This video was produced last year by some fellow pilots and I around how hard it is to see a drone. Most of them own their own aircraft and regularly fly in rural Ontario. Flat open spaces and mostly in good weather. So how hard is it to spot a drone when you are at the controls and what should you do to avoid them? As an Ex-RCAF pilot, now flying drones commercially, I too wanted to know more about this "major conflict" and the media hype and hysteria surrounding it. We approached it from the point of view that drones/UAVs are a valuable new technology that has a lot of built in safety features. They should be able to co-exist with general aviation as long as people behave rationally. . . but it's the human in the loop that's the weakest link. So we set out to evaluate a best case scenario and film it from both the pilots and the UAV Operators point of view.
After months of planning and a thorough flight safety briefing we met at one of the pilots' private farm strip with three aircraft and 2 drones. The aircraft flew a set pattern ( similar to a typical takeoff and landing pattern) around a single tree in the middle of flat open farmland at 300-400 and 500ft AGL while a single drone hovered directly over the tree at 400ft. With photographers in each aircraft and the drones capturing aerial video in real time each set out to see how far out they could see each other. Additional spotters and photographers on the ground captured these CLOSE ENCOUNTERS from every angle. Under ideal conditions, on a perfectly sunny day, how hard could be?
As my old flight instructor used to say WATCH THIS! Events
After months of planning and a thorough flight safety briefing we met at one of the pilots' private farm strip with three aircraft and 2 drones. The aircraft flew a set pattern ( similar to a typical takeoff and landing pattern) around a single tree in the middle of flat open farmland at 300-400 and 500ft AGL while a single drone hovered directly over the tree at 400ft. With photographers in each aircraft and the drones capturing aerial video in real time each set out to see how far out they could see each other. Additional spotters and photographers on the ground captured these CLOSE ENCOUNTERS from every angle. Under ideal conditions, on a perfectly sunny day, how hard could be?
As my old flight instructor used to say WATCH THIS! Events
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