Drone pilots warned after close call with passenger jet

[Techen]

A "near miss" between a passenger jet and a drone has prompted warnings about safe use of the hobby aircraft.
An Airbus A320's wing passed 6m (20ft) below a drone hovering at Heathrow, said the Civil Aviation Authority.
It said drone pilots would face prosecution if they put the safety of other aircraft at risk.


People who use drones have been warned that they could be prosecuted and even face prison if they do not obey safety rules.

The "dronecode" says recreational drone owners should always keep their craft within their line of sight, about 500m (1,640ft), and must not fly higher than 122m. In some of the near-collisions, drones were flying at heights of about 2,000ft, it said.
The code also says that drones carrying cameras must stay at least 50m away from people, vehicles and structures and must not approach a large group of people closer than 150m.

This is all UK only, It was on the news today. If anyone was curious. They are bashing the hobby so hard today all over the news it makes me sad, I have a funny feeling that this hobby is already quickly out the window.

 

[Spastickitten]

Man, I hope it gets better over there. I feel the same way over here sometimes. Right now someone put a gun on a quad. Saddening.

 

[Techen]

Man, I hope it gets better over there. I feel the same way over here sometimes. Right now someone put a gun on a quad. Saddening.

I heard about the gun thing too, It was in the news as well. Not a good time for the hobby at all D:

 

[Julez]

I counted the word 'drone' in that article 8 times. That's 8 times too many.

The media has managed to manipulate and criminalize our hobby to the point where people would look at military UAV's and our multirotors as one and the same. The public fear of 'drones' as well as the overhyped 'close calls' (I have to imagine the quad in the article was a couple hundred feet away at least- not that that vindicates his actions in any way.) have caused so much negative attention to be directed towards us at hobbyists, when the real issue lies with 'drone dads' who go out, buy a phantom, and fly without an inkling of the rules and regulations.

I think there need to be requirements for operating models at this point, especially for the heavily commercialized and publicized quads like DJI products and other cheap, RTF multirotors. Having to prove that you know what the regulations are and/or holding a model operating license should be required before someone can purchase and fly multi's or fixed wing. The entire situation really is too far out of hand.

 

[RAM]

Having just bought a used DJI and flown it I can't figure out how anyone could not know where the thing is. It's so easy to fly it's almost boring and so small that you can't see it beyond a few hundred feet. I wonder how many of these droners giving us a bad name are flying fpv when it happens.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Are we looking at a social wave of discontent that is about to crest against multirotors?

http://gizmodo.com/is-it-ok-to-shoot-down-your-neighbors-drone-1718055028

 

[razor02097]

Having just bought a used DJI and flown it I can't figure out how anyone could not know where the thing is. It's so easy to fly it's almost boring and so small that you can't see it beyond a few hundred feet. I wonder how many of these droners giving us a bad name are flying fpv when it happens.

Probably not that many... Especially the crashes that happen. I'll bet the majority of the phantom owners that crashed was due to losing orientation and not knowing how to troubleshoot to get it back.

 

[RAM]

Probably not that many... Especially the crashes that happen. I'll bet the majority of the phantom owners that crashed was due to losing orientation and not knowing how to troubleshoot to get it back.

That was the first thing I tested. Several times I just shut off the receiver and it magically returned to land at my feet. I suppose if the operator didn't take the time to learn about their new toy this could happen. The other possibility is that they did know but the dji was near some overhead object by the time they realized they lost sight and it flew up into something. The first thing it does is climb before it tries to return.

 

[razor02097]

That was the first thing I tested. Several times I just shut off the receiver and it magically returned to land at my feet. I suppose if the operator didn't take the time to learn about their new toy this could happen. The other possibility is that they did know but the dji was near some overhead object by the time they realized they lost sight and it flew up into something. The first thing is does is climb before it tries to return.

I didn't think about that. Although if they didn't think to initiate the RTL they probably didn't calibrate compass or wait for GPS lock either

 

[RAM]

I didn't think about that. Although if they didn't think to initiate the RTL they probably didn't calibrate compass or wait for GPS lock either

All I can say from personal experience is that you could never fly this thing very far without losing sight of it. Even so, by default it is very very easy to use. push the stick away, it moves away, release and it stays there, push to the left or right it tilts and goes that way, pull back and it comes back to you, very intuitive, not like a tri where you have to orient it then go in the direction you chose. I wish we had numbers on how many of these unintended crashes were due to flying out of line of sight using fpv vs. operator error. It's simply not fun to fly if you can't see it.

 

[jipp]

stupid people piss me off.
chris.

 

[razor02097]

All I can say from personal experience is that you could never fly this thing very far without losing sight of it. Even so, by default it is very very easy to use. push the stick away, it moves away, release and it stays there, push to the left or right it tilts and goes that way, pull back and it comes back to you, very intuitive, not like a tri where you have to orient it then go in the direction you chose. I wish we had numbers on how many of these unintended crashes were due to flying out of line of sight using fpv vs. operator error. It's simply not fun to fly if you can't see it.

I wasn't aware of the headless mode. Is that something you have to activate though?