away which Forward Observers would use to spot for the Field Artillery guys.

Not the event, just an example.

UAVs are an unfortunate inevitability. Their inability to truly "see and avoid" is what is keeping them in restricted airspace while CONUS. Of course nextgen and ADSB are supposed to fix the "see and avoid" issue along with companies developing small on board radar. The requirement for visual observers was originally a 3rd class medical but when the time frames changed for how long the medicals were good for they had to go to a 2nd class medical. The medical is merely for the vision test. The FAA was not kosher with a person going 5 years between tests. Along with the restricted airspace UAVs must operate under an FAA COA which governs their conditions of operations.

Privately operated UAVs that are not operating under the FAAs oversight or approval I believe are a serious safety hazard. Fortunately at this point they are relatively small.

The problem I foresee is the military attempting to use semi-autonomous UAVs and have operators controlling them in the NAS without training them to at least private pilot standards. Bringing chaos to a structured system. Nextgen and ADSB can't help someone who doesn't know how to help themselves. That's just my $.02.

Well at one point we thought midairs wouldn't be possible. Until two planes collided. Then changes were made. Probably the FAA and public won't take uavs too seriously until there is a fatal accident.

I agree with that. Until one of them cause a catastrophic accident and human lives are lost the general public will want answers. At that point the FAA will be looked at and the leeway the UAV companies are given will amount to the lobbyist money they feed to the FAA.

As for the amateur UAV makers I believe anything that is intended to be flown above 400ft agl will actually require them to apply for a COA and a special airworthiness certificate. Not like that is easy to enforce or like the FAA ever would. Does anyone know of anyone making UAVs that can be operated outside of the typical ~two mile range? Or anyone that actually manufactures kits with that capability?

Confidential source. Paid off surviving family members. This is a pretty strong accusation, conspiratorial stuff. Any more details?

I'm not accusing any individual. It has been ten years (or maybe more. I didn't write anything down.) I figured if my source (Aeronautical PhD and test pilot) was correct, I probably would never hear anything more, and I never have. The only detail I vaguely remember that I haven't shared with you is that it was a Piper piston twin over a state on the East coast that is near or on the Mason-Dixon line.

I know. This sounds about as provable as the Russel's Teapot theory. I am not trying to prove anything. I am saying that, given the government's demonstrated ability to keep things secret (think Manhattan project), the story seems very plausible. Scary stuff if true. Scary stuff even if not true, because it could easily become true.

Most likely pure BS. The military does not have "cleanup teams" at least not in CONUS. On occasions where there is a need, they will assemble an "investigative team" including appropriately experienced officers, technical experts, and usually lawyers. But they are not standing by in hangars full of black helicopters

Also rank-and-file military personal do NOT have the discretion to write large compensation checks. There is a process for that, and if you want big money you have to sue. Why settle up for $50K when you can sue for millions? The process is actually streamlined overseas because we need to rapidly appease locals in the event of an accident involving US military forces, but that doesn't apply to US citizens and also doesn't involve very large paypouts.

I can almost guarantee you that any fatal accident involving innocent civilians and military UAVs would be world headlines. Drones just have that news-worthiness about them.

Actually, a few years ago we heard of a army helicopter (Kiowa, if I remember the unclass report correctly) that was clipped in the side by one the smaller Raven type of UAV's after the operator tried some evasive manuevers after a data link problem. Obviously, the Raven was destroyed and the side of the helicopter was dented pretty good as well. Thankfully, the stars, moon, and planets all where in alingment as if the helicopter or the Raven UAV were in any different position the outcome may have been quite different.