SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A police drone had a "near-miss" with a fighter jet travelling at 520mph (836km/h), a report has revealed.
The drone's operator "honestly believed" the two would collide in mid-air, according to [PDF] the UK Airprox Board. It said the risk of a crash above Throwleigh, Devon, was "high" but the officer had lowered the drone quickly. Devon and Cornwall Police said it had notified Airprox, which was "content that there was no blame nor any lessons to be learned".
The drone was flying at an altitude of about 300ft (90m) on 16 January, according to the report. "The jet came into view from right to left and seemed to pass by the drone at the same altitude; it looked like the jet was within 200m laterally of the drone. Once the jet was in view it started banking to the right and [the operator] honestly believed it was going to collide with the drone."
"The jet continued and was followed a few seconds later by a second jet."
The F-15 pilot, who was flying at an altitude of 500ft (152m), could not see the drone, the report added. The board said the case had prompted discussions about whether the service which helps the military plan routes through UK airspace should incorporate information from other sources.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
One thing I forgot to mention... no, it didn't, at least if this happened in the USA (which it didn't). The legal FAA regs term is "Separation Violation" and it happens when aircraft are closer than 1000 feet vertically (stacked up in pattern, for example) or FIVE friggin miles horizontally (or 15 minutes if you're using procedural sep like over an ocean). Like most regs the FAA sets the safest standard and the ATC can use best judgment so if you listen to ATC tower they talk a lot making sure pilots see each other in which case they let the pattern tighten up to whatever game of chicken the pilots and ATC are willing to play (this is how formation flying works, more or less... if you see each other, its not a violation). So if we each fold paper airplanes and throw them at each other from five miles away, technically we have to file a sep violation report with the FAA, but in practice its not a serious danger.
Now there's two definitions of near-miss. One is when you watch Blackhawk Down and the pilots windshield gets a bullet hole right above his head, thats a near-miss. The other kind of near-miss is when clickbait journalists want to make something boring sound exciting, then a separation violation no matter how far apart is always described as a near-miss even if the aircraft were never within thousands of feet of each other.
Its surprisingly hard for someone on the ground to intentionally hit a flying aircraft even with extensive training unless you have IR or radar guidance... some rando cop on the street saying they almost collided is about as trustworthy as some rando cop saying the sun and moon nearly collided during an eclipse... there's a difference between some adrenaline rush of holy cow that was scary cool, vs actually hitting something moving at 500 mph quite a long distance away. Obviously the clickbait journalism definition of almost hit is sort of like how I almost hit the oncoming traffic on the interstate this morning, why only 150 feet of horiz sep away, cars were whizzing by in the opposite direction its a miracle no one was hit. Well, not really.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @06:20PM
Is a police drone an aircraft of the kind the military uses to kill groups of people from a distance, or is a police drone what the media loves to frantically call a drone but is actually just a quad- (or hexa- or whatever) copter? Given the media's incessant need to sensationalize, the question is worth asking. A near-strike between a jet and a missile-carrying aircraft is noteworthy, a jet flying by while someone is playing with a quad-copter is less so.
Pull up the article and... oh look, it's a story about a jet that flew by a couple of hundred feet above a quad-copter.
It wouldn't be a story if a jet flew by and didn't strike a duck that was flying a couple of hundred feet away, but make it a quad-copter and next thing you know it's news.