Another idiot helping to ruin our hobby....

[westonmavicpilot]

Uk drone pilot flying in path of RAF Chinook on approach to base.

Now although this is reported in the mail online which is a rag that I detest for their lack of ability to report the facts correctly the same story was also in the Telegraph which is a more reputable paper...

Drone almost downs £60m Chinook helicopter | Daily Mail Online

£60m RAF Chinook helicopter in near miss with drone as pilot says collision could have downed aircraft

 

[Domagoj]

That drone is a danger to Chinook like a fly to the windshield...

 

[GlenT]

Hmmm. They were travelling at 138mph and spotted the UAV just 130 feet away yet managed to bring the Chinook around? Must be one hell of a sports Chinook to have such control.
Also, they were at 2,100ft altitude. Quite high for a wee "drone".

 

[Drone Police]

Oh god. If only that drone had stricter restrictions or any at all that idiot pilot wouldn't have been where he wasn't meant to be.
What we need is companies like dji to make it harder to fly into nfz's and tfr's so idiots like him won't fly into stadiums, buildings and flight paths etc.
Dji need to step in and save us from the irresponsible before the government's shut it down for good or make it like Canada. Incidences like this will only continue if no one does anything about it.

Wait...don't we want to be able to fly anywhere because we can all be trusted?
Oh yeah, over here, we can't trust dji as well. What to do? Lol.

 

[erkme73]

Another dose of unadulterated, unsubstantiated high-octane fear injected into the masses via the media. Nice that they describe it as a dark grey drone, but show a Phantom. And we know that a 2lb plastic phantom would have brought down a Chinook. Yup. Fear. And the people lap it up like gravy.

 

[SeaComms]

I would be very disappointed if a Chinook designed for war could be destroyed by a drone.

Secondly, How do you maneuver a bird that size at 138mph to miss something you suddenly spot 40m in front of you?

And a drone at over 2000 feet? That also showed up on radar?

I smell something fishy....

They also describe it as being over a meter across. Hmm.. doesn't sound like a Phantom to me..

 

[Qoncussion]

The saddest thing about all of this, is that a grossly uneducated public is eating these BS stories up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The media is in charge of our future right now. Sad...

 

[newnan3]

Check out the comments in the articles, "Only a matter of time before on of these ridiculous toys actually brings down an aircraft. They should be made illegal to all apart from the military."

and

"Whilst it is unlikely that this would happen...I would ban all drones for civilian use"

 

[Rabid Machina]

The prop wash alone would prevent the drone from hitting the Chinook. Not justifying anything, but there was no real danger there.

 

[geigy]

Another dose of unadulterated, unsubstantiated high-octane fear injected into the masses via the media. Nice that they describe it as a dark grey drone, but show a Phantom. And we know that a 2lb plastic phantom would have brought down a Chinook. Yup. Fear. And the people lap it up like gravy.

It would if it got into a turbo intake - chunk of metal headsink in addition to the lithium battery and the plastic. Not everyone flies with screens over the intakes.

Speaking of fear, as someone else said, we are afraid of DJI and lawmakers, and the general public are afraid of us. Fear, fear, fear...

 

[Cookedinlh]

I agree this is highly suspect . . at 138mph they are traveling 202feet/sec and if the PIC of the Chinook took control to avoid flying toward the "drone hovering 40m away" and could do so in a half a second . . he would have have less than another half second to make any significant control mechanism respond in any way . . .and by that time it would be gone by!

Just last week we were filming aircraft flying at 300-500ft. . . who were LOOKING for a mavic pro that was stationary at 400ft AGL (hovering over a single tree in the middle of a field). After 3 different pilots in three different aircraft and their 3 passenger photographers (that's 6 set of eyes) were guided to the exact spot by a ground controller . . . NONE OF THEM SAW IT!. After another 12-15 passes that morning all three saw a Phantom 4 placed in the same location. . . (because they said "it was white") . . . but NONE got more than a 1-2 second look at it, before they had gone by it. We got no air-to-air video from the aircraft but lots from the ground. and some good some good views from the Mavic and the P4.

LESSON LEARNED:
Taking evasive from a Mavic sized drone is likely to result in hitting a drone as much as missing and such maneuvering is more likely to produce a more unsafe flight incident. You'd be hard pressed to hit a small drone intentionally even iff you know were it is and it's not moving.

