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FAA Manufacturing Drone Crash Data

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Mar 20, 2014
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It's never happened - and is unlikely to ever happen - so they're resorting to MAKING it happen. Under conditions they prescribe so that they can point to their manufactured data and claim all the power they like in the name of public safety.

"We smashed it hundreds and thousands of times...." - FAA paid contractor on the process of manufacturing data.

Yep, never saw that coming.

 
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I especially like the shooting drones out of an 80 foot cannon at what are probably speeds of up to 500mph at the softest parts of the aircraft.

Since, you know, that's what will happen.

And it'll provide the best damage report for the FAA report (and next CNN headline. And FAA talking head interview circuit about how drones are now proven to be able to destroy airliners).
 
If they are doing new tests that they aren't also doing to test bird strikes then I think there's an issue. It sounded like they were comparing them to bird strikes so maybe this is okay. We won't know until they publish their findings.
 
Drones don't go fast, but the airplanes do.

At < 400ft airlines are travelling at a fraction of their cruise speed. The "reports" of drone sightings by airline pilots at 6,000-20,000ft are bogus / mis-categorized ballon / plastic bag or other non-drone object sightings.
 
At < 400ft airlines are travelling at a fraction of their cruise speed.

You are absolutely right about that. Additionally they are generally restricted to 250 knots (about 288 mph) or less below 10,000 agl.

I don't really want to leave you with the impression I am a fan of the FAA. I just wanted to point out the reasoning behind ballistic tests that exceed the drones's speed capabilities. If you had a drone traveling north at 30 mph and a jet traveling south at 288 mph you have an impact at 318 mph. So there may be reasonable motivations behind these test, that aren't immediately obvious.
 
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FYI,

Military aircraft fly low lever routes in excess of 250kts, at 300' AGL. The center line of a Military Training Routes (MTR's) have are printed on sectionals, however the corridor width may vary from 1 mile to several miles. That information can only be found AP-1B, additionally it can be scheduled at anytime, to include the time of entry, no NOTAM is created and in most cases civilians will have an incredibly difficult time trying to deconflict MTR traffic.
 
FYI,

Military aircraft fly low lever routes in excess of 250kts, at 300' AGL. The center line of a Military Training Routes (MTR's) have are printed on sectionals, however the corridor width may vary from 1 mile to several miles. That information can only be found AP-1B, additionally it can be scheduled at anytime, to include the time of entry, no NOTAM is created and in most cases civilians will have an incredibly difficult time trying to deconflict MTR traffic.

Terrific :(
 
This is encouraging to me... instead of creating risk-based regulations based on heuristics or politics, data sets like these will support better regulations based on simulated collisions and statistical probabilities. Remember, it's FOIA-able information. If the drone community doesn't think the FAA's interpretation of the data is accurate, we can always request the raw data and interpret ourselves.

Finally, a dollop of personal experience/perspective: During my time supporting the TSA and the FAA in a previous life, these organizations DID NOT collect rigorous scientific data on regulations they weren't willing to give way on for political reasons. The fact they're collecting the information here suggests they're in search of the truth.
 

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