Flying over towns and cities?

[BorisTheSpider]

Like seriously, how will they stop people in their park having a pic nic brinding their mavics to take "dronies" I mean that is completely harmless!

You're right, like seriously, flying in the middle of a city park, when the GPS homepoint records wrong and the drone RTHs 10 meters away into an old lady, or when the back compass goes noisy and the untrained, unlicensed "pilot" crashes their mavic into someone's baby or into the path of a car on the road next to the park, or when someone's "smart" RTH flies into an overhead cable or a bird removing the small pieces of plastic keeping the aircraft airborne so it falls 30 feet onto someone's head.

Harmless! Like, seriously.

 

[andy966]

I am not sure if any of you caught the Mythbusters episode where they tested several consumer level drones to see if the props could actually cut someone and cause them serious harm. They were unable to do so. I think the biggest danger really of any SUAV of this level is the thing dropping out of the sky and hitting someone on the head.

 

[iajetpilot]

I'll take being hit with a drone falling out of the sky anytime over being hit by a real full sized aircraft although neither is a good option

 

[stratos]

You're right, like seriously, flying in the middle of a city park, when the GPS homepoint records wrong and the drone RTHs 10 meters away into an old lady, or when the back compass goes noisy and the untrained, unlicensed "pilot" crashes their mavic into someone's baby or into the path of a car on the road next to the park, or when someone's "smart" RTH flies into an overhead cable or a bird removing the small pieces of plastic keeping the aircraft airborne so it falls 30 feet onto someone's head.

Harmless! Like, seriously.

Mate, there is a lot of assumptions here.
1) why would someone hit the RTH if you just want to take a pic of yourself and party goers from 5 meters up and 10 meters away.
2) being licensed or unlicenses will not help at all if you have a major compass issue
3) crashing into someones baby, intresting. as not all parks are densly populated by babys only an idiot will fly nearby a baby or a kid.
4) why do you asume the road is next to the shooting location, that is ridiculous.
5) again why will anyone taking theirselfs a picture will do smart RTH if the drone is on clear LOS and only 10 meters again.

Anyway, I am a licensed pilot and I can see that many people are just deliberately confusing safe flying with nazi drone enforcing no fly police.
My 2 cents.

and Fly safe!

 

[stratos]

I am not sure if any of you caught the Mythbusters episode where they tested several consumer level drones to see if the props could actually cut someone and cause them serious harm. They were unable to do so. I think the biggest danger really of any SUAV of this level is the thing dropping out of the sky and hitting someone on the head.

It more likely to win the lottery than to get hit in the head by a drone.
It more likely to be bitten by a shark (even if you swim once a year in the ocean) than being hit in the head by a drone.
Its more likely to be struck by a lightning than be hit in the head by a drone.

Unfortunately I have never won the lottery. I say, ban sharks and lightning forever.

 

[andy966]

It more likely to win the lottery than to get hit in the head by a drone.
It more likely to be bitten by a shark (even if you swim once a year in the ocean) than being hit in the head by a drone.
Its more likely to be struck by a lightning than be hit in the head by a drone.

I say, ban sharks and lightning forever.

Just meant relative to getting cut by one.

 

[rydfree]

Of course those odds are going up with every drone sold ....

 

[stratos]

Of course those odds are going up with every drone sold ....

Of course... having said that.
If there is no factual measure everything lies in the perception realm.

Its like thinking than flying is more dangerous than taking a cab.

perception wise flying is way more dangerous, number tell completely something different.
Hint: Numbers dont lie.

 

[Strafe1]

You're right, like seriously, flying in the middle of a city park, when the GPS homepoint records wrong and the drone RTHs 10 meters away into an old lady, or when the back compass goes noisy and the untrained, unlicensed "pilot" crashes their mavic into someone's baby or into the path of a car on the road next to the park, or when someone's "smart" RTH flies into an overhead cable or a bird removing the small pieces of plastic keeping the aircraft airborne so it falls 30 feet onto someone's head.

Harmless! Like, seriously.

Not quite fire and brimstone (inside joke related to a different post), but a bit over the top and just a tiny bit paranoid.

