Drone smashes through helicopter's windscreen and injures passenger A drone crashed into the windscreen of a helicopter being flown at low altitude and injured a passenger aboard the aircraft. The Chilean Navy helicopter was reportedly being flown near the town of Santo Domingo, just south of Valparaiso in central Chile. Pictures published by a local news website over the weekend (en espanol …
I'm guessing that helicopter windscreens are not the most fragile of things, so I wonder what were the speeds of the drone and the helicopter?
The fact that the collision damaged the front windscreen of the helicopter would tend to suggest that maybe a fast helicopter flew into a slow/stationary drone.
Is this not the same as a bird strike?
A flying car is an aircraft that can also be driven on the road.
So a separate pilot's licence would be needed. And they are a bit more costly to get than a driving licence.
The reality is that flying cars are a way for a scamming company to raise money for "research", and one such company has made no progress for over 30 years, but probably doesn't want to, it just wants more investors. Although there are a few that are taking things seriously. But the product is usually priced out of most people's range, in the £200k + range. So it will only be really rich kids in daddy's expensive toy that you'd have to worry about. Not the local kids on cheap e-scooters.
"In some jurisdictions, including the EU, it is now mandatory for drones over 250g to have a registration number applied."
Pedant alert: you need to register a UA (in the UK, NL and other countries which have implemented the EASA regulations) if:
- its mass exceeds 250 g or
- it is fitted with a camera (mass irrelevant)
Source: http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP2008_EU_Drone_Rules_Factsheet_V7%206.pdf
I'm guessing that this is more privacy related than safety. They want to track who might be up there snapping pics over the neighbors' fences.
On the other hand, once the AI gets better, cameras might become a part of an autonomous drone's "see and be seen" collision avoidance system. So the advantages of having an unregistered but blind object flitting around in the airspace would be questionable.
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I think the wider issue is that there is so much stuff one ban buy off Amazon, Aliexpress and similar websites, all sent direct from China there is simply no hope of controlling this.
Drones, eScooters, hoverboards, CCTV the list is pretty much endless. All of this sent with a nominal value or as a gift so no VAT or customs charges are applied. There is simply no possibility of getting the tings registered. The people that do are unlikely to be the ones operating them dangerously.
We've moved on now. Apparently the helicopter windshield was old and degraded, or it might have been breaking the speed limit or something.
Still doesn't address the issue of what the drone was bloody doing in front of it in the first place.
Based on the photo of the downed drone, It's a DJI Mavic Air 2 at 570g. Last I checked Chile require a parachute for anything over 700g but didn't have much by way of registration. Looks very similar to a Mavic 2, but the Mavic 2 has an upwards facing distance sensor on the back.
Surprised at the level of damage to the windscreen, less so at the general standard of drone photography. The Ocusync 2.0 on these drones allows control far beyond visual line of site, and once you're beyond VLOS you're only going to see a very limited forward view and no ability to hear a heli, so could easily be taken out by a heli from any direction other than the front.
Gosh. I clicked the link thinking I was going to read about how some idiot near London airport managed to screw up royally, but no, the rot is extending its clutches to South America.
It seems that drones are indeed going to be the scourge of the skies. I see a heavily-regulated future for them.
Did the drone smash through the windscreen or did the helicopter fly into the drone?
If the drone was flying within the legally permitted altitude and area then it could be the helicopter pilot at fault.
What’s more the downdraft around the helicopter would have induced vertex ring state if it flew near a drone, causing the drone to fall out of the sky. The drone pilot may have been trying to avoid the helicopter, but lost control at the last moment.
If you've ever been pilot in command in the air you might realise how difficult it is to see any other aircraft - full size, let alone something the size of a drone. Jets have flown past and under paragliders and hang gliders without even seeing them; paragliders and hang gliders and sailplanes have all bumped into each other with varying degrees of survivability; you'd think something ten metres across and in fluorescent colours might be visible, but apparently not.
However, irrespective of who has right of way and who is where, it is the responsibility of *all* pilots to fly in such a way as to avoid a collision.