As well, I honestly doubt any L-Band or UHF traffic radar is capable of defining a 60-80 sq cm largely non-metallic target at ANY range let alone an mile or 2. . maybe I'm wrong there . . try this test report if you want to figure that out accurately.

It makes a nice sensational story for the newspaper but does not compute with the laws of physics, the reaction time of helicopter pilots (I am one) or the capabilities of ATC traffic radar. . . . may not ALL be false but just sayin' . . I'd like a bit more in the way of facts.

 

[YngveN]

The pilot of the drone which was around one metre wide and being flown two miles south of Farnborough was never traced.

Wait, the pilot of the drone was around one meter wide, and he still got away!

 

[erkme73]

Just the title of this thread "Another idiot helping to ruin our hobby" goes to show that even us drone operators are misdirecting our anger and frustration. We should be challenging the reports/reporter(s) on accuracy and feasibility of the claims made by their sources. It's easy to claim there was a drone and it could have taken down a military battle-ready airship. It's much harder to ask pointed questions like those raised here - in terms of the impossible physics involved.

This is nothing more than a hit piece on our hobby. Whether the reporters are aware of their complicity or not is the only unknown.

 

[dwallersv]

That drone is a danger to Chinook like a fly to the windshield...

Really? Okay. How 'bout we do an experiment: You drive you car down a straight road at 70mph, and I'll fly your Mavic into your windshield in Sport mode at full stick. That's only 110mph collision, well short of the potential closure speed in the OP story.

Then you can get out, get your bug spray, and clean the squashed Mavic off your windshield. Right?

 

[quick_dry]

Really? Okay. How 'bout we do an experiment: You drive you car down a straight road at 70mph, and I'll fly your Mavic into your windshield in Sport mode at full stick. That's only 110mph collision, well short of the potential closure speed in the OP story.

the car's windshield isn't designed for operation in a warzone where people might actively target the cockpit and try to shoot through the windows.

 

[geigy]

Right, just think of a Mavic as a sort of 50mm slug hitting your windshield.

 

[Domagoj]

Really? Okay. How 'bout we do an experiment: You drive you car down a straight road at 70mph, and I'll fly your Mavic into your windshield in Sport mode at full stick. That's only 110mph collision, well short of the potential closure speed in the OP story.

Then you can get out, get your bug spray, and clean the squashed Mavic off your windshield. Right?

How about we do that with your car and your mavic, because my car is not army vehicle

 

[TrayBoz]

Really? Okay. How 'bout we do an experiment: You drive you car down a straight road at 70mph, and I'll fly your Mavic into your windshield in Sport mode at full stick. That's only 110mph collision, well short of the potential closure speed in the OP story.

Then you can get out, get your bug spray, and clean the squashed Mavic off your windshield. Right?

My father (USAF Pilot - 28 years) used to tell me that they shoot (from an air cannon) 12 pound FROZEN turkeys into the air intake / jet engine intakes on their aircraft to test them for resiliency against bird strikes.

The mavic weighs about ~1.5 lbs. I'm pretty sure that if a small 1.5 pound drone could take down a military helicopter, then the terrorists would be attacking our aircraft with mavics instead of wasting $millions on expensive STA missiles.

And, yeah, have you ever seen the wind-sheer put out by a small helicopter? Much less a chinook. How could a 1.5 pound drone even get close?

Any helicopter pilots on here that can weigh in?

 

[rydfree]

I would be very disappointed if a Chinook designed for war could be destroyed by a drone.

Secondly, How do you maneuver a bird that size at 138mph to miss something you suddenly spot 40m in front of you?

And a drone at over 2000 feet? That also showed up on radar?

I smell something fishy....

They also describe it as being over a meter across. Hmm.. doesn't sound like a Phantom to me..

Chinooks are very agile for their size . I use to watch them practice just outside of fort rucker when I was growing up . I did see one go down when something got blown up from the ground and injested into the engine once . All aircraft are extremely vunerable when close to the ground . people blowing off the danger of a drone in a aircrafts flight path truly show a lack of maturity .

 

[chris956]

Sounds like Fake News to me ........