[Alupis]

> Hitting a drone is your worst nightmare while piloting small aircraft

A small GA aircraft hitting a drone has a very high fatality chance, particularly in the stages of flight most likely to encounter amateur drone operators (ie. takeoff and landing).

[ClumsyPilot]

A swan can weigh 8 kilos, a goose can weigh 6, and DJi phantom weighs 1.2 kilos.

Multiple planes crashed with fatalities vecause of birds, as far as I am aware none have done so because of a drone.

The fear of drones had led to pilots reporting drone sightings at 10,000 feet in the middle of the Ocean, thousands of miles from shore.

"Several commenters noted that the AMA analyzed those reported ‘incidents’ and found that out of the 764 reported records, only 27 (or 3.5%) were identified as a near mid-air collision, with nearly all of those involving government-authorized military drones"

[CSSer]

It’s also kind of insulting to those of us who go out of our way to safely fly drones recreationally. More and more drones you purchase today have built-in GPS transponders. I’m notified when airplanes are nearby even at altitudes I can’t reach, and I can tell you what kind of air space I’m in easily. I’m registered with the FAA as required, and I’ve taken more safety courses than I need, mostly because I wouldn’t mind getting my part 107.

I tell everyone these things are not for kids, especially the $1K+ drones capable of high altitudes and speeds. If you go online and find a video of someone doing something stupid, you’ll find an army of enthusiasts telling them so in the comments because they want to preserve the hobby.

[krisoft]

> GPS transponders

I assume you mean ADS-B in? Is the receiver in the drone itself or in the ground station/transmitter?

[jaywalk]

Drones (generally) don't use ADS-B in or out.

[krisoft]

Okay, then what is a “GPS transponder”?

[jaywalk]

I'm guessing the comment was referring to the drone having a GPS receiver and relaying it's position to the base station.

[Alupis]

What's the point you're trying to make? Just because we don't yet have a confirmed kill from a DJI Phantom means it's impossible?

We do have confirmed strikes from drones, and the damage has been devastating. We do have confirmed strikes with fatalities from birds. There is not much difference between a bird and a drone when an aircraft strikes it at speed...

These drones are often operated by folks with zero training and zero deference for the law or aviation safety (highlighted by the fact they're operating near an airport). It's just a matter of time... if it hasn't already happened right here in this Dallas incident.

[ClumsyPilot]

> What's the point you're trying to make? Just because we don't yet have a confirmed kill from a DJI Phantom means it's impossible?

Anything is possible, there is a guy that was killed by his beard, shot by a dog and every year several people die from being tangled on bedsheets. Lets keep things in proportion.

I, for one, am unclear why we immediately jumped to regulating drones, but when Tespa autopilot kills people, nobody seems to care?

The real point is that people in this thread are too quick to blame drones, when geese outnumbet them 1000 to one. I live near an airport and a huge flock of geese is constantly here. When I see people with real drones, they tend to know whay they are doing.

The only people I see fooling around are people who buy a tiny drone for $50 on Amazon and the worst those drones can do is get aruck in your hair while filming nudes.

[Alupis]

Well, I don't disagree on any of these points.

But these points don't mean it's any less fatal to hit a drone in a small plane than a goose.

Hitting things in aircraft isn't a recipe for a good time... ever.

[mlyle]

> We do have confirmed strikes with fatalities from birds.

Yup.

> There is not much difference between a bird and a drone when an aircraft strikes it at speed...

Open to debate.

Even if true: There's a whole lot more birds near airports than illegally operating drones. So even if there's some tiny, absolute risk, the relative risk appears low.

[Alupis]

There is no debate.

The claim was, hitting a drone has a high chance of being fatal - the same high chance hitting a bird has... particularly in vulnerable stages of flight. Nothing you, or anyone else has offered counters this claim, because it's just reality. Hitting things in aircraft is never a good thing, and is always a significant cause for concern.

We've been lucky so far more idiots haven't flown drones closer to airshows or airports. There are plenty, and there have been collisions with devastating damage but luckily no fatalities (perhaps yet). There are plenty of pictures on the internet if you want to compare damages to bird strikes.

[mlyle]

> the same high chance hitting a bird has.

It's unclear whether it's the same chance hitting a bird has. You assert it is.

As to a high chance of fatality from bird strike: no. There's >10k bird strikes per year in the US and most years there isn't a single bird strike related fatal accident. Estimates of death are on the order of 1 death related to bird strike per billion flight hours.

Even if drones are the same risk per collision, drones are much rarer near runways than birds.

There's no such thing in the world as zero risk, but if drones are a small fraction of a risk that's less than 1 death per billion flight hours, I'd say that we have bigger fish to fry.

[rootusrootus]

> There is no debate.

Sure there is. On average there are about 13000 bird strikes a year. What fraction of those result in a fatality? The FAA says a bit under 400 pilots die every year, however since 1990 there have been just 292 fatalities globally that can be attributed to wildlife strikes (and not all are birds).

That is a pretty clear repudiation of any claim that hitting a drone has a "high chance of being fatal."

[jandrese]

This seems surprising. Most drones weigh no more than a medium sized bird and are made out of flimsy materials that shatter readily. Sure there might be a bit of fire from the destruction of the battery pack, but nothing that should be a major problem for a GA aircraft. Unless by drone you are talking about a Global Hawk? I would count that as a high fatality risk.

[heliodor]

> very high fatality chance

Really? Very high? My uneducated guess is that there's a very high chance of damage to the airplane, but not of crash landing, and certainly not of death.

[thrill]

No, it likely wouldn't have a large effect on the GA aircraft.

[bobkazamakis]

? Either you don't know what GA aircraft entails, or you've got a real misconception of the size of a drone compared to a bird.

[thrill]

Well, I've hit birds with wingspans around a dozen feet (didn't go measure). They make a mess, and have killed people I knew, but that was mostly because of their size and the penetration of the windscreen. Hitting a smaller object could certainly cause some damage but it wouldn't likely be immediate and catastrophic unless it was in a critical spot.

[Alupis]

> unless it was in a critical spot

Which is where most strikes occur. Low speed (relative for an aircraft) and low altitude.

A bird hitting the prop, sucked into an engine, tail strike, windscreen, etc... all can be devastating for any aircraft, be it GA or commercial.

A drone strike isn't somehow going to be better for the aircraft...

[thrill]

Well, sure you don't want to hit anything unless you want to hit it, but doing so is unlikely to be the mushroom cloud event that seems to be believed occurs when hitting a drone.

[SamBam]

> birds with wingspans around a dozen feet

Albatross or pelican?

I think 12.1 feet is the world record.

[thrill]

Spanish condors - they look bigger when they suddenly appear in your way.

[salamandars]

Can you source this? I can't find any information on fatalities due to aircraft-drone collisions, topic of this article notwithstanding.

[caconym_]

> I can't find any information on fatalities due to aircraft-drone collisions, topic of this article notwithstanding.

That's because there have not been any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicl...

[Alupis]

You don't need a source. An object striking an aircraft in flight is devastating, and can be very fatal. Just because the object was made in China vs. hatched out of an egg doesn't really matter... the results will be the same.

[salamandars]

Well, according to wikipedia, only between 11-15% of bird strikes result in damage to the aircraft. Apparently large birds like geese are the main danger.

I imagine a similar distribution with drone strikes, as most drones do not weigh as much as a goose, at least of those in the hands of a typical idiot (who would fly in the path of a plane).

That's why 'very high fatality chance' doesn't seem right to me, but I can't find any statistics on it.