(I speculate that the limited field of view of a forward looking drone camera might have the same effect I get trying to play granddaughter's video games; even with large monitors I am disorientated by the wide angle view through a letterbox effect and cannot position myself in the field of play).
> If you've ever been pilot in command in the air you might realise how difficult it is to see any other
> aircraft - full size, let alone something the size of a drone. Jets have flown past and under paragliders
> and hang gliders without even seeing them
Yet somehow airline pilots seem to have no problem at all identifying the make and model of a drone some 500 metres away while travelling at 500 km/h.
People see what they want to see, particularly when they have jobs which are likely not to exist in the near future when machines fly the aeroplane instead of pilots.
The human visual system is highly optimised to spot objects that are moving against the background. If two objects are on a collision course the view of one from the other will be stationary against the background (draw it out on paper). Unless there is a significant acceleration by the object it is difficult to spot - hence the post traffic collision comment "sorry mate, I didn't see you."
"If the drone was flying within the legally permitted altitude and area then it could be the helicopter pilot at fault."
Not too sure if this is what has attracted the down votes, but that was also my initial thought - until there has been a proper investigation we don't know which pilot was at fault for failing to keep a look out and avoiding the collision.
Just because you're flying an A380 it doesn't automatically give you the right to land on top of the Cessna 150 in front of you that has already been cleared for landing.
The article states that the helicopter was flying low, and given the massive delta in flying speeds, this is got to be the helicopter flying into the drone...
I can't see how that was anybody but the helicopter pilots fault, as long as the drone was where it was supposed to be, and if it had been a kestrel or similar instead I'm not entirely sure the screen would have been much safer. Even a balloon of water at 100+knots is pretty solid.
However I don't know what the regulations are there, and technical info. about the flight are scant...
Anybody found the picture alluded to, I've failed... :(
Let me google that for you
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/247018
https://dronexl.co/2021/01/26/helicopter-collides-dji-drone/
https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-de-valparaiso/2021/01/23/accidente-aereo-drone-impacta-a-helicoptero-de-la-armada-en-pleno-vuelo-e-hiere-a-tripulante.shtml
Looks like the navy is not releasing any info on its flight (altitude/speed/yada yada)...
If you operate a drone, it is your job to stay away from manned aviation. If you fly it by camera, then you must have a partner who keeps line of sight to the drone in order to ensure that it does not get into conflict with manned aviation.
Airspace and altitude will have some influence on the legal outcome, but you are safely on the ground, and you should be able to both see and hear the much larger and louder oncoming traffic. The dude inside the cocpit will have no chance seeing or hearing your toy before it is too late, and 4 mm of polycarbonate will NOT stop your buzzsaw plaything from flying into his face. Face up to your responsibilities. And when you screw up and hit an aircraft, do not run away and hide ....yes we've had to fix an aircraft where exactly this happened, and where the (factually incorrect) responses from the drone community mirrored those in the posts above.
The larger manned aircraft will always be bigger and faster than the toy, but this does not take away the responsibilities of the guy or gal puttong the toy in a position where a colission occurs.
Good grief, how much nonsense can you get in one paragraph?
The legal outcome is based on liability, and if the drone was being flown in legal airspace at a legal altitude, then the helicopter pilot caused the accident, end of case...
Not that he neccessarily did anything wrong, but if he'd flown into a bird it still wouldn't have been the birds fault, and no not because the bird isn't controlled by a person.
Try searching for helicopter bird strikes, it seems this is a common failure mode for this kind of flying.
"Face up to your responsibilities. "
This is the pilots responsibility, not to fly into anything else in the air, and no the drone didn't hit the aircraft, the pilot flew the aircraft into the drone.
"And when you screw up and hit an aircraft, do not run away and hide ....yes we've had to fix an aircraft where exactly this happened, and where the (factually incorrect) responses from the drone community mirrored those in the posts above."
Really, you've had damage to your aircraft in the air from a drone? I think that was probably just one of your dreams printing through, citation or it's a dream!
Accidents happen, and if you always blame the other party, you haven't learned anything.
