Near miss with helicopter at South Hollywood beach, Florida.

[Lapeer20m]

I think it's probably going to take a few getting a hefty fine and made famous by the media before hobbyists get the message. Hopefully that happens before someone dies.

I also believe that drone manufacturers are partly to blame here. Just look at their advertising...its like a freakin Pepsi commercial. Anyone can do it...look at all the fun you'll have...all the things you can see...be an instagram and YouTube sensation. Nothing dangerous here and you can fly anywhere.

Then people get their drones and go straight to the quick start up guide virtually ignoring all the warnings in the full user manual as is generally the case for most products.

Then factor in that even most commercial operators have no need for a $40000 drone so how do you make them cheaper? ...Sell millions of them. To anyone. What could possibly go wrong?

Sooner or later something bad is going to happen, but of the millions of drone flights daily across the country for the entire history of drones, there is only one documented collision between a manned aircraft and a drone in USA airspace that i am aware of......and nobody got hurt.

Either our population is super lucky, or the dangerof drones in the sky is vastly overstated.

Drone vs helicopter has the potential to be devastating....but for whatever reason drones don’t seem to be running into helicopters. I’m not sure what laws or policies can be put in place to improve safety.

 

[gnirtS]

Sooner or later something bad is going to happen, but of the millions of drone flights daily across the country for the entire history of drones, there is only one documented collision between a manned aircraft and a drone in USA airspace that i am aware of......and nobody got hurt.

Either our population is super lucky, or the dangerof drones in the sky is vastly overstated.

Drone vs helicopter has the potential to be devastating....but for whatever reason drones don’t seem to be running into helicopters. I’m not sure what laws or policies can be put in place to improve safety.

You mean other than the incidents where drones have hit helicopters? The one with the most evidence is the Blachawk hit. Causing 10s of thousands of dollars of damage. "Nobody getting hurt" is irrelevant. Its a huge financial potential.

The whole point of risk assessment and management is to identify potential hazards and work to prevent it being a problem rather than wait for a problem then try to fix it after the event.

 

[Lapeer20m]

That's the problem relying on FPV. Firstly, you can't hear via FPV. Secondly, you are generally not continually spinning the aircraft to scan the sky. Thirdly, the field of view is so wide-angle that you are likely to get only a couple of seconds warning even if the camera is pointing in the right direction. If he really had been within VLOS, which is only a few hundred feet for a Mavic, then he would have seen and heard the helicopter coming from his location with much more time to take evasive action.

Was he flying fpv?

I had a similiar thing happen to me once when i was on the beach in Florida. Fortunately for me, the helicopter was much further away, but we were both about 130’ agl. Mavic was about 100 feet from me VLOS and I did not hear the helicopter until it was right on top of me. The wind was blowing hard and the waves were crashing on the beach. In my case, the chopper was likely within a couple football fields away but still way too close for comfort. Amazing how quickly it was here and gone.

 

[sar104]

Sooner or later something bad is going to happen, but of the millions of drone flights daily across the country for the entire history of drones, there is only one documented collision between a manned aircraft and a drone in USA airspace that i am aware of......and nobody got hurt.

Either our population is super lucky, or the dangerof drones in the sky is vastly overstated.

Drone vs helicopter has the potential to be devastating....but for whatever reason drones don’t seem to be running into helicopters. I’m not sure what laws or policies can be put in place to improve safety.

It's obviously down to statistics and probability. Luckily the airspace is large compared to the aircraft it contains, both manned and unmanned, and so the traffic density is low, although not uniformly so. That makes the probability of collision low, although higher in some places than others. But the existence of near misses such as this one, in addition to the few actual collisions, are ample evidence that collisions are quite possible. Would you have felt safe in that helicopter? The point being that while the probability is low, the consequences are high, which is why it is not regarded as a risk that doesn't need to be mitigated by regulation.

