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Please stop flying in restricted airspace!!!!!!!

Joined
May 22, 2013
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Ok I am sorry I have to go on a rant today. for the last 2 days the news has been reporting that a "drone" has stopped or limited air support fighting the fires in southern CA. It is not going to take much more for CA to go over board and pass some stupid law that hurts all of us.

Please check for TFR's and restricted airspace before you fly.

FAA if you are lurking please go after these people make an example of them. fine them make people think twice about flying in restricted airspace. They are making it very hard on those of us who follow the rules about airspace. if many more "Drones" show up at forest fires CA will be the first state to do something stupid and try some wide spread ban.
 
It's happening here in the fresno area too..
I don't understand why anyone would fly near fires when they should know that there's low flying aircraft in the area fighting the fire..
I don't think you need to look at a website to know not to fly near fires..
if there's a fire in your area you can assume there's a TfR in place...
this happened here last year so you would think people would have caught on,but I guess not...
flying in the same airspace as aircraft is one of the biggest problems we face. .
hopefully they won't punish us all for the actions of a few...
 
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Personally feel they should just bake in a SERIAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER that always transmits the AC location while in flight.. Serves as a major part of RESPONSIBILITY.. A catastrophe is on the HORIZON, like it or not, general sales skyrocketing right into the hands of mature and immature pilots.. Hate to say it, but a catastrophe is almost going to have to HAPPEN for regulations and Governing to be put in place.. So much that needs to be educated and learned, but hurry up and sell these aircrafts and make billions..... Just my RANT[emoji20]
 
Personally feel they should just bake in a SERIAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER that always transmits the AC location while in flight.. Serves as a major part of RESPONSIBILITY...[emoji20]
The FAA is trying to do that to general aviation aircraft. Next, they will want to do it to cars.
 
Meh, nonsense. All you need is a little common sense. Id fly and photograph the fires if I lived near there for sure. Its not hard to maintain visual and avoid any aircraft in the area. Only a complete moron would get in their way and even if you did the end result would be drone destroyed with around a 5% chance the aircraft pilot even knew he hit the drone. Its all BS media fearmongering blown out of proportion. The chances of a drone/aircraft collision doing anything to the aircraft is very small. It would have to be a small single engine plane and a large drone that hit the windscreen or maybe the prop and most likely it still wouldnt cause the plane to crash.

I have many pilot friends who fly small spray planes and they arent one bit worried about drones except for a windscreen strike. Theyve been hunting from aircraft and shot their own props and while its does do damage and throws them out of balance it doesnt cause them to crash. A small plastic drone isnt gonna do jack squat unless it is unfortunate enough to go through the windscreen and the chances of that are pretty slim as well unless its a large custom drone that hits in just the perfect spot. They hit ducks and other birds all the time which are more solid than a plastic drone and at worse they just crack the windscreen unless its a perfect hit.

Commercial airliners have multiple engines which are designed to ingest large birds and keep functioning so if you wanted to take one down with drones you would need multiple large custom drones and have to simultaneously hit every engine which is virtually impossible without having so many large drones that the pilot could easily see and avoid them.

Id even bet you couldnt get in the path of and hit an aircraft if you tried unless you were right next to the airport while it was taking off or landing, lol!

Dont play into the BS, its so bogus its funny. Use common sense and dont be a moron and theres no issue.
 
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Although I agree it is media hype brought on by the various gov't agencies creating some shock value, you underestimate the damage it could do to a general aviation aircraft. Unless you are a pilot, current or past aircraft crew member, then you cannot realistically understand the potential danger, or not (same applies to the media regarding sUAV's).

As a pilot and owner/builder of a Lancair (small high performance aircraft), a prop strike, wind screen strike, wing leading edge strike, vertical or horizontal leading edge strike, could well be enough to have damage that would require immediate landing action. Off-field landings are typically very deadly. A prop strike of any sort, small bird excepted, can throw the prop out of balance enough to cause very severe engine vibration/shake. Enough that the engine has to be immediately shut down. Otherwise, the out of balance condition can be enough to actually separate the engine from the aircraft. This is not an exaggeration. The issue is real. An aircraft striking an object in-flight, even something that is plastic and weighs only 2 pounds at 150 MPH can be a very significant event (my aircraft cruises at over 200 MPH).

