I would ask the pilots to take out their Ipad or phone and take some pictures. Tablets are common now to hold mapping data etc.
I have seen many party balloons in flight, clearly enough to know they are balloons. I have never seen one long enough to get my camera out and take a photo. We are talking just a few seconds while it passes by. But in those few seconds it is perfectly clear.
A UAS would be no different. If you are close enough to see it you can probably tell what it is. I certainly would be able to tell if it is a Phantom 3 or a Phantom 4.
I can clearly see a small aircraft at 3 miles or more. They are about 7' tall. A Phantom is 7" tall which means I can see it just as clearly at 1,500' as a small aircraft at 3 miles (simple math).
If you are so far away that you can not tell what it is then you would probably not notice it in the first place to even report it.
I have several thousand hours of flight time, most of it at lower altitudes <5,000'. In all of that time I have hit two birds and have had many more near misses. There are thousands of birds out there and I have probably made several hundred reports of birds at approach altitudes to ATC. I can assure you if you hit a bird you see the bird clearly before it hits, but do not have enough time to avoid it let alone get a picture of it! I have seen thousands of birds in flight from an aircraft, clear enough to know they are birds and generally the type of bird it is.
I have never seen a UAS from my aircraft at any altitude.
Considering the number of birds in the relationship to the number of UAS, the risk of hitting a UAS is far, far smaller, but not zero. The amount of damage a 6' wing span Osprey (3.1 to 4.4 pounds) will cause compared to a Phantom 3 (3 pounds) is unknown. Unknown because to the best of my knowledge no one has ever hit one, yet bird strikes are a daily occurrence all across the country. Still bird strikes, or bird sightings from aircraft, never make the news.
The one suspected UAS strike that I am aware of left so little damage that they could not even confirm it was an actual UAS strike (If the pilot said it was one it probably was).
So what is the big deal? Bird strikes are inevitable, UAS strikes are preventable, it is that simple.
Just trying to put some of this into perspective.
BTW, one of the birds I did hit was recovered on the runway afterwards. It was an Osprey with a 6' wing span. It left no damage to the small aircraft (just a bloody mess). The FAA does collect bird strike information for statistical purposes, and I am sure this info is available to anyone that wants to do the research.
