Video has captured the moment a drone came within just three metres of a helicopter

[Neon Euc]

Hey Neon you didn't thank me for saying it couldn't be like you reckoned it might have been- LOL. I went to a BBQ with a few of your Pommie mates here today is Aus (me Mate has his brother and sister in law over for a bit)- the sense of humour is pretty much bang on across the pond, plenty of sarcasm and piss-taking and nobody gets bent out of shape. It's. more fun when it's like that here in the threads.

Lol @With The Birds.... The cheque is in the post. You got the ultimate thumbs up from me. The humour is def the same over there. My mate who lives in Adelaide is sarcastic as hell. He's the one that set me up with so much electric unicycles. I made a video of him and used an Australian theme to go with it. Unfortunately roof Harris wasn't the best choice to use lol

 

[upthedowns]

The company that trained me is run by an ex-military help pilot (U.K.). He was involved in an incident where his heli was hit by a seagull just after a night sortie. The seagull weighed about the same as a Phantom. How do they know? Because with the heli at 150mph the bird hit the cheek window with such force that: it came through the window; hit the control stick hard enough that it was torn from Matt's grip; hit Matt hard enough to crack his body armour and render him unconscious. The impact on the aircraft was also sufficient to buckle the side door sliders, causing the side door to break away, narrowly missing the tail rotor. Fortunately, the immediate effect on the stick was to drive the heli up rather than into a dive and the co-pilot took over. This was all in pitch black and the crew thought the had been hit by an RPG that had failed to detonate until they got back to base and pulled out the very dead seagull.

When we saw the photos the whole room was silent.

So could the heli have been taken down by a Phantom sized drone? Our trainer clearly thought so and given my understanding of physics and the images I saw, so do I.

Fly safe everybody.

 

[Espo32]

This one is kind of hard to argue (was the video)..

Video has captured the moment a drone came within just three metres of a helicopter carrying five passengers.

I'll be the first to admit they may have over sensationalized the writing for this article

Another moron makes it harder

 

[pxlpainter]

I'll be the first to admit they may have over sensationalized the writing for this article

Not putting the issue to debate, but how about at least putting things into proper perspective/scale, Channel 7 "News"??

Plus looking at the video clip, the Phantom was at full tilt - loved like they were trying to evade the flight path before the chopper's approach.

 

[Got Aerial]

Information is KEY! use as you will....
Birds 5+lbs = 13,000 Bird Strikes in 2014 and 150,000 Bird Strikes over the past 25years

 

[The Springs]

What Really Happens When a Drone Strikes an Airplane

 

[Espo32]

Another moron makes it harder

Was crazy close seen it from side angle it was about 15-20 feet under the bird was on a mission who would keep going straight at helicopter

 

[Espo32]

Not putting the issue to debate, but how about at least putting things into proper perspective/scale, Channel 7 "News"??

View attachment 85507

Plus looking at the video clip, the Phantom was at full tilt - loved like they were trying to evade the flight path before the chopper's approach.

Yup blown up a bit but they are saying shouldn't be no where near a helicopter

 

[sar104]

What Really Happens When a Drone Strikes an Airplane

Interesting study, and the reported results are reasonably in line with most of the current industry thinking. It's good to know that commercial airliner windshields survived those tests, because that result was by no means obvious. Radomes and engines were always going to turn out to be vulnerable. Not such good news for smaller aircraft and helicopters either.

 

[N017RW]

Information is KEY! use as you will....
Birds 5+lbs = 13,000 Bird Strikes in 2014 and 150,000 Bird Strikes over the past 25years

Truly a testament to engineering and industry to design for the threat.
Despite that, the FAA spends Millions to reduce this threat by numerous and various means.

Worrisome is the difference in frangibility between (mostly) airborne animals (some strikes do occur with deer, etc.) and modern engineered materials and that industry has not yet had time to sufficiently study, test, and responded to this shift in the threat paradigm.

So while I'll accept the quantitative data at face value, and admit there are MANY more birds than drones, it does nothing to convince me that there is no enhanced danger from UASs.

Just as the FAA has, and continues to, reduce the threats from animals I suspect they will do the same for UASs.

 

[sar104]

Truly a testament to engineering and industry to design for the threat.
Despite that, the FAA spends Millions to reduce this threat by numerous and various means.

