TECH TALK
TAMING THE WILD WILD WEST OF DRONES
Figure 2: Drone Sightings and Encounters near LAX Airport
Figure 2 (also courtesy of Bard College) illustrates a number of key incidents at one major airport, Los Angeles International, and if you know the area and the fl ight path, having a large airliner come down in an overly-crowded urban area would be a major catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The amount of drone sightings near airports and heliports is startling, since these are clearly danger zones. Even with a prohibition against small drones operating within fi ve miles of airports or above 400 feet, there have been numerous reports of their use in such areas. We have had a drone crashing into empty seats at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and the operator arrested. At a farmers’ market in San Francisco in January, a drone was fl ying over the shoppers there before crashing, with a narrow miss to a bystander. When the shoppers began taking pictures of the couple who retrieved the drone, the irate drone operators objected to having their photos taken without their permission before fl eeing. (Wow, the irony is simply dripping on this one.) Drones have crashed into numerous buildings, stadiums, houses, cars and trucks. There are many reports of drones injuring bystanders in parks,
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backyards, police stations, airport runways and other public places. One crashed into a hot spring in Yellowstone Nation Park. Another caused a small wildfi re upon crashing, which a second drone fi lmed. Firefi ghters in California needed to temporarily suspend water-drop fl ights last June, which allowed a wildfi re to spread and cause more damage, after seeing multiple drones near their aircraft at up to 10,000 feet. A small drone crashed Jan. 26,
2016, on White House grounds and sparked federal security concerns. The Secret Service reported that a rogue drone was hovering near a West Palm Beach, FL, golf course where President Obama was hitting the links last year. A short time later, authorities received a report of a drone fl ying in the vicinity of the White House. Military aircraft scrambled to intercept the drone, which was last seen soaring over the Tidal Basin and heading toward Arlington, VA, according to the FAA reports. Thankfully, there have been only a
few injuries caused by drone misuse so far. But the costs in certain cases are beginning to add up to those aff ected by drone incidents — how much does it cost to scramble military aircraft to the White House … ?
Clearly the minimal rules in place on drone use have not been enforced eff ectively. If the FAA and local law enforcement could simply either stop drone use in critical areas (fl ight paths of aircraft, large public gatherings, etc.) or identify the drone operator in order to prosecute off enders, the trend in drone incidents would drop quickly. There is a fl ip side to this. AMA found that many drone sightings reported to FAA were unclear, incorrect or involved remotely- piloted aircraft that were adhering to the rules. This has apparently caused the FAA to describe more precisely the most recent drone data as ‘sightings’ and ‘reports’ rather than the more infl ammatory terminology that was used previously. The AMA performed a comprehensive analysis of FAA reports and concluded that only a small number of sightings were legitimately reported as ‘near misses.’ In fact, the most serious incidents involved government-sponsored military drones and others appeared to involve drone operators fl ying correctly. Meanwhile, the FAA’s drone data last August contained reports of many things in the air that weren’t drones, including birds, balloons, model rockets and even a UFO. Other industry groups echo such fi ndings, and the lack of timely and clear guidance from the FAA. Clearly we have multiple problems
here, and blame can be assigned to all parties. According to Shawn Holmgren,
owner-editor of Palm Beach Drone LLC, another issue is that the 2.5 Ghz radios that are used to control most consumer drones also compete with Wi-Fi hotspots and Wi-Fi devices in surrounding area to where many drones operate. This is most often the cause of radio failure, which leads to a loss of control and crashing of
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