At Last - Arms Makers Are Going To Target Nuisance Drones

Waiting passengers at Gatwick Airport, UK, after a drone scare jhalted flights in December.


Recall some 5 years ago, a  Denver Post, piece: 'Drone Close Calls'(June 25th, 2014,  p. 17A)   referenced dozens of perilous close calls of commercial aircraft and drones, e.g.(p. 22A):

"The close calls were the latest in a rash of dangerous encounters between civilian aircraft and drones flown in contravention of FAA rules intended to safeguard U.S. airspace.."

The accumulating incidents  so spooked one commercial pilot (Greg Cromer) that he actually wrote a letter to the FAA opposing the whole insane idea of opening U.S. airspace to these pestiferous interlopers, writing (ibid.):

 "I can see no way to prevent a collision with something that could be as small as a bird or a plane or kitchen appliance."

Since then the incidents have increased more than twenty fold and had pilots dodging the damned things with many even closer calls, over major airports.

Then in December the immediate nuisance nature of these devices came to the fore when thousands of passengers at Gatwick Airport (UK) had flights canceled or postponed on account of drones in the airspace.  ('Drones Shut Down Major UK Airport', WSJ, Dec. 21, p. A8). 

More worrisome, around the same time we beheld the suspected collision of a small drone with an AeroMexico plane ('Risk Of Airliner-Drone Crash In Focus After Incident', WSJ, Dec. 17, p. A6) .   As reported in the piece about the near mid-air collision (ibid.):

"The AeroMexico incident is bound to prompt greater focus on the various ways airports, regulators and drone operators are experimenting to reduce the risk of such midair crashes, particularly in the vicinity of airports when planes are more susceptible because they are flying slowly and low."

And, of course, I've been warning  for years about the dangers posed by these flying electronic interlopers,  with renegade operators.  Also I've explained why  something needs to be done about them proactively - instead of waiting for a drone-aircraft collision taking lives,  e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-to-more-drones-in-us-skies.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-to-snuff-this-drone-bullshit-now.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-drone-pandoras-box-how-long-before.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/drones-gone-wild-why-moire-air.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/06/drone-makers-whats-little-risk-for.html

Now, at last,  it appears something will be done.  This is with arms manufacturers creating assorted ways and means to bring the little pests down or otherwise de-activate and down them. (See e.g. 'Arms Makers Declare War On Drones',  WSJ, Business & Finance,  p. B2, March 4).  As the piece notes:

"Arms makers are targeting the growing menace of drones at airports and on battlefields with a rush to develop new missile systems , radar jammers and laser cannons.  Commercial flights at some of the world's busiest hubs - in New York, London and Delhi - have been grounded in recent months amid concerns the drones could endanger airlines.

The rising number of (airport) incidents has put the threat in the public eye and propelled interest in antidrone technology.  Defense industry officials say armed forces still account for most spending."

However, the piece goes on to point out there is a growing market for non-military weapons and devices, i.e. to take down or disable drones near airports.  Indeed, "this fast growing category could become a lucrative market for arms makers".

Currently we learn  the only means to defend against wayward drones are feeble and iffy at best. For example, for airports "the principal way to counter drones is to disrupt their radio and navigation links."  But all those in the know understand this isn't good enough. Although London Gatwick Airport has said it has bought "unspecified military grade counterdrone equipment."   This was after Gatwick "endured three days of disruption in December."

Let us hope that Gatwick, and other major airports, grasp that it's now time the kid gloves come off and real weapons be used - like small missiles or laser cannons -  to take out nuisance drones.  The article is correct that armed forces "have more leeway to use greater force", i.e. because they "don't have to worry about nearby airplanes and civilians".  But if the airspace is already cleared of commercial flights, then surely a well- aimed laser cannon can be used on any offending drones without adverse repercussions.

In any case, it is gratifying to learn "That has prompted an arms race  among manufacturers to develop new anti-drone technology"  Already Diehl Defence has "developed a system to fire electronic bursts at a drone to fry its electronics.  It has a range of more than 0.6 mile."

