Transport Canada will not allow flights BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) commercial or otherwise. . . . even with a standing or Blanket SFOC. I spoke to them yesterday regarding a special case whereby as long as it was under GPS control and within the boundaries of the field you are working in, then the Mavic being so tiny (<5 sq cm cross-section at best), it can only be legally flown to a distance about 200m or so. They sited "safety" and lack of "Compliance" (no CSA UL or other mark) as the reason. You could hit someone and do serious damage by running into them.
So I did a quick back of the envelop calculation on the energy imparted fro a Mavic if it struck a human going full speed (~20.6m/s). This is based on Transport Canada's document discussing why Drones need to be classified by weight in order to regulate their use. They classify a golf ball as "non-lethal but getting close" imparting a max energy transfer of 120 joules of total energy and 8.4J/cm2.
If I do the same calc with MavicPro numbers it comes out to 10.4J/cm2 if it hit someone head-on ( worst case assuming collision avoidance had failed) 0.734kg x 20.6m/s - (0.83 x 0.83cm cross-section) . not counting the arms or blade damage of course. That's the kinetic energy release. . . and I believe that can only be "potentially" lethal if it struck someone in the head and only certain places in the head ( not a "confirmed kill"). The risk is not ZERO but it is practically insignificant over 10,000's of hours ( maybe 100,000's) of hours of flight time in the hands of a qualified pilot.
So I am trying to argue that Mavic is so small and light and protected by collision avoidance that based on this worst case scenario, they should be considered safe beyond your ability to see it (BVLOS) when you have excellent position, speed and direction data constantly in front of you, while at the same time, you can visually "clear" the airspace around the very accurate known position of the Mavic. You can see of any hazard from larger objects in or approaching it's vicinity.
Any thoughts? MORE HERE on my website
So I did a quick back of the envelop calculation on the energy imparted fro a Mavic if it struck a human going full speed (~20.6m/s). This is based on Transport Canada's document discussing why Drones need to be classified by weight in order to regulate their use. They classify a golf ball as "non-lethal but getting close" imparting a max energy transfer of 120 joules of total energy and 8.4J/cm2.
If I do the same calc with MavicPro numbers it comes out to 10.4J/cm2 if it hit someone head-on ( worst case assuming collision avoidance had failed) 0.734kg x 20.6m/s - (0.83 x 0.83cm cross-section) . not counting the arms or blade damage of course. That's the kinetic energy release. . . and I believe that can only be "potentially" lethal if it struck someone in the head and only certain places in the head ( not a "confirmed kill"). The risk is not ZERO but it is practically insignificant over 10,000's of hours ( maybe 100,000's) of hours of flight time in the hands of a qualified pilot.
So I am trying to argue that Mavic is so small and light and protected by collision avoidance that based on this worst case scenario, they should be considered safe beyond your ability to see it (BVLOS) when you have excellent position, speed and direction data constantly in front of you, while at the same time, you can visually "clear" the airspace around the very accurate known position of the Mavic. You can see of any hazard from larger objects in or approaching it's vicinity.
Any thoughts? MORE HERE on my website
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