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A comment on Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small drones.

Re:Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small dr... by andrewstuart2 on Tuesday March 15, 2016 @05:11PM (#11293034)
I'm not sure they've demonstrated adequate support that a bird strike can be equated to a drone collision. Drones are plastic and metal, versus the very light and porous structure of avian bones and musculature.

Additionally, you can't just do this sort of probability calculation when the human operator is an integral part of the equation. Birds don't fly in an area limited by their operator. And birds aren't (as far as we know) going to try to fly their drone over an airport (for one example) to get some unique footage that has market value.

This really seems like a vast oversimplification of the issue at hand. I'd much rather see them firing a drone out of a canon at high velocity into an aircraft cockpit (a la MythBusters chicken gun) to show what the actual damage of a comparable drone strike would be rather than just assuming "drone == small bird" based purely on a mass of 2kg.

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Re:Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small dr... by niccaluim on Tuesday March 15, 2016 @07:46PM (#11293918)
Birds also know how to dodge airplanes. The correct response to a collision course with a flock of birds—a situation I've been in on final more than a few times—is not to try to maneuver out of the way. Birds will always dive or climb as they close with the airplane.
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Re:Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small dr... by lutorm on Tuesday March 15, 2016 @08:15PM (#11294061)
"always" seems like a bit of an overstatement there, given that bird strikes in fact do happen, even to small GA aircraft.
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Re:Researchers say FAA is overblowing risk posed by small dr... by niccaluim on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @12:57PM (#11298787)
I didn't say they always miss, just that they always dive or climb. ;) But trying to out-maneuver them will pretty much guarantee a collision.
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