Tag Archive for: Drone

FAA chief to impatient drone industry: “Sorry we’re so slow”

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FAA administrator Michael Huerta told attendees at this week’s drone conference that the FAA is forming an advisory committee led by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich to help prioritize drone rulemaking work. (credit: Sean Gallagher)

NEW ORLEANS—Former Cisco CEO John Chambers delivered a keynote on Tuesday at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) XPONENTIAL conference, slamming the Obama administration for moving too slowly on adjusting regulations governing commercial and private drones.

Chambers said that Obama doesn’t “get” drones and that the US is potentially being left behind in a market that he claimed could drive trillions of dollars in economic impact. His remarks drew loud applause from the audience of attendees—many of whom represented companies eager to cash in on drones as either vendors or customers.

Federal Aviation Administration administrator Michael Huerta responded on Wednesday with a talk about the FAA’s progress on drone regulations before the same audience that Huerta had previously called “a lion’s den” in his last appearance at AUVSI’s flagship conference four years ago. But, he joked, “We’re getting to know each other so well that UAS conventions are getting to be like family reunions.”

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Technology Lab – Ars Technica

British Airways flight hits possible drone during landing at Heathrow

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A British Airways A320 like this one reportedly struck a possible drone today at Heathrow, again raising concerns about consumer drone operators flouting regulations and endangering aircraft. (credit: British Airways)

Police at London’s Heathrow Airport are investigating a possible drone collision with a British Airways jet while the airliner was landing. The pilot of the Airbus A320, carrying 132 passengers, reported that an object had struck the front of the aircraft around 1pm UK time on Sunday.

The aircraft was inspected for damage by British Airways engineers and cleared for its next flight, an airline spokesperson told the BBC. Any damage done to the aircraft was apparently superficial. But the incident adds to fears, supported by recent aviation safety reports released by the British government, that consumer drones pose a danger to commercial aviation.

Flying a drone near an airport in the UK is already a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. And rules set by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority ban flying drones above 400 feet anywhere and flying drones out of a direct line-of-sight of the operator. The US has similar guidelines, with most metropolitan areas essentially designated as no-fly zones for drones because of how the Federal Aviation Administration defines airports—a definition that includes any hospital or building with a helicopter pad.

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Technology Lab – Ars Technica

Did China’s Military Drone Technology Espionage Pay Off in the End? – The Diplomat

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The Diplomat

Did China's Military Drone Technology Espionage Pay Off in the End?
The Diplomat
China's industrial espionage appears to have paid off in the drone market. As reported by Bill Gertz in late December, the CH-4 armed UAV strongly resembles the MQ-9 Reaper produced by General Atomics, and operated by the United States Air Force.

Espionage China – read more

Drone flies within 30 feet of passenger jet landing at Heathrow

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Part of a report of a September near-miss between an Airbus passenger jet and a “helicopter drone” very close to Heathrow. (credit: UK Airprox Board)

File this under the category of “drone pilots trying to ruin it for everybody.” According to a safety incident report published by the United Kingdom’s Airprox air safety board, an Airbus A319 landing at Heathrow International Airport last September narrowly avoided a collision with a drone flying at an altitude of 500 feet as the jet was on its final approach. The pilots reported the small hovering helicopter-style drone passed about 25 yards to the left of the cockpit and just 20 feet above the aircraft.

The A319’s wingspan is 112 feet, so that would mean the drone missed the airliner by as little as 30 feet. The pilot reported that there was no time once the drone was sighted to take evasive action. The pilot reported the drone to air traffic controllers, and the police were dispatched. However, the drone pilot was not found. The incident was classified as meeting risk category A—the highest level of incident covered by the reporting system short of an actual collision.

The drone was not detected by air traffic control radar, so the only details of the event and how close the aircraft came to striking the drone are the pilot’s estimate of distance. In the UK, drones are limited to flight below 400 feet and are banned from flying in controlled airspace (like that around Heathrow) without permission from air traffic controllers. As the report noted, UK Civil Aviation Authority rules require a drone to stay within visual line of sight of the pilot—a maximum of 500 meters (1,640 feet) horizontally and 400 feet vertically from the operator.

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Technology Lab – Ars Technica