It was not MY aircraft. It was our job to replace the winglet afterwards. 10 m to the side, and it would have been the cockpit.
https://dronedj.com/2017/10/30/lange-antares-20e-glider-was-struck-by-consumer-drone/
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/200703
Also: note that I said responibility, not legal responsibility. Whether you get away with setting up a situation where you end up killing someone or not is not the issue.. it is whether you killed someone that matters. Also.. if you operate an aerial vehicle in legal airspace, then you have the responsibilit to sense and avoid. If you put up an unmarked obstacle, then it is not the fault of the other if he hits it.
So a dronetard was probably flying outside their legal remit?
And as for giving way to aircraft, that's a bit anti physics isn't it?
What's the prang avoidance manouver for a rear ending?
Simple response, no aircraft should be allowed to fly below 400ft unless on takeoff or approach?
How would you respond if that was the law enforced upon you and you gliding friends?
"note that I said responibility, not legal responsibility. Whether you get away with setting up a situation where you end up killing someone or not is not the issue.. it is whether you killed someone that matters."
But if I rear end someone in a car whilst in full control, it's my fault, all deaths would be my fault and legal responsibility, not the parked car...
"if you operate an aerial vehicle in legal airspace, then you have the responsibilit to sense and avoid"
So the pilot had a responsibility to avoid the drone as well?
if the pilot CAN see the drone, then yes.. but a tiny high density object operating without any anti colission devices onboard will be almost impossible to sense for a pilot. The drone basically becomes an aeronautical landmine..
The prang avoidance for rear ending is the drone operator partner who MUST have line of sight at the drone.. unless it is a BLOS drone with all bells and whistles.
Your car comparison is a false comparison. If you were to suspend a 10 cm steel ball from an overpass, so that it is hanging 70 cm above the highway, is it the car driver's fault that he drove into it?
Go and look at some bird strike videos on the webs, you get about 1.5 seconds to see the bird, if you know where to look.
Line of sight to the drone is not line of sight to the aircraft that's just about to hit it, your collision avoidance logic is terribly faulty.
" I can fly this low this fast because drone operators must be able to see their craft"
BANG!
If you're flying in airspace that it's legal for drones to fly in, then you have to avoid them, it's just logic...
If double decker bus runs into a low bridge, that's the driver fault right?
If a skipper navigates through a minefield that's marked on the map, who's taking the risk?
"Good grief, how much nonsense can you get in one paragraph?"
It doesn't help if you spread it out into multiple paragraphs.
The "right of way" generally lies with the less maneuverable craft. Even if the drone pilot was flying "in legal airspace at a legal altitude", they'd be held (at least partially) accountable for a collision with a helicopter because they (or their dedicated spotter) are the one who should have seen and heard it approaching from a long distance off and were responsible to keep out of its way, landing the drone if necessary.
If the helicopter pilot was flying where they were not supposed to be, they'd share the blame. But given that this was probably a military vehicle, they most likely did have the necessary clearance (or didn't even need to care).
It's about time that all drones need to be fitted with transponders.
You misunderstood.
In order to fly with any kind of efficiency, a helicopter flies with an as low as possible disk loading. This means that the downwash is not that fast/powerfull. In forward flight, you can compare it to the downwash from an aircraft with similar weight, speed and wing-span / rotor-span. It is nothing compared to prop-wash or jet-wash from a fixed wing aircraft.
Once the helicopter moves forward, the downwash from the rotor is slanted backwards accordingly.
Give the helicopter enough speed, and the drone will not have encountered the downwash before it goes through the polycarbonate and encounters the pilots eyes or teeth.
I've said it before and I have no doubt I will say it again.
IT DOESN'T MATTER who is in the right
If you want to fly drones from safely on the ground, that's fine. But in most countries - and in particular the UK with which I am most familiar - you have the legal responsibility to fly in a safe manner and obeying the rules. Those rules not only include the correct way to turn to avoid collisions but in the case of POV flying a second pair of eyes keeping watch for other traffic.
If you and your spare eyes are doing the job properly, you will have seen and/or heard an oncoming helicopter long before it arrives (a helicopter is generally audible, from my practical experience, for a good twenty to thirty seconds before it's overhead and visible for much of that time). I find it hard to see how one might 'accidentally' bump into a helicopter unless you are active trying to or so careless as to be negligent.
