Suffolk farm drone in near-miss with Tornado jet

[Dabrain]

I don't agree you have adequate time. Rough example: Let's say you hear the jet when it is 2 miles away. You have about 15 seconds to figure out what you are hearing and react to it. My Mavic 2 descends about 9 feet per second. I am not for sure getting out of the way.

There are several youtube videos showing low level jet flights "you can not hear them coming" and even the video will make you duck, because that's how fast they come on you they are by before you know they are there.

 

[NAVMAV]

Returning to thoughts about "How fast do Drones descend?", we're wondering if it would be practical - in an emergency - to yank the sticks hard right or left in order to:
a) initiate an emergency turn, albeit mostly ineffective in a timing sense, but
b) eliminate significant amount of 'Lift', thereby causing a more rapid altitude drop than normal descent?
Granted, you'd need to be high enough to have adequate recovery time. Is this feasible, or would you simply create a disaster?
We're leaning toward the latter, btw.

Rgds, NAVMAV

 

[FoxhallGH]

No, it's saying that they were 10 miles from Wattisham airfield, which isn't quite the same thing. Neither the BBC nor the Airprox says where the Tornados were from, but they appear to have just been flying past the airfield at the time of the incident.

According to Wikipedia, Wattisham is currently operated by the Army Air Corps and, while the RAF may have some helicopters there, they definitely do not have any Tornados based there.

100% correct @zocalo - Wattisham is the base for the Apache attack helicopters. I have a customer in the Industrial Site right next to the base, and have watched a Vulcan bomber a couple of years ago, practising its Flight demonstration for an up-coming Airshow - from their front door. So there are examples of the airbase being used for other RAF training 'reasons'. It is possible that the RAF Tornado's were using the airbase as a training target - and tho' they could be landed there - as you have said, It would have been very unlikely that they would have ...

 

[Flynz]

We set our max height at 400ft above take off. How do military aircraft define their height - not above take off I imagine. Probably above sea level plus they will know height above current ground. So how do we reconcile these measurements. If we take off at the top of a hill we could easily be at the hight (legitimately) of a military jet.

Aircraft altimeters are set at height above sea level. They are required to maintain height above terrain so similar to us. In our country Aircraft should be no lower than 500ft unless in a designated low flying area or carrying out agricultural work. Helicopters landing require consent from land owners as do drones so the link should be complete.

 

[AMann]

There are several youtube videos showing low level jet flights "you can not hear them coming" and even the video will make you duck, because that's how fast they come on you they are by before you know they are there.

This is so true, This has happened to me often while standing out in Death Valley’s more remote areas where jets train by flying low to the terrain; you don’t hear them until after they’ve passed by you.

 

[dannybgoode]

The only time you will not hear something loud coming at you before that something actually reaches you is when that something is travelling faster than sound, it's basic physics.
Low level flights are hardly ever conducted at such speed

That’s not strictly true. Most of the noise of a fighter jet comes from the engines. If a plane is flying toward you the air somewhat quiet until they pass overhead and then you hear the tearing - particularly at low level.

 

[dannybgoode]

Yea it is strictly true, it's quiter obviously, but to say you don't hear it before it gets to you is a myth*, I live in a busy Low flying Training area, hear the fast jets all the time, you get little warning and trying to locate the direction they are coming from is very difficult, but to say you can't hear them till they get to you is just another myth repeated endlessly till people believe it.

*Unless as said before they are are over Mach 1 (770mph-ish at sea level) which is practicaly never in training and very rare even in combat

P.S. Years ago you either knew stuff like this from real life experience or you read it in a book.
Books tended to be peer reviewed and largely factual.
Today kids look things up on Google and get results that include lots of hits on forums like this where someone repeats a falsehood and they go off and repeat it themselves..etc etc

Combine that with the lack of critical thinking being taught in schools over the past few decades and the end result is millions of people believing all sorts of B---sh@t and insisting it's true

I didn’t say silent either - hence ‘most of the noise’. But they can be surprisingly quiet until they scream overhead.

Note my experience comes from spending every summer at air shows. You’d hear some tearing but it was usually pretty non-directional and then wham - then you’d know where it was! Google wasn’t a thing when I was younger, or even the internet in any accessible sense.

I can quite imagine that if you a) were not expecting it and b) were concentrating on flying your drone a fast low level jet could well take you by surprise.

 

[bushie]

In the 60s I was working in Darwin building a large water pipeline into the city. We had cleard a straight line through the scrub for about 40km. The regular annual air exercise was taking place and the RAF had a couple of V bombers involved. On more than one occasion they would fly along our pipeine route low enough to kick up dust. You would not hear them coming and nearly mess your dacks as they went over. My biggest worry was we were doing some blasting and threw rock in the air when the shot went of. Once the fuze was alight there was no stopping.

 

[Pietros]

We were driving down Glen Shiel in Scotland in February admiring the snow and passed a bloke with a mavic controller looking out across the valley. Just after that a Tornado flew past down in the valley below the road level so the UAV pilot would have had a suprise and the roar as it went past shocked us. I only had a glimpse of the aircraft and thought 'Tornado.' But we had a Gopro running and reviewing the footage that evening confirmed my rusty RAAF trained recognition skills had not completely atrophied!

 

[AMann]

The only time you will not hear something loud coming at you before that something actually reaches you is when that something is travelling faster than sound, it's basic physics.
Low level flights are hardly ever conducted at such speed

Yup, but terrain will deflect sound and can present such a situation. That was my observation while standing at some sand dunes in Eureka Valley, we literally did not hear a sound until they passed over the big dune from the opposite side and were above us.

 

[Dizzy1971]

I'm not sure about UK aviation law on altitude minimums, especially for military aircraft in training, but it's obviously somewhat risky flying at 120 m, 10 miles from the field. Sounds like the drone was being operated fully within the law and would have had little chance to detect and avoid an incoming low-level flight of that kind.

Lot of stupid things going on all round the world @cayman5522 - we don't have the monopoly on stupidity my friend!

Got THAT right! let’s not get started on American stupidity,or any others citizens, but it’s truth to say those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.