It also comes in a "smaller, civil version with about half that range."

In other words,  perfect for knocking out nuisance drones near airports.  The sooner airports get these weapons in place, and put to use, the better for all air passengers. After all, if we're going to go all out to protect the friendly skies from t'errists we need to do it for reckless drone operators as well!

Drone Makers: "What's A Little Risk For A Jumbo Jet Getting A Drone Into An Engine?"

To read the evident caterwauling of the drone makers and their delirious aficionados ('Drone Makers Fight Back Against Rules,  WSJ,  June 12, p. B5) one would think there's absolutely no big deal in terms of the risk the little mechanical beasties pose to planes.  Indeed, it now appears, the drone maker lobbies have even gotten to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to carry their  PR 'water' for them.  This is in a new report which takes the FAA to task  for its "near zero tolerance for risk involving airlines".  That is, with potential for collision with small drones flying at low altitudes near airports.   (The report insists most small drones fly away from airports, but the existing stats refute that).

A  Denver Post, piece: 'Drone Close Calls'(June 25th, 2014,  p. 17A)   referenced dozens of perilous close calls, e.g.(p. 22A):

"The close calls were the latest in a rash of dangerous encounters between civilian aircraft and drones flown in contravention of FAA rules intended to safeguard U.S. airspace.."

The accumulating incidents (which btw,  have continued)  so spooked one commercial pilot (Greg Cromer) that he actually wrote a letter to the FAA opposing the whole insane idea of opening U.S. airspace to these pestiferous interlopers, writing (ibid.):

 "I can see no way to prevent a collision with something that could be as small as a bird or a plane or kitchen appliance."

Even then, Michael Kratsios - the  then White House deputy chief technology adviser- bloviated to a federal- industry drone conference:

"The U.S. cannot allow the promise of tomorrow to be hamstrung by the bureaucracy of the past"

Oh, righto, the "promise" of catastrophic new commercial jet crashes. Forgetting or ignoring that part of that "bureaucracy" - ensconced in the FAA - has also been to ensure the safety of the flying public.

So now the 'chickens' of disputed risk are coming back to roost with ever increasing pressure for the FAA to give in, and then - when the first big drone- airliner collision results in hundreds killed- there will be the usual bullshit response, "Well, we never knew that could occur!"

But as with the case of mass shooting massacres (like in Vegas and Parkland) - which often surpass terror attacks in death tolls, we seem to pick and choose which modes of loss of life are acceptable (say for the sake of profits) and which aren't.  In the case of mass shootings using AR-15s or a possible drone-airline collision,  it is the profits of gun and drone makers that need protection. In the case of the standard 'Muslim radical" attack that takes lives, we're all hands on deck and man the barricades and everything else.  After all, it's just a brown guy (usually) with a bomb or rifle that needs taking down, so ...no big loss. Right?

The recent report is also at odds with an earlier report released June 5, 2014  by the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that "there were serious unanswered questions” about how to safely integrate civilian drones into the national airspace, calling it a “critical, crosscutting challenge." 

In addition, a NASA report from the same year notes:  "the NASA database confirms that dangerous brushes between drones and passenger aircraft are more common than the FAA acknowledges." According to the database, there were 50 incidents from 2005- 2014.  That number of incidents has quadrupled since, including potential disasters.   Meanwhile, drone sightings alone by pilots have increased ten times over since 2005. 

All of this shows the risks are real and not to be minimized by greedy lobbyists,  cockeyed hobbyists, poltroons, or bought- out agencies.    Nevertheless, the ongoing efforts in many venues is to do just that including one hub of  academic minimizers at a site called 'The Conversation' who blabbed:

"The FAA has raised the alarm about drones in the airspace, and now receives over 100 reports of unmanned aircraft flying near other manned aircraft or airports per month. However, as the Academy of Model Aeronautics has noted, many of these sightings do not reflect any danger to passengers. Analyzing 921 reported incidents, a study at Bard College found that in only 158 of them did a drone come within 200 feet of a manned aircraft. In only 28 incidents did pilots even decide to take evasive action."