Put yourself in the position of a pilot in the air; whether a chopper, a light plane, or a paraglider/hang glider. He's busy actively flying. He's watching for oncoming traffic; he may be looking for lift sources (often indicated by the behaviour of other gliders or birds) or soaring a ridge. He is going to have a certain amount of difficulty seeing a small object against ground clutter irrespective of speed differences. If he hears a drone it's likely at a distance too close to be able to do much about it.
I don't want to stop your fun - but I do remind you that you are on the ground risking a grand's worth of hardware. I'm in the air and you're risking my life.
Let the usual downvotes begin.
No downvote, but:
"I don't want to stop your fun - but I do remind you that you are on the ground risking a grand's worth of hardware. I'm in the air and you're risking my life."
Stay out of the air then, what you think that you own the airspace?
What the hell are you doing below 400ft if not landing or taking off?
Where is it the sole resposibility of a drone pilot to avoid a aircraft?
Who do you hold resposible if an birdstrike causes trouble, who risked your life then?
I suspect that it's the thin end of the wedge though, gliders will be next, then paramotors / wings, then ultralights...
Cooperation is the way forward, drones are here to stay, so you better get used to flying aroud them...
Mr. Owl,
seeing that you too appear to have an interest in this part of aviation:
Gliders integrate in the airspace. They are now usually equipped with mode-s transponder, ADSB, Flarm and a radio. I hope that our cooperative drone has all of this as well.
With regards to the future: from the various conferences on these issues that I have attended, I expect drones to be required to carry some sort of ADSB in the future, so you better get used to it.
With regards to birds: They DO come with an integrated sense and avoid system. Also: they tend NOT to come equipped with a large Li-Ion battery and electric motors.
Actually I'm just a racing drone pilot...
None of the issues regarding sharing airspace, just all the useless and draconian legislation.
Now I just fly micro drones inside, or in my garden.
My hobby has been destroyed by a very few idiots and a whole army of NIMBYS.
When I flew model and HPR rockets, we always had issues with the aviation set:
Issue a NOTAM to 25000 feet well in advance, have nearly the whole schedule destroyed by ignorant light aircraft pilots, putting themselves and a whole bunch of other people in danger because they don't follow their own rules. Good luck getting a sight of their registration, or any traction from the CAA...
RSO's actually gave up the role because the risks in some areas was so great.
So pilot are often in the wrong but not happy, it seems, to accept responsibility for their actions.
"mode-s transponder, ADSB, Flarm"
I'm not sure any of that is any use under 400 feet, though ADSB is available for DJI size drones.
I'm not for any kind of "free for all", but the regulations should reflect the risk...
Where is it the sole resposibility of a drone pilot to avoid a aircraft?
Did you read what I wrote? It is every pilot's responsibility to avoid a collision. That doesn't matter whether the pilot is in the air or on the ground. Do you imagine that the pilot of the chopper that was hit flew into the drone deliberately, just because he had right of way? Don't be silly - he collided with it because he *did not see it* until too late to avoid it, if at all.
What the hell are you doing below 400ft if not landing or taking off?
You may not have heard of ridge soaring. It's gliding using the rising air caused by wind blowing towards a ridge - you'll often see it at coastal flying sites, or at inland sites where there's a long ridge facing the prevailing wind - good examples in the UK are places like Dunstable Downs or Long Mynd. Unless the pilot finds a thermal, he's not going to gain much height and his altitude will be largely controlled by wind speed.
Stay out of the air then, what you think that you own the airspace?
In some cases, yes: paraglider sites are often either owned by the clubs or used by careful agreement and negotiation with the land owner - and the landowner's rules often state that only specific people and/or aircraft may fly there.
At many flying sites, airspace is shared with model aircraft fliers. Because of the difficulty of judging height and distance from a ground viewpoint, such sites have well defined areas as to who flies where. As long as pilots respect those areas, there is no contention.
Cooperation is the way forward, drones are here to stay, so you better get used to flying aroud them...
