Here is a story that is on the Air Transport World website.
Aaron Karp
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) is calling for Traffic Collision and Avoidance Systems (TCAS) technology to be mandated on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Speaking Wednesday at the ALPA Air Safety Forum in Washington DC—two days after a Lufthansa Embraer E-195 reported a near-miss with an UAV on approach to Warsaw—ALPA president Tim Canoll said language requiring that TCAS or similar technology be installed on UAVs should be included in FAA reauthorization legislation Congress is expected to take up later this year. “It’s important that active collision avoidance [technology] be mandated on [UAVs], otherwise these aircraft are invisible to our pilots,” Canoll said, adding that UAVs must be required to “use the same rules as we do.”
US Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), delivering a keynote address at the ALPA conference, also called for UAV regulations to be included in the FAA bill. DeFazio is the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a key player in the upcoming FAA reauthorization debate.
“Basically, you should say nobody should fly a drone that isn’t pre-programmed to avoid restricted airspace,” DeFazio said. “We should register [UAVs] so we can track them back [to owners and operators]. We need to institute a system of meaningful fines and penalties for people who do operate them in restricted airspace.”
DeFazio said there are “a lot of legitimate uses” for UAVs, but he expressed concern about the impact unmanned aircraft will have on the safety of commercial aircraft. He said he has requested that FAA do tests on UAVs “being sucked into aircraft engines” similar to bird ingestion tests, and has been informed FAA will conduct these tests in the near future.
Number of bird strikes vs. aircraft annually (with only 20% reported) Over 10,000
Number of human deaths due to bird strikes.
Over 500
Number of dollars annually spent as a result of bird strikes
Over $1,000,000,000.00 (Billion)
Number of birds estimated to be in the air at any given time.
Over 2,000,000,000 (Billion)
Number of feet of altitude birds have been involved in strikes.
Over 30,000
Vs.
Number of human deaths due to model quadcopters.
0
Number of dollars annually spent as a result of drone strikes to commercial aircraft.
0
Number of chances of a jet ingesting a quadcopter in each engine at the same time. (Google… US Airways Flight 1549)
0
Number of chances of an under control quadcopter being above 30,000′.
0
(See Wikipedia Bird strike)
It’s obvious where we should be focusing our attention …. Drones!
If it weren’t for knuckleheads this wouldn’t be an issue.
I’ve flown quads for over 10 years now when you could only order parts from Germany. I have a dozen quads, are they going to tell me I can’t fly any of them because they need to be updated with the new TCAS mod? And why are all quads called Drons now? I’ve always understood that to be a drone it must have a live video feed back to the pilot, if it’s a quad with a Gopro on it it’s just a quad with a Gopro on it not a drone. The down side to all the new technology is that anyone can buy a quad and go fly, there is no learning curve and no hobby involvement to learn the rules that have been in place form many many years. Because of all the idiots out there flying I see severe regulation, licensing, and much more harassment of trained, safe pilots.
I had a thought about the word drone and how it is being used today. For all my life RC aircraft were called exactly that, RC. Today it seems that the word drone defines RC. Why is that? Well today in the world of meleniums they must uses their own words to describe, thus the universal word “Drone” is used to describe anything that flies from the mini quad the size of your hand to the autonomous predator scale aircraft that is controlled from a remote device including your cell phone.
I’ve mentioned it to the AMA committee.
Since quads are too easy to fly, it should be necessary to have an AMA membership (and follow the ‘tag your craft with ama number’ guidelines) or you can’t buy one at all.
Too many morons are screwing up the hobby. Including the ones flying over wildfires and causing the firefighters to ground their aircraft because of it.
If you buy a quad, GROW A BRAIN AND FOLLOW THE RULES!