Mitigation can take many forms - engineered solutions such as transponders, flight regulations to separate traffic, no-fly zones in high traffic density areas. That latter two are already in place, even if they are often ignored, and are likely already substantially reducing the probability of collisions. But will they be sufficient as the number of UAVs in the air continues to grow at the current rate?

 

[JDawg]

Was he flying fpv?

I had a similiar thing happen to me once when i was on the beach in Florida. Fortunately for me, the helicopter was much further away, but we were both about 130’ agl. Mavic was about 100 feet from me VLOS and I did not hear the helicopter until it was right on top of me. The wind was blowing hard and the waves were crashing on the beach. In my case, the chopper was likely within a couple football fields away but still way too close for comfort. Amazing how quickly it was here and gone.

I have flown on the beach and can usually hear helicopters coming quite a ways away but they are military so very loud. One thing people don't address is how slow, at least the MA, descends. It seems it is the slowes maneuver it can make and if the pilot would have descended in that case he may have actually moved right into the path of the helicopter.

 

[sar104]

Was he flying fpv?

I had a similiar thing happen to me once when i was on the beach in Florida. Fortunately for me, the helicopter was much further away, but we were both about 130’ agl. Mavic was about 100 feet from me VLOS and I did not hear the helicopter until it was right on top of me. The wind was blowing hard and the waves were crashing on the beach. In my case, the chopper was likely within a couple football fields away but still way too close for comfort. Amazing how quickly it was here and gone.

That can happen. I think you have to factor in things that reduce your situational awareness of other aircraft, such as wind, noise, terrain obstructions, when deciding whether it is safe to fly.

 

[Dvanhoose]

I routinely fly almost every day 8am to 10am over North Bay Village at our studios. We are 10 miles south of the Hollywood Beach area. We are 3 miles inland from the beach separated by islands. I fly our Mavic Pro and take beauty shots for the news and weather LIVE. There is a lot of air traffic on the bay and beach. First, for me to be safe, I have a 2 way radio tuned 123.025 which is comms for helicopter and light aircraft. I can tell where all aircraft are because every pilot announces his or her position, altitude and intentions (North or South) to "Watson Island Traffic" while passing the area. All aircraft in the area are monitoring the same freq. Second, it is easy to hear a helicopter 3 miles away. I can do it standing on our seawall. If the Hollywood drone pilot had been monitoring that frequency he would have heard the WPLG pilot announce his altitude and position to "Watson Island Traffic" way before he got there. I can hear traffic from Key Biscayne to Hollywood easily. Knowing that the beach is traveled heavily by small aircraft he should have taken more care in his location off of the beach. Someone monitoring an aircraft receiver would have done it in my opinion.

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[jahjahwarrior]

Why in boats does the lowest powered or slowest craft have right of way, but a drone has to give way to a much faster helicopter flying below 400'?

It just seems to me like drones are not going away; and there is already a super super easy way to avoid accidents: don't fly within 5 miles of airport, and fly below 400'. Outside of 5 miles airplanes are above 400', so it's almost impossible to have an accident.

Then we put in place an easy way for drones to notify their current flight location (like airmap app) and an easy way for planes and helicopters to broadcast something like a temporary notam for crop dusting and ambulance flights. Then we just need new helicopters to stay above 400.

Again going back to slowest moving craft, the helicopter can out run the drone. Sure at the limits of Los you say hey the drone pilot was negligent but what is the limit? If a helicopter can buzz the beach at 50' high, for example... Maybe we should find a new limit, say 200', for cities with population more than half a million people?

But leaving it such that helicopters have no limits and you have to always avoid them, doesn't seem like the brightest solution, when we could easily put a new limit for both pilots. Safety is super important.


Also it's funny because it's important to share near miss accidents so we can learn and avoid future accidents but honestly I wouldn't post a near miss of this sort the way I would with a motorcycle, because of fear of repercussions from faa... And I'm torn because I think it's important to encourage sharing near miss accident as long as the sharer learned something and changes their behavior, and punishing them could have the effect of reducing sharing instead of reducing the risky behavior.