Worrisome is the difference in frangibility between (mostly) airborne animals (some strikes do occur with deer, etc.) and modern engineered materials and that industry has not yet had time to sufficiently study, test, and responded to this shift in the threat paradigm.

So while I'll accept the quantitative data at face value, and admit there are MANY more birds than drones, it does nothing to convince me that there is no enhanced danger from UASs.

Just as the FAA has, and continues to, reduce the threats from animals I suspect they will do the same for UASs.

And the link posted above by @The Springs details, again, why birds strikes are not valid comparisons in terms of the resistance of aircraft components to impacts, and why drone impacts are much more of a threat.

 

[With The Birds]

And the link posted above by @The Springs details, again, why birds strikes are not valid comparisons in terms of the resistance of aircraft components to impacts, and why drone impacts are much more of a threat.

While I can't, for unknown reasons, manage to open the link posted by @The Springs I would think a simplistic analogy might be that I would prefer to be hit in the head by a 2kg marshmallow travelling at 200+km/hr than a price of Pu or Au. Certain sub components of our UAV (motors, camera components etc) ikely present more of a threat to windshield penetration and propulsion system failure than any part of a bird could.

 

[sar104]

While I can't, for unknown reasons, manage to open the link posted by @The Springs I would think a simplistic analogy might be that I would prefer to be hit in the head by a 2kg marshmallow travelling at 200+km/hr than a price of Pu or Au. Certain sub components of our UAV (motors, camera components etc) ikely present more of a threat to windshield penetration and propulsion system failure than any part of a bird could.

That is the gist of it, backed up by some finite element modeling and some actual experimentation with a large-bore, low-velocity light-gas gun firing representative surrogates at around 200 mph. It confirmed that rigid (hard) objects do different and greater impact damage to the aircraft components than soft objects such as birds.

 

[The Springs]

And the magnesium component of the P4 would burn very nicely also from what I have read.

 

[With The Birds]

And the magnesium component of the P4 would burn very nicely also from what I have read.

I can confirm that after being stupid enough to attempt Oxy welding a VW engine crank case- once it started to burn we couldn't put it out, ended up drinking beer while we watched it (luckily I had the presence of mind to do it outside on the lawn).

 

[The Springs]

You should have chucked on some heavy mesh and cooked some snags to go with the beer

 

[HolyFlyer13]

But now it is you making the silly statements and, apparently, misunderstanding statistics and probability.

Firstly, no manned aircraft has been brought down that way because there have been no collisions yet. But there have been near misses and UAV availability and use is increasing, faster than linearly, and so it is untenable to assume that collisions won't happen in the future. Are you seriously arguing that it is not a problem just because it hasn't happened yet?

Since there have been no collisions, there are no data on the actual consequences. However, all knowledgeable assessments that I have seen agree that the consequences of such a collision at normal flight speeds could be very bad, depending on impact site. That's also consistent with my experience of high-speed impact experiments in a different, though related, field of study.

Any reasonable analysis based on those two observations will conclude that it is essential to air safety to avoid UAV/manned aircraft collisions.

Banning drones is almost certainly not the best solution, but strict regulation is the only realistic alternative. And the more that existing guidelines and rules are flouted by recreational flyers, the more strict the regulation is likely to be in the end.

Agreed, especially when you have idiots like the guy in this link completely disregarding potential catastrophe in order to check out the clouds.

 

[PhoenixOne]

Yeah down our way the local electricity authority used to surveil the poles and wires with very low flying heli. Felt you could almost touch it as they were looking for shorts on the cross arms on poles. The workers told me they have now bought drones to do the job I was surprised as I thought they would subcontract. The local flying school did the run over the beaches and did the shark patrol on weekends and holidays too but now the gov. Is using "new technology" see link Shark detecting drones to fly above NSW beaches.
Rural fire service is starting to use them for bushfire recon work on a local level but probably in addition to the few helicopters they own and run. Suppose it just comes down to costs. Didn't mention armed forces ....wow arnt they happy with them...don't have to risk a big chopper
Used to have a hypothesis but upgraded to a phantom 3

i just asked a guy in Australia if he thought finding tagged sharks would be a legit job for a drone. Apparently it is.. i gotta get my part 107..