UK drone pilot fined for flying out of sight under a police helicopter

[Johnmcl7]

Bloke fined £460 after his drone screwed up police chopper search for missing woman

Miaun was found guilty on two counts of breaching the Air Navigation Order: one of breaching article 94(3), which states pilots of small unmanned aircraft "must maintain direct, unaided visual contact with the aircraft sufficient to monitor its flight path in relation to other aircraft"; and one charge under article 94(2), which states: "The person in charge of a small unmanned aircraft may only fly the aircraft if reasonably satisfied that the flight can safely be made."

The flying out with VLOS is an obvious one but the second charge less so, I guess the rescue helicopter must have been very low?

 

[sar104]

Bloke fined £460 after his drone screwed up police chopper search for missing woman



The flying out with VLOS is an obvious one but the second charge less so, I guess the rescue helicopter must have been very low?

That's how search and rescue helicopters operate, in order to be able to see what they are looking for.

 

[Johnmcl7]

That's how search and rescue helicopters operate, in order to be able to see what they are looking for.

The UK ones don't need to be low as they have good range on their thermal cameras, where I live they are frequently going by and they can be sitting quite high when they are in search mode which makes difficult to tell if they are indeed searching or just circling waiting for their landing slot at the hospital. Usually I only find out afterwards from a news headline that they were actually searching, they can also be surprisingly low at times when they're on approach.

Hence I'm wondering how high the helicopter was in this case and at which point a drone flight becomes unsafe.

 

[sar104]

The UK ones don't need to be low as they have good range on their thermal cameras, where I live they are frequently going by and they can be sitting quite high when they are in search mode which makes difficult to tell if they are indeed searching or just circling waiting for their landing slot at the hospital. Usually I only find out afterwards from a news headline that they were actually searching, they can also be surprisingly low at times when they're on approach.

Hence I'm wondering how high the helicopter was in this case and at which point a drone flight becomes unsafe.

You may be surprised to learn that we also have thermal imaging on our SAR aircraft. They still need to fly low AGL to be effective. When you say low, or not low, what altitudes are you talking about? Anything under 500 ft is going to have a potential conflict with a drone, and no one flies SAR above 500 ft AGL.

 

[Stephenmaycol]

You may be surprised to learn that we also have thermal imaging on our SAR aircraft. They still need to fly low AGL to be effective. When you say low, or not low, what altitudes are you talking about? Anything under 500 ft is going to have a potential conflict with a drone, and no one flies SAR above 500 ft AGL.

I finally know what SAR means... and you sir are appreciated... I have seen you S and R many on this forum. You can locate a drone and analize the data like nobody's business. I learn from you every time I read one of your posts.

thank you for your time and participation.

 

[ac0j]

They should use general aviation fixed wing pilots that can see seagulls and drones from a mile away when flying at 150-200mph At least that is what a few of them have claimed.
People are so much bigger than drones and birds, those guys should be able to spot them from 10,000 feet up and not interfere with drone airspace.
They would be all like "thermal imaging?????? LOL!"

 

[ataraxia]

The guy was sat at home and saw a police helicopter nearby, so put his FPV goggles on, launched the drone and went out looking for the helicopter. He flew half a mile away from his house (presumably with goggles on the whole time), found it, and caused a massive problem for the police in doing so, not to mention damaging the already-tarnished reputation of the drone community. Throw the book at him and stop him getting registered next year IMO.

 

[Starky]

The UK ones don't need to be low as they have good range on their thermal cameras

Think about it
SAR assets will be at different heights dependent on task and phase of the search, they may be high at some point but when the search area is narrowed down helicopters will be lower and obviously if the target is located they either land or drop to less than 200ft to winch out a casualty

Saying they don't have to be as low as in the USA is incorrect.