Well, excuse me, Ivory tower Sparkies - but within 200' qualifies as a near collision!   And "only 28 instances of evasive action" could have been 28 collisions had such action not been taken!  Also it is foolish to compare a bird strike to a drone colliding with an engine. A bird is mostly feathers and with no hard, mechanical parts. While such strikes can indeed be nasty - as Capt. Sully Sullenberger learned, they need not be deadly like a hard metal contraption sucked into a jet engine would be!

This same sort of inane, deranged thinking - driven by greed and expedient myopia- was reflected in a remark by George Ligler, chairman of the committee that drafted the latest document (ibid.):

"We do not ground airplanes because birds fly in the airspace although birds can and do bring down aircraft"

True, but again,  birds are natural creatures to this world not invented monstrosities that can be set alight with an infernal capacity for deliberate nuisance effect and calamity! Also, the level of catastrophic incident would be much much greater if a metallic drone flies into a jet engine, fragmenting its lethal blades. Birds are one thing and part of the natural order, but as I pointed out before, millions of mechanical, man-made drones should not be allowed to fly ANYWHERE  near a commercial airspace- until ironclad regs are in place to control them. 

And those regulations ought to demand that drones and drone operators obey the same rules as commercial aircraft. Yes, it is indeed a steep demand - but it is consistent with the peril and calamity of a drone-commercial aircraft collision. The precautionary principle itself demands drone operators prove their craft are safe - before they can fly at altitudes that imperil commercial craft.

Let the drone makers, Wall Street and others bark, whine and yap about too slow a pace for  "accelerating" the flying of millions more drones, the FAA needs to sustain a backbone, stand firm and tell them 'NO!'

Drone Deregulation To Saturate The Skies? A Truly Harebrained Idea

There could be 2.4 million of these little pests in the skies by 2021, according to WSJ piece.

"Drones Are Set For A Surge' (WSJ Business News, March 19, p. B3) is not good news for commercial airline pilots - who've already had to deal with hundreds of close call incidents from reckless drone owners flying their toys in commercial airspace.. According to the piece:

"If drone deregulation gains as much traction as the White House, FAA and industry officials envision, the agency estimates overall commercial drone numbers could top 600,000 by the start of the next decade, or about three times the country's aviation fleet. "

And most worrisome (ibid.):

"When it comes to recreational uses - which have racked up the most explosive growth- the latest FAA forecast indicates the market segment will mos likely double to roughly 2.4 million drones by 2021."

As recently as June, 2014, a WaPo investigation had identified the primary issues with increased drone activity as follows:

A limited ability to detect and avoid trouble. Cameras and high-tech sensors on a drone cannot fully replace a pilot’s eyes and ears and nose in the cockpit. Most remotely controlled planes are not equipped with radar or anti-collision systems designed to prevent midair disasters.

Pilot error. Despite popular perceptions, flying a drone is much trickier than playing a video game. The Air Force licenses its drone pilots and trains them constantly, but mistakes are still common, particularly during landings. In four cases over a three-year period, Air Force pilots committed errors so egregious that they were investigated for suspected dereliction of duty.

Persistent mechanical defects. Some common drone models were designed without backup safety features and rushed to war without the benefit of years of testing. Many accidents were triggered by basic electrical malfunctions; others were caused by bad weather. Military personnel blamed some mishaps on inexplicable problems. The crews of two doomed Predators that crashed in 2008 and 2009 told investigators that their respective planes had been “possessed” and plagued by “demons.”

Unreliable communications links. Drones are dependent on wireless transmissions to relay commands and navigational information, usually via satellite. Those connections can be fragile. Records show that links were disrupted or lost in more than a quarter of the worst crashes.

 What was most inconceivable is that the FAA didn't even have drones on its planning radar at that time according to a Denver Post piece ('FAA Didn't Have Drones On Its Planning Radar - Air Traffic Control Designers Scrambling').  This was in terms of the NextGen Air Traffic Control system.  As that article noted:

NextGen's plans for the next five years do not address how drones will fit into a system designed for planes with pilots on board."."