For cooperation, see above. And I suspect you're right; drones are probably here to stay (unless they're legislated out of the sky, which is unlikely in the short term). But please remember this: as a drone pilot, you're used to an aircraft that can go from high-speed flight to hover in seconds; that can make course and direction changes effectively instantly. A paraglider moves forwards at 20-40kph in normal flight and cannot stop; it can't change direction anywhere nearly as quickly as the drone can. (The German DHV basic qualification test requires that a pilot perform a 360 degree turn in both directions (i.e. one left, one right) in under thirty seconds, which might give an idea of speed of turning).
For all practical purposes, paragliders *can't* fly around a drone; larger and faster gliders and powered aircraft are unlikely to be able to for the same reasons. I haven't seen a drone flying with high visibility lights on - is this something considered in the drone world? Strobes, for example? They'd at least improve the chances in VFR flight which is where most general aviation happens.
Please understand: I'm not trying to ban drones, and I'm not trying to ban you: I'm asking that you give consideration to other fliers - the same 'get used to it' that you're asking for.
I don't know about flying, but on the water there is a rule that says that sail has the right of way over steam, meaning that a motorized vessel has to avoid a vessel under sail, even in situations where the motorized vessel would have right of way.
Does that mean that my Optimist can force a supertanker to slalom? Well, no, because there is another rule (overriding the "sail before steam" one), which states the obvious: A more agile vessel has to avoid a less agile one. "Agile" in the general meaning of "able to asses a situation and react accordingly". So for instance you can't just cut the way of a trawler pulling his nets, even if legally you have right of way, even if you're under sail.
TL;DR: If that helicopter and drone were naval vessels, the helicopter would have right of way, and the drone pilot would have to avoid it, no matter who was doing what at that moment. And I'm pretty confident the rules in the sky aren't too different from the ones at sea, which have been perfected over many centuries.
(Just my 2 cents worth.)
> you'd expect the tanker to at least attempt to not hit you
You don't navigate, do you. At full speed a tanker needs about 1 mile to turn and 5 miles to stop, meaning that, assuming they eventually saw the tiny Optimist (doesn't show on radar), there is nothing they could do about it but pray for his soul.
In short, this falls in the "common sense" category of "you might have right of way, but claiming it will result in certain death, so no, you actually do not have right of way".
Fortunately the "I have rights" entitled jerks usually don't make it to the captains' license. Maritime law is not a pissing contest, it's about staying alive and unharmed in a generally already hostile environment.
COLLREGS are a bit more involved than just power gives way to sail (41 rules in 6 sections). http://www.collisionregs.com/Collregs.html if anyone is interested.
A vessel constrained by its draught has right of way over everything - even an opti - although, in the Solent I regularly see idiots taking on large ships in yachts despite a moving exclusion zone of 1km to the front. This one cost the skipper £100k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxdp8UfqbK8
There are interesting parallels with this though. The first bit of the regulation says that it is the responsibility of everyone to avoid a collision. It does not matter if you technically have right of way, if you could have altered speed or course and failed to do so you are also in the wrong.
Rule 5 says you should have a proper lookout at all times - this is exactly the same as a drone pilot. If you are flying by FPV camera, you should have a lookout to see if anything is approaching - and you should fly within sight of the lookout. From experience they become a small dot very quickly but it is down to the pilot to ensure the lookout can see what is going on. Drones do not own the sky below 400ft and it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure safety.
If there had been less self-centred idiots flying drones in the early days maybe the regs would not have been quite so draconian but the 'I own the sky' crowd messed it up.
(Full disclosure, I have several friends who used to race drones in a local multi-storey car park after hours - awesome to watch and requires a lot of skill but it was contained and no-one got hurt. When flying outside there was always at least 1 spotter, usually 2)
COLREGS DON'T say anything about "right of way" - there's no such concept in them. As you say, every navigator has the responsibility to avoid collisions. However, there is no "right of way" - there's "Stand on" vessel, which is the vessel which should maintain its speed and course, and there "give way" vessel, which has to change its course and speed in the manner mandated by the regulations.
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