 

[raymo]

Sorry, the Mavic IS toy-grade. Ok, ok, those semantic can be inflammatory to people who feel $1000 is a lot to spend on something and guarantees a level of professional quality. It can seem unfair when they have WAY cheaper toys that they associate with target.

Let's rephrase it. When flying non industrial grade aircraft over groups of people and property, without professional training (not to mention official clearance), it is irresponsible.

There's a reason industrial grade aircraft cost a ton of money. The mavic is a great piece of engineering. But I can't help but think that many people who are endangering people are very well meaning people who simply do not understand what they are and what they are not controlling.

Read these forums for a day and you will see two problems:

Problem 1: Drone hardware or software that is not industrial grade. There are some good "redundancies" built into the app, but they would never meet aviation standards. Buggy software, obstacle avoidance sensor problems, signal drop outs, unexplained flyaways, etc. They are relatively rare, and perfectly acceptable for a consumer grade craft. But this would NEVER be acceptable by industrial grade or military grade applications. And that's FINE - until you treat it and apply it industrial or military grade flights and applications.

Problem 2: Pilots who have not gone through 100s of hours of in-flight and in-book training, testing, and certification. By the way, I am one of them, and I don't think it's necessary to have a great time and be a decent pilot with the Mavic. But as soon as you convert that into "therefore I am fine to fly over a busy city street at 200 feet in the air" you are sorely mistaking and taking gambles with other people's lives. You know that dropping a penny off a building can literally kill someone due to the velocity, right? I dread the day the sadly inevitable news story comes out where a drone pilot crashes over a city and severely wounds or kills someone.

The post isn't meant to insult everyone. Realize the tool you are working with, be honest w/your experience level, recognize the heart behind certain laws, and most of all - the gravity of a potential mistake.

Sorry, military grade drones have had a very bad record. Canadian military drones, even with redundancies and many safety features built in have virtually all extinguished themselves, even with the best pilots in control. One set of operators I heard were talking about how many million's worth they had crashed under their watch. I'm not convinced that "military grade" may be that much better than what goes into a Mavic. What about the predator failures used by the military AND the border security. Not good. Then there are the new drone swarms released by fighter jets. Pretty certain they do not have super-redundant systems. Pricey - YES. Better - ??????? I'm not saying Mavics are industrial grade or military grade, but let's not say that those classes have unflawed records. Is there room for improvement - YES.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

<snip>

Problem 1: Drone hardware or software that is not industrial grade. There are some good "redundancies" built into the app, but they would never meet aviation standards. Buggy software, obstacle avoidance sensor problems, signal drop outs, unexplained flyaways, etc. They are relatively rare, and perfectly acceptable for a consumer grade craft. But this would NEVER be acceptable by industrial grade or military grade applications. And that's FINE - until you treat it and apply it industrial or military grade flights and applications.
</snip>

Well someone better tell Boeing they are using toys in an industrial setting - http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

[raymo]

I'll take being hit with a drone falling out of the sky anytime over being hit by a real full sized aircraft although neither is a good option

We just had an incident where a 737 on approach lost some ice from the airframe. Probably a fluid leak but not certain. The piece of ice was large enough it crashed through a house roof, went through the ceiling, but fortunately, did not hit anyone in the house. This could have just as easily hit someone and may have killed them. Will it happen again. Sure. It's just part of the risk of having commercial aircraft fly over residential areas.

 

[dewster]

It's risky to say the least. Even DJI understands the risks and they've incorporated dual batteries on Inspire 2 and the new Matrice 200. These drones have the glide ratio of a rock when the power fails.

 

[Wombat55]

It's risky to say the least. Even DJI understands the risks and they've incorporated dual batteries on Inspire 2 and the new Matrice 200. These drones have the glide ratio of a rock when the power fails.

That only makes sense in terms of time, trouble, and expense if a sudden, mid-air battery failure or mid-air battery connection failure is a significant crash concern for DJI drones. Is it?

A proper risk-minimization plan would examine the entire history of the Mavic's hardware- and software-related crashes, identify the most common failure modes, and then proceed from there in coming up with appropriate emergency back-ups and engineered redundancies for those most likely failure modes. That results in the finite engineering resources available being put to the best and most efficient use.

The problem is that these forums are so flooded with pilot error related crashes that I doubt that anyone here even knows what the most common non-pilot error related cause of Mavic crashes is.

