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By: 8th December 2014 at 06:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-No more chance than using any type of vehicle to attack a target I would guess -
Common Sense - Afraid with the drones they are easy to buy and easily flown straight from the box. You find a lot of people with little model experience are taking them up with no idea on any of rules and regs. They can and do have fly always so even someone flying on the edge of a restricted area following the rules can end up in trouble - this applies to most form of RC equipment.
Though as most of the bigger models are fitted with GPS these could all be set to not fly in restricted areas by default?
Good models shops normally explain a lot before selling models but with Internet buys a different story so maybe enclosing some details on the rules and regs should be shipped with each model.
Get caught you do get done
By: 8th December 2014 at 11:42 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-This story, for me, highlights the need for more user awareness at a time when these quadcopters are becoming easier and cheaper to purchase. I don’t work directly in the aerial surveying field, but I’ve spoken several times with those that do. The CAA is fairly stringent with commercial drone operators and, I believe, demands to see a physical demonstration of the type of work you wish to carry out. Any changes made to your operation, for significant commercial gain, need to be demonstrated further. For agricultural, forestry or archaeological surveys it makes good financial sense to hire a commercial remote-surveying company who put up a small copter for a couple of hours. By contrast, any idiot can buy one of these things for private use and fly it anywhere without any qualifications or comprehension of the risks involved. I imagine there will be a wave of these things after Christmas, and the cheaper models with more ‘relaxed’ build tolerances will lead to an increase in accidents. The issue isn’t so much what damage a drone would cause if ingested by an A320 and more about the increased numbers of people operating these aircraft with little to no flying knowledge. The knock-on effect this would have, with the CAA clamping down on the remote sensing industry, is open to speculation.
By: 13th December 2014 at 16:22 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Unless we are talking about some 'fruit and nut cases' having access/acquired military drones and the very complex and expensive equipment to fly them (very unlikely), the non military ones that are currently available to 'Joe Public' are hardly going to be a worse risk to commercial aircraft than a large bird or flock of birds (usually flying at speeds much faster than any small non military drone could hope to achieve).
Having said the above non military drones could be a higher risk to light aircraft.
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By: Mr Creosote - 7th December 2014 at 18:44
Am I over-reacting in finding this pretty scary? According to the report on the Beeb , sales of small drones are running between 1000-2000 per month in the UK, and the CAA says they have to rely on people's "common sense" when operating them. Is there the potential for terrorists to use drones to attack commercial aircraft?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30369701