 

[gnirtS]

Why in boats does the lowest powered or slowest craft have right of way,

Thats not actually true or how it works.

but a drone has to give way to a much faster helicopter flying below 400'?

Because the chance of a drone user seeing a big, noisy manned aircraft is a hell of a lot higher than a manned aircraft seeing a tiny, inaudible drone passing by at 100kts+

It just seems to me like drones are not going away; and there is already a super super easy way to avoid accidents: don't fly within 5 miles of airport, and fly below 400'. Outside of 5 miles airplanes are above 400', so it's almost impossible to have an accident.

Plenty of aircraft are allowed to fly below 500ft as part of the flight, mission or tasking. So its quite possible to have an accident.

Then we put in place an easy way for drones to notify their current flight location (like airmap app) and an easy way for planes and helicopters to broadcast something like a temporary notam for crop dusting and ambulance flights. Then we just need new helicopters to stay above 400.

Plenty of things that arent crop dusting and ambulance also operate at or below 500ft completely legally. I also wouldnt expect a pilot to be continuously hammering "refresh" on his mobile phone all flight just in case someone fancied flying a drone along his flight route.

Again going back to slowest moving craft, the helicopter can out run the drone. Sure at the limits of Los you say hey the drone pilot was negligent but what is the limit? If a helicopter can buzz the beach at 50' high, for example...

The limit is quite simply - the unammed operator is responsible for maintaining separation and avoiding collisions. If he is unable or unwilling to do that he should choose to not make the flight in that area. Any offences the helicopter commits are completely independent and investigated as such (flying a drone 50ft over a crowded beach would be an offence in most countries too!).

But leaving it such that helicopters have no limits and you have to always avoid them, doesn't seem like the brightest solution, when we could easily put a new limit for both pilots. Safety is super important.

Well there is a solution - check before flying the drone, stay under 400ft and *maintain VLOS and a lookout*. The place in this video has tons of media and tourist helicopters buzzing the beach every day. Anyone whose been there more than 5 minutes would be aware of that and should factor that into the decision to fly or not.

And I'm torn because I think it's important to encourage sharing near miss accident as long as the sharer learned something and changes their behavior, and punishing them could have the effect of reducing sharing instead of reducing the risky behavior.

There is no point in law unless its enforced and sanctions are dished out. Punishing the idiots in a very public way and in a way they feel it (large fines, confiscation of equipment etc) should help deter other idiots doing the same.

Drones are tolerated in the airspace generally at the moment but with that comes responsibility. If people cant play nice with that, they'll get banned.

 

[neggy]

As a drone pilot, what would you do different? Had he descended there likely would have been a collision.

This is why I do not have a HARD 400' upper AGL limit set on my controller, because you CAN LEGALLY exceed 400' if you are in open space in order to avoid a collision. I'm not saying he should have gone up, sideways or anywhere else, but when you set a limit you can't exceed, you have boxed yourself in.

 

[jahjahwarrior]

If the guy didn't share the video, would we even know about the near miss?

 

[gnirtS]

If the guy didn't share the video, would we even know about the near miss?

Probably far more we don't know about than do.

 

[jahjahwarrior]

Do helicopters like this broadcast a signal that you can use an app to follow? I think there is something for commercial airlines but I don't know how up to date it is. I like the idea to have a radio but recreational drone pilots probably won't take to that as easily as an app, because it is expensive and requires more knowledge of the area and flight patterns, but if I could look on an app and see that the area has a lot of places, it would help make decision about whether to fly at all, and how to do it safely.

I agree if I could see a lot of flight traffic I would be less likely to fly in any location. But I have also flown at beaches with occasional traffic and it would put me at ease to have more visibility into what might be coming in the next 5-10 minutes.