 

[aesculus]

That only makes sense in terms of time, trouble, and expense of a sudden, mid-air battery failure or mid-air battery connection failure is a significant crash concern for DJI drones. Is it?

A proper risk-minimization plan would examine the entire history of the Mavic's hardware- and software-related crashes, identify the most common failure modes, and then proceed from there in coming up with appropriate emergency back-ups and engineered redundancies for those most likely failure modes. That results in the finite engineering resources available being put to the best and most efficient use.

The problem is that these forums are so flooded with pilot error related crashes that I doubt that anyone here even knows what the most common non-pilot error related cause of Mavic crashes is.

My guess would be critical battery error. Even that's likely to be related to the battery's life cycle.

 

[dewster]

That only makes sense in terms of time, trouble, and expense of a sudden, mid-air battery failure or mid-air battery connection failure is a significant crash concern for DJI drones. Is it?

A proper risk-minimization plan would examine the entire history of the Mavic's hardware- and software-related crashes, identify the most common failure modes, and then proceed from there in coming up with appropriate emergency back-ups and engineered redundancies for those most likely failure modes. That results in the finite engineering resources available being put to the best and most efficient use.

The problem is that these forums are so flooded with pilot error related crashes that I doubt that anyone here even knows what the most common non-pilot error related cause of Mavic crashes is.

Trust me when I say the safeguards are there, but you have to think about the worst case scenario-power failure. Now a drone falling out of the sky hitting someone in the head would most likely happen if there was a large concentration of people below.

Biggest issue is CSC command. Pilot panics; jerks sticks and deactivates drone. Lol

 

[integlikewhoa]

Some people are just overly paranoid about falling sky.

More people get hit with a baseball in the park then drones..... Between foul balls, wild throws and bad baseball GPS or compasses this 100 year old sport should be a dangerous crime (probley is somewhere).

And don't get me started on broken windows, street lights and dented cars when played around home.

The problem these days is everything but sitting in front of the TV is just to dangerous for the modern society.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

I read an article awhile back about a professional drone pilot who was filming a wedding and had put the drone down and apparently some kid got ahold of it and started flying it. He crashed it into people and seriously injured them. Needless to say, the drone owner was being sued.

In the prior Canadian "guidelines" to getting the SFOC there was an implied requirement to secure the control system so that "innocents" could not get control of the drone....

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Good post - you are correct, of course the risk is smaller than a big aircraft, but that's the point - because the aircraft, risk and price are small, so is the design safety. We started this topic talking about flying over towns and cities. I fully agree that flown away from groups of people, consumer drones are a small enough risk to be acceptable, in line with many other risks we all take every day. Although it's possible to hurt someone flying one well away from built up areas, it's very unlikely and is a reasonable, acceptable and proportionate risk. The problem is when people think their fancy piece of consumer electronics is suitable for flying over towns and I disagree with that.

Even with flights over towns I don't agree that the risk is huge. I can fly a C-172 over Montreal at 1000' AGL. If I lose the engine I will have scant available landing locations and so put people at risk as I (heroically) attempt to land the aircraft in the city....

So with a drone as long as one avoids the densest areas of crowds, I doubt the risk is significantly more than above (which I've done at least 50 times - probably more while otherwise building hours....)

And frankly, the reliability of 4 brushless DC motors and their controllers is likely 10 - 100x better than an an air cooled C-172 engine with at best 1950's magneto ignition (damned good reliability) "technology". It's so crappy, in fact, that dual magnetos are required with 2 plugs per cylinder....

The risk over towns/cities with drones is 100-1000x greater due to the operator than the drone itself (IMO).

 

[AlanTheBeast]

I saw the canadian new rules that they want to apply, seriously they are ridiculous and its even more ridiculous on how they plan to enforce them.
Like seriously, how will they stop people in their park having a pic nic brinding their mavics to take "dronies" I mean that is completely harmless!

I was thinking of a particular pasture not far from a tiny airfield not far from an airport now closed... if I flew a drone there, between the trees that "box in" that pasture, I would be safe and aircraft nearby would be safe for no pilot in his right mind would be below 300' there ... but with the new rules I would be in the wrong ..... totally insane...