So can this NextGen air traffic control system handle them? Doubtful.

Let's back up and recall most of the initial demand to fly drones came from the Dept. of Defense and Homeland Security. But then, prompted by drone manufacturers who would lose much of their market in the Middle East (thanks to reducing U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan), commercial and other uses were pushed.  As early as Feb. 4, 2012  there appeared the story in The Wall Street Journal  ('U.S. Skies Could See More Drones', p. A7) noting "a new FAA bill, worth some $63 billion was already four years into the lobbying and rewriting phases." 

The bill's passage would "inundate" U.S. skies  with tens of thousands of unmanned drones sharing airspace with commercial planes .

Further:

"Barely hours after the 374-page bill became public pilot union officials urged a more deliberate approach. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 53,000 pilots across North America, said his organization remains worried about safety issues such as training and certification of those unmanned aircraft."

The article continued by noting that: "Safety experts also have raised questions about the ability of sensors aboard unmanned aircraft to properly detect a nearby plane, and to assure immediate action to avoid a midair collision".

No surprise then that potential drone use was subsequently pushed and primed for: police departments, crop spraying, monitoring of oil pipelines, and now also commercial proposals, i.e. for wedding videographers, real estate agents to show prime properties, and even Amazon deliveries and Google imagery.

A  Denver Post, piece: 'Drone Close Calls'(June 25th, 2014,  p. 17A)   referenced dozens of perilous close calls, e.g.(p. 22A):

"The close calls were the latest in a rash of dangerous encounters between civilian aircraft and drones flown in contravention of FAA rules intended to safeguard U.S. airspace.."

The accumulating incidents so spooked one commercial pilot (Greg Cromer) that he actually wrote a letter to the FAA opposing the whole insane idea of opening U.S. airspace to these mechanical beasties, writing (ibid.):

 "I can see no way to prevent a collision with something that could be as small as a bird or a plane or kitchen appliance."

This all now appears to have been forgotten as we read (in the recent WSJ piece)  the following words quoted from Michael Kratsios - the White House deputy chief technology adviser- bloviating to a federal- industry drone conference:

 

"The U.S. cannot allow the promise of tomorrow to be hamstrung by the bureaucracy of the past"

Forgetting or ignoring that part of that "bureaucracy" - ensconced in the FAA - has also been to ensure the safety of the flying public.  Thus, "regulators are not trying to stop things"  (in the words of Jesse Kallman) but to ensure the skies are safe for all users. True, we haven't had a major aircraft disaster yet from a drone - jetliner collision, but we've come damned close.   And a drone collision - say into a jet engine - would be far more catastrophic than a bird strike, such as believed responsible for the Jan. 15, 2009 U.S. Airways incident when Capt. Sully Sullenberger had to save the day after a water landing.

According to the WSJ piece:

"FAA leaders have publicly pledged to use waivers or exemptions - bureaucratic maneuvers to get around existing regulatory hurdles".

But these leaders, especially now in the era of Trumpian deregulation, need to bear in mind that those hurdles and regulations are actually protections for millions of Americans. And those protections should not be sacrificed on the altar of expediency and profit for drone manufacturers - or users.

The best regulation - which was since scrapped under pressure from drone manufacturing lobbies in 2016-  was to  require drone operators to have a pilot's license for their unmanned aircraft. Also, the drone pilots would have been required to keep drones in sight at all times. Both regs sane and rational given a drone collision with a large commercial jet would be at least as catastrophic as a terrorist bomb.

But as with the case of mass shooting massacres (like in Vegas and Parkland) - which often surpass terror attacks in death tolls, we seem to pick and choose which modes of loss of life are acceptable (say for the sake of profits) and which aren't.  In the case of mass shootings using AR-15s or a possible drone-airline collision,  it is the profits of gun and drone makers that need protection. In the case of the standard 'Muslim radical" attack that takes lives, we're all hands on deck and man the barricades and everything else.  After all, it's just a brown guy (usually) with a bomb or rifle that needs taking down, so ...no big loss. Right?