With that being said, there likely will not be any small aircraft in a wild fire area because of TFR's in place. The exception being twin engine used as spotters for the fire retardant aircraft and water dropping helicopters. But a twin engine spotter aircraft that loses an engine, is a dangerous plane to fly and land, (one operable engine on one wing being a real hand-full for the pilot) as would be a helicopter of any size that has a prop strike. A prop strike is one of the most feared events a pilot thinks about.

It is likely a twin engine spotter will not be flying at low enough altitudes to be in conflict with sUAV's, but a helicopter could be that low. In addition, a big majority of fire retardant planes are twin engine aircraft, that with a full load of retardant, if loosing one engine, could also be a very real emergency. I see them daily flying out of my local airport here in southern Oregon, and believe me, there rate of climb is very low. In some cases they will have to circle the valley here to gain enough altitude to be able to clear the Siskiyou Mountains to the south into California.

As far as jet engine fire fighting aircraft, they make their dump runs at a much higher altitude than the prop engine aircraft, so conflict with sUAV's is not likely.

With TFR's in place, no flying without prior permission speaks for itself. Violate it, and suffer the consequences if caught.
 
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Meh, nonsense. All you need is a little common sense. Id fly and photograph the fires if I lived near there for sure. <snip>
Dont play into the BS, its so bogus its funny. Use common sense and dont be a moron and theres no issue.

The most recent TFR near my house was "no unauthorized aircraft from ground level to 17,999 feet". That means the authorized pilots can expect NO aircraft in the air except them, allowing them to make what maneuvers they require for the job at hand. I stayed grounded even though I was a little outside the 5-mile radius defined by the TFR.

I'm glad you weren't in the area at the time of the following video, violating the TFR in place to clear the way for the tankers:


IMO, "dont be a moron" = "don't violate TFRs"

mTp
 
Id fly and photograph the fires if I lived near there for sure. Its not hard to maintain visual and avoid any aircraft in the area. Only a complete moron would get in their way and even if you did the end result would be drone destroyed with around a 5% chance the aircraft pilot even knew he hit the drone.

It's comments like this that make me very nervous about the future of drones for the rest of us.

Yes, like you say, only a moron... :rolleyes:
 
Meh, nonsense. All you need is a little common sense. Id fly and photograph the fires if I lived near there for sure. Its not hard to maintain visual and avoid any aircraft in the area. Only a complete moron would get in their way and even if you did the end result would be drone destroyed with around a 5% chance the aircraft pilot even knew he hit the drone. Its all BS media fearmongering blown out of proportion. The chances of a drone/aircraft collision doing anything to the aircraft is very small. It would have to be a small single engine plane and a large drone that hit the windscreen or maybe the prop and most likely it still wouldnt cause the plane to crash.

I have many pilot friends who fly small spray planes and they arent one bit worried about drones except for a windscreen strike. Theyve been hunting from aircraft and shot their own props and while its does do damage and throws them out of balance it doesnt cause them to crash. A small plastic drone isnt gonna do jack squat unless it is unfortunate enough to go through the windscreen and the chances of that are pretty slim as well unless its a large custom drone that hits in just the perfect spot. They hit ducks and other birds all the time which are more solid than a plastic drone and at worse they just crack the windscreen unless its a perfect hit.

Commercial airliners have multiple engines which are designed to ingest large birds and keep functioning so if you wanted to take one down with drones you would need multiple large custom drones and have to simultaneously hit every engine which is virtually impossible without having so many large drones that the pilot could easily see and avoid them.

Id even bet you couldnt get in the path of and hit an aircraft if you tried unless you were right next to the airport while it was taking off or landing, lol!