Also regarding flights over crowded beaches....of course I meant flying over the water to take a picture of the beach....not violating any laws about flying over crowds of people.

 

[gnirtS]

Do helicopters like this broadcast a signal that you can use an app to follow? I think there is something for commercial airlines but I don't know how up to date it is.

You're thinking of ADS-B. Some (but not all) commercial aircraft broadcast it. A much smaller number (a minority) of GA aircraft broadcast it. Generally though no, helicopters, light aircraft and so on don't broadcast it.

To make matters worse, sites such as FlightRadar24,FlightAware etc have a policy of not displaying military and other aircraft even if they DO broadcast so you wouldn't see it anyway. You'd need your own receiver in the field with you and even then most of the traffic likely to come into conflict wont be broadcasting so you'd miss them.

FWIW you can build an ADS-B receiver using a USB tv dongle and a raspberry pi for about $30. Its not a lot of use for drone flying though for the reasons specified above.

Most aircraft will just be be a standard Mode C squawk for ATC radar which will give an altitude (not actual height above ground...) but no position.

 

[Lake_Flyer]

I kind of agree a lot of the problem now is the drones are too good and too accessible.

Anyone can wander in a shop and emerge 5 mins later with a drone. Most wont even bother reading the manual and just fly it causing all sorts of chaos.

The type of people buying drones isnt really the type of person that should be flying drones.

You nailed it here.

 

[sar104]

You're thinking of ADS-B. Some (but not all) commercial aircraft broadcast it. A much smaller number (a minority) of GA aircraft broadcast it. Generally though no, helicopters, light aircraft and so on don't broadcast it.

To make matters worse, sites such as FlightRadar24,FlightAware etc have a policy of not displaying military and other aircraft even if they DO broadcast so you wouldn't see it anyway. You'd need your own receiver in the field with you and even then most of the traffic likely to come into conflict wont be broadcasting so you'd miss them.

FWIW you can build an ADS-B receiver using a USB tv dongle and a raspberry pi for about $30. Its not a lot of use for drone flying though for the reasons specified above.

Most aircraft will just be be a standard Mode C squawk for ATC radar which will give an altitude (not actual height above ground...) but no position.

All aircraft are mandated to have ADS-B by 2020 to operate in most controlled airspace, so it's likely to become more useful.

 

[gnirtS]

Potentially but in a lot of these places aircraft are outside controlled airspace (although may still be equipped). You'd also likely want your own receiver and not relying on an app due to the large "blacklists" of aircraft a lot of tracking sites choose not to show.

The problem now is the type of aircraft with ADS-B working are exactly the type of aircraft you're unlikely to meet at low level doing sightseeing flights over a beach!

 

[sar104]

Potentially but in a lot of these places aircraft are outside controlled airspace (although may still be equipped). You'd also likely want your own receiver and not relying on an app due to the large "blacklists" of aircraft a lot of tracking sites choose not to show.

The problem now is the type of aircraft with ADS-B working are exactly the type of aircraft you're unlikely to meet at low level doing sightseeing flights over a beach!

Right, but very few aircraft only fly outside controlled airspace, and so basically all GA aircraft will need to be equipped with it. They might turn it off when not required, but that seems unlikely. I'm not sure about military. Agreed on the receivers, especially if operating without internet access. I can imagine DJI adding receivers to the aircraft.

 

[gnirtS]

By 2020 we'll be waiting for mavic pro 3. DJI Go with embedded ADS-B would be nice...but wont happen!

Also that's very US specific - most of the world isnt going to force ADS-B ever (the US date might slip as well, apparently in the region of 160,000 aircraft still not equipped).

 

[dvarapala]

Second, it is easy to hear a helicopter 3 miles away.

Maybe, but it's not always easy to determine which direction it is coming from or acquire a visual sighting. I have been surprised by a low-flying aircraft a few times and in some cases there just isn't enough time to land the MPP before the manned aircraft passes by.