Dont play into the BS, its so bogus its funny. Use common sense and dont be a moron and theres no issue.
Unfortunately we have to cater to society's weakest link. Common sense is not that common anymore. I am all for regulation and licensing. As with most things in life, make something a little more difficult to do and the weakest links will give up and move on.
 
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Meh, nonsense. All you need is a little common sense. Id fly and photograph the fires if I lived near there for sure. Its not hard to maintain visual and avoid any aircraft in the area. Only a complete moron would get in their way and even if you did the end result would be drone destroyed with around a 5% chance the aircraft pilot even knew he hit the drone. Its all BS media fearmongering blown out of proportion. The chances of a drone/aircraft collision doing anything to the aircraft is very small. It would have to be a small single engine plane and a large drone that hit the windscreen or maybe the prop and most likely it still wouldnt cause the plane to crash.

I have many pilot friends who fly small spray planes and they arent one bit worried about drones except for a windscreen strike. Theyve been hunting from aircraft and shot their own props and while its does do damage and throws them out of balance it doesnt cause them to crash. A small plastic drone isnt gonna do jack squat unless it is unfortunate enough to go through the windscreen and the chances of that are pretty slim as well unless its a large custom drone that hits in just the perfect spot. They hit ducks and other birds all the time which are more solid than a plastic drone and at worse they just crack the windscreen unless its a perfect hit.

Commercial airliners have multiple engines which are designed to ingest large birds and keep functioning so if you wanted to take one down with drones you would need multiple large custom drones and have to simultaneously hit every engine which is virtually impossible without having so many large drones that the pilot could easily see and avoid them.

Id even bet you couldnt get in the path of and hit an aircraft if you tried unless you were right next to the airport while it was taking off or landing, lol!

Dont play into the BS, its so bogus its funny. Use common sense and dont be a moron and theres no issue.

Have YOU ever ridden in small prop plane? You know, like the ones used by the Civil Air Patrol, state police, and every flight school in America which makes them very common? If a drone hits one of those in the windshield it will probably kill the pilot first then cause a crash. The people who repeatedly say quads can not hurt planes are so ill informed it makes us all look bad. They are not made to run through plastic and metal at any speed never mind cruising at over 100knots. Pilots always talk about the "big sky theory" and we understand there is a lot of space up there but for you to think of yourself and some silly pictures first in this situation is ignorant, dangerous, and down right illegal. Commercial airliner planes fly in Class A airspace above 17,999ft. If you encounter a plane with a quad it is much more likely to be a small plane that most certainly can NOT withstand the impact. I can tell you that I am currently flying a C152, pretty much as small as it gets, and people like you make it very scary for people like me.
 
Unfortunately we have to cater to society's weakest link. Common sense is not that common anymore. I am all for regulation and licensing. As with most things in life, make something a little more difficult to do and the weakest links will give up and move on.

Yeah, with every passing day, with every ignorant comment, with every stupid stunt, I'm moved a little closer to your line of reasoning. I guess it will be inevitable.
 
Like I said I have many pilot friends who fly small aircraft, they aren't worried. At any rate it turned or to be a military drone at 11,000 feet. It was nothing but fearmongering bs.
 
In South Africa - we have just been hit with our first batch of regulations. I feel that it's a good thing seeing the way this hobby / industry has exploded. However I love FPV and it's basically banned. :(
When I first saw FPV as a hobby a few years ago, the guys that did it were literally out in the desert. I think the people doing this hobby need to evolve, we are sharing airspace with manned aircraft, it's time we started to think of safety. I just wish we could have our own little patch where we would do what we wanted, fly as high as we liked and be legal. ( a sort of "No Fly zone" for the larger aircraft)
 
In South Africa - we have just been hit with our first batch of regulations. I feel that it's a good thing seeing the way this hobby / industry has exploded. However I love FPV and it's basically banned....
More info please. No more FPV or no more "beyond" visual line of sight (VLOS)?
 
Basically No more FPV ...... It's still a little fuzzy, but from what I can see, they are talking about no flight beyond 500m .....
 
Basically No more FPV ...... It's still a little fuzzy, but from what I can see, they are talking about no flight beyond 500m .....
 

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